SO, the American team won the women’s Soccer World Cup recently.
But that’s not the point of my story. The point is that I actually know that. In fact, my dad probably even knows that.
My misogynist neighbour with what I suspect to be a paid-for Asian bride, probably knows that.
And with women now actively taking headlines in the sporting world, I fear it is time I have to actually learn some of the rules of the games.
I like to keep ‘with it’.
So I am faced with a series of options.
Read about the rules of sport online. That’s like reading a book about YouTube videos.
Go to my husband? There’s nothing that makes a woman run to a divorce lawyer faster than a husband trying to mansplain rules about anything to her. Pass.
The only solution, really, was to gather a group of my girlfriends, split a bottle (case) of wine, and pool our collective knowledge on various sports in an attempt to decipher their intricacies.
Some parts are a bit hazy, but this is essentially what we unravelled.
Golf
The most important thing about golf is getting the right look.
Once you’ve achieved this, anything is possible.
The way this is done is either by raiding the nearest wardrobe of an octogenarian, or by hitting an upholstery fabric store and asking for anything made in the 1970s by a drugged-up hippie.
Once clothed, it’s time to hit the greens.
There are a bunch of clubs, one is a club sandwich I think, and you use these to hit the ball in a hole while stopping for tea.
For some reason, golfers hate birds (I think it has to do with them building nests on the greens or something), so you get extra points for hitting a bird.
Even more if it’s an eagle.
They build huge nests.
After what feels like an eternity, someone wins. Or there’s a tie.
And everyone drinks.
Soccer
It’s not so much the clothing with soccer, but rather the hairstyle that must be as awful as possible.
Once you’ve had part of your hair shorn off by a drunk toddler, you have to run after a ball for 90 minutes, except it’s always longer than 90 minutes, and the end result is – more often than not – nil-nil.
The ref is like the stage director and any time he blows his whistle, one or more players must perform by gesticulating wildly into the air before falling dramatically onto the turf and throwing a tantrum like a drunk toddler.
After the final whistle, half the crowd cheers, half the crowd cries.
Actually, everyone just cries because it’s a tie.
And everyone drinks.
Cricket
Generally, you can determine who’s going to win the game by checking the odds with the nearest bookie, but it’s still worth knowing the rules anyway.
Two teams from countries that once used to proclaim, ‘God Save the Queen’ have to run as much as possible while people throw balls as hard as rocks at them.
It started with five-day matches, but when crowds started dying from an acute case of boredom, they whittled it down to one day games.
We’re now sitting with 20-over games, but organisers are in deep discussion about 20-minute games that are gaining a lot of traction with brain-dead teens.
Anyway. After five days, the game ends in a tie.
And everyone drinks.
Game Over.
