I’m not a sports person. I don’t watch any sports at all. I do enjoy playing the odd game of tennis.
As a kid, I used to be relatively good at volleyball. And I fantasise about doing an adrenaline sport like kite surfing.
But that’s the extent of my sports involvement. I find it impossible to sit and watch a sport on TV, largely because there’s always something more important to do.
My reasoning is that there are goals and dreams I want to achieve and my time is valuable.
So I consider it a waste of my valuable time to sit and watch a game from start to finish, especially sports like golf, Formula One and Test match cricket that goes on for days.
I can’t spend money on attending any games and I don’t own any sports merchandise that I paid for myself. So it’s safe to say that other than my kids’ involvement, sports play no role in my life whatsoever.
I also have a fundamental objection to the lob-sided economics of local fans giving greater support to international teams, rather than home-grown ones. But we’ll talk about that another time.
All of this doesn’t mean that I don’t understand sport and the value it brings to society.
It’s something that only really became apparent to me when Nelson Mandela pointed it out about the 1995 Rugby World Cup.
It was further reinforced when I became involved in the planning of the 2010 Fifa World Cup in Cape Town and saw the passion of the fans.
People will set aside extended time, travel long distances and spend their savings to support their teams.
And I don’t have to remind you how electric the atmosphere was back then, with almost everybody in a jovial and playful mood.
On the flipside, football has been known to trigger terrible street battles that have claimed lives and caused injury, especially in Europe.
And while that is awful and inexplicable to me, it does tie in with the whole passion argument.
The point I am making is that while spectating sports doesn’t make much sense to me, I understand its value and its potential.
I have seldom seen people more passionate than when they talk about their team, or the games they watched over the weekend.
Few other things get some people as worked up as sport. And few other things give us the collective goose bumps of joy when our teams do well on the international stage. And that’s what has more value to me.
We need to pump more money and energy into our sporting codes. Because a successful national sports team can suspend our reality and bind us together in harmony. If only for that moment.
But as a nation with many challenges, we need more moments like that. So well done to the Bokke and the Proteas for giving us a little bit of hope again.
To me, that is more important than actually watching a game.
But I will definitely be watching this Saturday, because even I can afford that bit of time to support.