A 23-year-old father of one suffers a massive heart attack on the pitch in front of a football crowd, and ever since it has been difficult to avoid those fostering collective pride at the reaction. It has "brought out the best in football"; it has allowed fans to show that there are things "bigger than football"; it has made all manner of people "proud of football".
... When the alternative action is so monstrous as to be clinically diagnosable as psychopathic, then I can't really go along with those who reckon not succumbing to it is some form of personal and collective triumph.(Two quick side notes ... for those who don't know much about Muamba, like me, this is a fascinating article about his upbringing as a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo ... and it astounds me to read a doctor saying that Muamba was, in effect, dead.)
As I was reading Hyde's post, I started to think that she should have figured out why it was such a big deal, but then I saw that she pretty much had.
So instead of congratulating itself on its eminently civilised reaction to poor Muamba's suffering, the football family might instead care to wonder to what a pretty pass things have come for a basically humane reaction to be deemed so remarkable.
... By doing so they presumably seek to turn a young man's shocking and life-threatening misfortune into something of which we can all be proud. That is questionable enough – and by implication casts football as a place where humane norms disappeared long ago.But to be fair, it's not just football, either the kind she's writing about or the one played here in the United States. Or baseball. Or basketball. Or most other sports. We'll pretty much cheer any player's misfortune until the stretchers and ambulances come out.
And even though Hyde seems to think fans should be above such a thing, clearly not all of them are.
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