Tapping the Claret

Setanta Sports......ever hear of it?

I first heard of it sometime back from a British colleague that piqued my interest in European football (soccer). Colin and I exchanged emails after he bellowed his fight song at our breakfast meeting early in February. He took exception, when I belittled the theme song for his die-hard team, West Ham United FC (West Ham fans comprise the most notorious fan club in England tagged the Inter City Firm and are primarily from London's working class East End), when he started singing "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eHq0BTeUqY ) at our breakfast table in Montreal.

My beloved Val announced, last week, that our satellite provider was comping a month of Setanta Sport channel for March. Sure enough, the English channel was now available and allowed me the opportunity to deepen my understanding of a sport that, if for no other reason, has to be respected for the pure endurance required by the players to sustain the physical requirements in a match that lasts 90 minutes plus. My appreciation of the club histories and socio-class cultural nuances (outside of the hooliganism...."tapping the claret" is cockney for a bloody nose) of the Premier League teams, replaced my condemnation, with regret, for my cultural ignorance concerning the urbanized palate of a great sport. It also resulted in my waning support for Manchester United (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN239G6aJZo&feature=related ) over the years, morph into a solid fan of West Ham and Bubbles.

I was treated to a televised West Ham match last week (albeit kick off was at midnight apres some Shiraz) and Colin predicted a 1-1 draw (a draw coming from someone hallowing a mantra "West Ham or die" ???). "Send me a scarf with team colors," I emailed Colin.

"No Bryon," he explained, "West Ham fans don't wear scarves cuz they'll drag you through the claret." It seemed like good advice and point well taken even though, I suspected, his motives lean more toward his economics and not my safety, especially when the likelihood of my attendance at a Premier League match is between slim and none. LOL. The Hammers beat Wigan 1 to nil, so Bubbles of all sorts will have abound. LOL.

Now, having shared my soccer convention, the initial core purpose of this post began, this am, over a byproduct of Setanta Sports scheduling referred to as Rugby, and, today's flavour of the week war ravaged political agenda (Iraq, Israel, Afghanistan, Ireland?). In order to crystallize some measure of redeeming value from rugby, in terms of social merit to accompany the uncompromising physical abuse of game rules, lets expand the world rugby leagues to include a broader global spectrum. Rugby could be reclassified to encompass and capture a systemic benevolence. I propose we restructure the boundaries, from an inter-continental sport to a counter-continental war game. In this new league our transparently immoral self-serving global politicians/leaders/freedom fighters/terrorists/rebels (you get my drift), would be the rugby players. Hey.....they could tap one an other's claret throughout the match and permit us to cheer them on from the sidelines absent of collateral casualties, fatalities and genocides.

PS. FYI: The next West Ham football match is televised a week today on Monday, if you been granted the same complementary channels as us. Go Hammers.