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Football Fever

If there was one thing you just couldn't escape this summer, it was the incessant talk of the "world cup" and the barrage of news articles on football and football players. So much so, that my favourite sporting event, Wimbledon, got sidelined. But, if you think I'm complaining, you're wrong. I got hooked to football. Don't know how. It just happened.

I didn't know anything about football, save for a few famous names and clubs, before the world cup. It had never really caught my interest. People called it "the beautiful game" and I always wondered why. Well, tennis still is my favourite game, but football has also caught my fancy now. 

One reason for this might be the fact that watching a game with 15 other people is definitely more fun than watching it alone. During the 2006 FIFA world cup, I was at home and I did watch a few matches then, but never really got into it. The 2010 world cup has been a totally different ball game. It has been so much fun watching late night football matches in the hostel, where there are people you can cheer along or fight with over a particular team, where you give your 'expert comments' and people are there to either thwart you or agree with you (either way is fun, 'coz you too get to thwart others sometimes :P) and also, where you collectively drool over some of the good looking players (girls hostel, you see... what do you expect ;)). On the night of the finals between Netherlands and Spain, so many people stayed up late, that we actually fell short of chairs in the common room. That is quite uncommon, in our hostel at least.

So, it has been a fun summer soaking into the football fever, hating the drone of the vuvuzelas, and rooting for the teams that I am not even remotely concerned about usually. And all this has happened only because of the great fun I've had watching the game with my hostel mates. Cheers to all of them!!

xx RS       


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