Don't follow the money

Throughout an important part of my childhood, my sisters and me have been raised with the idea that football is something one does either in any backgarden or in pursuit of some (silly) dream of stardom.  That is because at home we were all very much into hockey.  Football and hockey .. oil and vinaigre.

In The Netherlands it is common for nearly any town to have its own local hockey club, often adjacent to the generally more popular local football activity.

For the avoidance of doubt, hockey, implies the sport as originally first recorded some time BC on outside grass and not the much later variants involving an ice or rollerskater rink, whereas football in this context is what derived from the no-rules middle ages games, thesedays particularly celebrated (and contested) in Brazil.

While my mother edited the club's weekly paper and organized year-end tournaments and my father presided over the club's growing pains, we were off to trainings twice a week, rain or shine, competetion matches also sometimes twice a week, refereeing and eventually coaching more junior teams.  Only if outside temparatures would severely remain below zero we would withdraw, since the hard ground would affect the intended course of the ball too much.  The trembling of hands when a stick hits a long or hard ball was routine.

What a game.  For over 10 years we were all passionate hockey fanatics, on and off the field, but not a single aspect ever interfered with "the ordinary course" of each and everyone's life, other than the extent of numerous friendships that arose and lasted.

Football, at its top, is a highly lucrative and visable profession, maybe almost a perceived life style wherein individuals become brands.  Hockey at the most can become a nearly overwhelming hobby in addition to a person's normal life of school or work.

One good illustration I recall goes back to 1978 when The Netherlands' men and women ended 2nd and 1st in the world hockey championship in Argentina but what everyone remembers to this very day is an enourmous range of details of the final football match between Argentina and The Netherlands that same year.  Two sports, same place and time, same objective, one professional, the other not.

What is probably the most brilliant in hockey (and so many other sports) is that the huge money gap with professional football simply does not matter.  Sportsmen and women will not invest less effort just because the audience is a handful of devoted parents instead of hundreds of thousands of fans and media commentators in sponsered stadia, operated by technically bankrupted clubs willing to secure luxury life styles for whom has no historic connection to the local club.

I can appreciate the excitement of populations when individual professionals line up under the same banner to compete and am sensitive the very occasional good will actions of some football stars, but also understand arising revolts by those that simply see other priorities.

Every now and then, I cannot help wondering though, whether off the field, us amateurs just might be better equipped to serve our surroundings, and for that thought I am forever grateful to who put me there.