Extreme prejudice

[jeremyp]

This thread is inspired by Leonard's opinion on boxing.

For every sport, there are people who love it and people that would rather have root canal with no anaesthetic, at let the latter isn't boring. So which sports have you reaching for the dentist's phone number? Which sports give you absolutely no entertainment to watch or perhaps participate in? Please give reasons for your dislike although there's no need for them to be rational. Extreme prejudice is to be encouraged.

I'll go first. Golf: I can just about understand why people play it although I am in the "good walk spoilt" camp, but I find it incomprehensible that people make the time to watch it on the telly. There's nothing quite so grindingly boring as watching people trudge around a country park counting the number of times they have to swing a club (except losing at Monopoly).

The only golf tournament that is remotely watchable is the Ryder cup (and by extension the Solheim Cup) and that's only because there is a chance to see some Americans get upset. Also, it's matchplay so the ultra boring rounds where one player gets miles ahead are cut short.

[BeRational]

This thread is inspired by Leonard's opinion on boxing.

For every sport, there are people who love it and people that would rather have root canal with no anaesthetic, at let the latter isn't boring. So which sports have you reaching for the dentist's phone number? Which sports give you absolutely no entertainment to watch or perhaps participate in? Please give reasons for your dislike although there's no need for them to be rational. Extreme prejudice is to be encouraged.

I'll go first. Golf: I can just about understand why people play it although I am in the "good walk spoilt" camp, but I find it incomprehensible that people make the time to watch it on the telly. There's nothing quite so grindingly boring as watching people trudge around a country park counting the number of times they have to swing a club (except losing at Monopoly).

The only golf tournament that is remotely watchable is the Ryder cup (and by extension the Solheim Cup) and that's only because there is a chance to see some Americans get upset. Also, it's matchplay so the ultra boring rounds where one player gets miles ahead are cut short.

Cricket for me.
Slow tedious played for 6 months and then it's a draw!

Constant tests with countries for no apparent reason.

[Leonard James]

For me the worst no-noes are animal baiting, like bull fighting and cock-fighting, or hunting and killing when done for "pleasure".

[Shaker]

All sports - sport generally. I just have zero interest in it. I simply don't have the sport gene. This is surprising to me as in principle I could/should have had a double dose, in that Leicestershire has strong sporting traditions (especially football, rugby and cricket - I won't mention fox-hunting as there's nothing sporting about that) and my dad is keenly into sport. But as I say, that gene simply passed me by altogether - I have no interest in it at all and never have had. Whatever it is that other people see in it - predominantly but far from exclusively men -, I just don't get. The only activity I'm genuinely interested in is snooker and will always go out of my way to watch that (many years ago I used to play, very badly) but otherwise, no.

[Gordon]

I'm in the Shaker camp: I'm wholly disinterested in all the ball game sports and I'm genuinely perplexed at the level of interest in football, golf, rugby and tennis etc - cricket seems even worse in terms of boredom, since some games seem to go on for days and it doesn't have a big fan-base in Scotland compared to these other sports.

I do enjoy horse-racing though, and not just for the gambling, since in my younger days I was involved enough in riding to have owned my own horses over a period of years - until middle-age kicked in and it got too painful (and expensive) to continue. Although I've always ridden motorbikes, and still do, I'm not that interested in motor-sports.   

[Rhiannon]

Rugby. They start running around, it looks like it could get interesting and then they all stop. And I can never figure out why.

Cricket. I mean ...why?

Actually if it isn't football or F1 I'm not that interested.

[Shaker]

I don't feel that I've missed out in not liking sport - I have a very full life crammed with all sorts of interests elsewhere, after all - but it seems to puzzle other people, men especially. There's no getting away from the fact that an interest in sport is still seen as a predominantly male interest - I'm not for one second dismissing all those women who are every bit as passionate about sport as their male counterparts (there's Rhiannon right here, for example), just that statistically they're in the minority. To be male is almost by definition to be interested in sport in many minds, especially football. There have been so many, many times when I've been with other men - it might be in a pub, or it could be with workmen in the house or something like that - and one of them has come out with what they think is the universal male conversation-starter: "Did you see the match/the cricket/Formula 1 the other night?" and so on and so forth, and I've had to nod and smile sweetly and perhaps mumble something non-committal, all the while thinking I haven't the faintest idea what on earth you're talking about - you might as well be speaking in Swahili for all the sense it makes to me.

[Rhiannon]

I get the same thing with baking.

[Leonard James]

I don't feel that I've missed out in not liking sport - I have a very full life crammed with all sorts of interests elsewhere, after all - but it seems to puzzle other people, men especially. There's no getting away from the fact that an interest in sport is still seen as a predominantly male interest - I'm not for one second dismissing all those women who are every bit as passionate about sport as their male counterparts (there's Rhiannon right here, for example), just that statistically they're in the minority. To be male is almost by definition to be interested in sport in many minds, especially football. There have been so many, many times when I've been with other men - it might be in a pub, or it could be with workmen in the house or something like that - and one of them has come out with what they think is the universal male conversation-starter: "Did you see the match/the cricket/Formula 1 the other night?" and so on and so forth, and I've had to nod and smile sweetly and perhaps mumble something non-committal, all the while thinking I haven't the faintest idea what on earth you're talking about - you might as well be speaking in Swahili for all the sense it makes to me.

I'm right there with you, Shakes.

[Shaker]

I get the same thing with baking.

I can do without watching it on the telly but I quite like baking

[Rhiannon]

I do bake very very occasionally. I object to the presumption that I do so regularly and that as I don't then I should.

[Sebastian Toe]

If drinking rum is a sport, then I'm all for it!
hic

[Leonard James]

If drinking rum is as port, then I'm all for it!
hic

Nah, rum is quite a bit stronger than port! 

[jeremyp]

For me the worst no-noes are animal baiting, like bull fighting and cock-fighting, or hunting and killing when done for "pleasure".

Sorry, Leonard, that's too rational. I doubt if anybody on this board would disagree with you on that.

[Shaker]

Sorry, Leonard, that's too rational. I doubt if anybody on this board would disagree with you on that.

I agree, but that's a pretty minuscule sample size. Dog fighting, badger baiting, bull fighting, hare coursing, even fox hunting still go on in the name of entertainment for degenerates.