The Ever Shrinking World Of Sport

There is no doubt that the modern sporting landscape can be confusing.

The Modern Olympic Games motto is ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius,’ which is Latin for ‘faster, higher, stronger,’ it was supposed to signify athletes pushing their physical boundaries to see what could be achieved.

Some feel that today it would be more appropriate to be Citius, Magis, Lucrum. Which means, “faster, more, and profits, or gains.” As it seems that the Olympic Games want more sports in shortened forms so that they finish faster, which will result in more profits.

The Olympic movement may not be alone, although some sports do claim that the International Olympic Committee are the insigators of their changes to make their sport shorter or quicker.

It is interesting that Cricket opted to take T20 to another level despite the fact that it was never supposed to be taken seriously. There are now more matches of this form of the game played internationally than the long standing formats of Test Cricket and One Day Internationals. The reason being television money of course, sponsorship, and worryingly vast sums of money generated from gambling. (Four Day Tests, Are they About Saving Or Making Money)

Badminton and squash have both opted to change the rules of their sport, with points now being awarded for every point, rather than only on your service. Will Tennis ever follow this trend?

Hockey cut ten minutes playing time, and made the game into four fifteen minute quarters rather than two 35 minute halves. We were told that this was so that Television stations could run advertisements between the breaks in quarters. Few broadcasters have ever taken up this option, which has made many ask whether it really was Television that pushed for this?

In fact if you look at most of the sports where such changes have been made it has been a case of dumbing down the sport. In the racquet sports if you were unable to win service you were unlikely to win. By giving points for every rally the weaker opponent is at least likely to score something. So their defeat suddenly does not look so bad.

In hockey the shorter periods have given some teams the chance to stay in the match. The quarterly break in play can change the momentum of the match completely. A coach has a chance to quickly change the way his or her team plays, rather than having to wait until half time. It also panders to the teams that are possibly not as fit as the top sides, as they benefit from the extra breaks.

Cricket too has dumbed the game down with the T20 format. As the beauty of the game has been taken away, as bludgeoning has taken the place of finesse.

Football too has fallen prey to modernism, where formations have taken precedence over individual skill. So much so that in Australia, where a so-called curriculum asks coaches to all play the same style of football, and the same formation. One thing that has always signified good coaching was the coach who was able to mould a team to the talent they had. To create a style of play that suited the skills of their players and still managed to see them gain results.

So why have these changes taken place? Why does modern day sport lack the characters of yesteryear? (Time to Pay Attention)

One former athlete who competed on the world stage believes that money changes everything. They said that once you get to the top and you are being paid big money, your attitude changes. Suddenly your motivation has changed. So you become more cautious, you take less risks. The reason being that you want to stay at that level and reap the rewards. This individual, said that this is what makes the great truly great, the likes of Federer, who keep going at the highest level, but still manage to enjoy what they are doing, even if they are doing it for the ten thousandth time, so special.

You would think with the amount of private academies in all sports we would see the standards rising rather than dipping. However, does not the same ring true of many of these academies? They are first and foremost a business. They want to stay in business, so they will do what they have do. How many are honest with players and tell them that they will never make it to a professional level, they may not even make it to first grade?

There is no doubt times have changed. For the past 24 years this writer has lived across the road from a park. In all that time he has never seen a group of children organising a game on their own, or batting and bowling in the cricket nets on their own. On the rare occasion I would see a father and son making use of the area to play together.

I grew up in a different generation. Once our chores were done our parents wanted us out of the house and we wanted to be outside – even in England! Up the road was the village football pitch, and without fail we would get in trouble for playing “World Cup” in one of the goals. Regularly the groundsman would chase us off his hallowed turf. Then our jumpers became goalposts. One day we all turned up to play and found permanent goalposts had been erected behind the goal at one end. Every single day, all the year round games would be played on this piece of land; you can’t really call it grass as that was worn away! Sometimes there would be games of twenty a side.

Games of this size fly in the face of those who advocate small-sided games. In these games if you found you were not getting a touch, you made sure you learned how to tackle so that you did get the ball. Small players learned to use skill to beat bigger, stronger opponents. Goal-poachers were discovered, and goalkeepers born. This was where players learned. They learned what they had to do to be a part of the game. To be a part of the team and contribute, each in their own individual way. In some parts of the world these large-sided games still exist in any open space that the children of today can find.

Talk to the cricketers of yesteryear and they will all tell you similar stories. Neil Harvey the great Australian batsman who became a fine player of spin bowling always put that down to playing on cobblestones as a child, where the ball would change direction quickly. It taught him to keep his eye on the ball and to move his feet, in order to be in position to play various strokes. Something he was renowned for in his Test Career.

These games taught you how to keep your wicket in tact, and not hit the ball in the air, as with 20 young boys playing it was a long wait before your turn to bat came around again. So you learned to place your shots, and with so many fielders space was limited. Today we hear of young players not allowed to be out for a Golden Duck. Surely the pain of being dismissed first ball is what spurs a player to go away and improve their batting? It gives them a steeliness that sees them defend their wicket as if their life depended on it the next time they are given a chance.

There is a famous story of the Chappell brothers playing in their back yard and Greg scoring a 1000 runs in one innings against younger brother Trevor. When he was finally out he dismissed Trevor, who was no doubt exhausted from all that bowling, quickly. The younger Chappell is said to have grabbed a tomahawk and chased Greg, he was so frustrated. However, in games such as these players learned to take their opportunities when they came. To take catches as they could be vital, and to not take risky runs. It was all part of a player’s development.

Obviously children today cannot play in the streets as there are too many vehicles. However why do we not see such games being played any more after school? In Australia we are blessed with an abundance of open spaces, yet so few children use that space unless it is an organised game. Why is that? Surely the helicopter parents are not to blame for this?

Is the lack of these games why sport has had to be dumbed down? Or is it possibly that in small-sided games the skills of old are not learned naturally. The cream no longer rises to the surface. Or is it simply that the level of skill is not there, because they have not developed those skills naturally?

These are worrying times for those of us of a certain age. Every single sport we love is being shortened, and frequently the reasons given are a complete fabrication.

Most of these sports have been played for over a century. Most saw little or no changes to their rules until the last 20 years. So was it the increased coverage available on television? Or was it the money that saw administrators feel they had to change what had stood these sports in good stead for so long?

It is worrying because these abridged formats are not in the main exciting the fans. In fact in many cases participation numbers have dropped, and certainly the viewing numbers have been affected.

Take a moment and think of the sports that have not opted to create bastardised forms of their sport, many have evolved with television and have the best coverage, irrespective as to whether you follow the sport or not. They have carved out a niche. They understand their fans, and what they want, and they have enhanced their product giving it a greater appeal.

At the end of the day sport is about athletes pushing themselves to go faster, rise higher and be stronger than those who went before, as a team or individuals. It is not, and never should be about money, more matches and more profits.

One of Cricket’s great failings in the past 30 years has been the increase of International fixtures. Now most International players, rarely play for their counties, states or provinces, so that in itself restricts the chances a young player has of watching them live. So that connection has been lost. So too, the club that has developed them as a player loses out as the player never plays for them.

Cricket Tours used to see teams touring England play all the counties, and in Australia all the states in meaningful matches. That simply does not happen today. Yet not every family can afford the price of Test match tickets, and those families have now been robbed of witnessing the greats of this era play live.

Equally important in years gone by most fans knew which countries were playing and where, as there was a rotation of touring sides. Not now that with England, India and Australia running the game, it is all structured to suit them and generate the most revenue.

The fans have become pawns as they sit back and take a bigger slice of the financial pie. It would appear that ‘Citius Altius Fortius,’ faster, higher, stronger is more appropriate to them than those they serve. For the faster they can get to the top, the higher up the tree they go, the stronger they become financially and regrettably influentially.