The curse of watching live sport

The pic is from the telly, and is of the new world men's tennis number two, Andy Murray. I just found out from Twitter that Andy had beaten David Ferrer in the final of the Sony Open in Miami, after I decided not to watch it in case I cursed him. Ridiculous I know, and it's not the end of the world if he loses. I'm actually not that big a fan, nor am I so fiercely patriotic. It's a little of both, but put simply, I wanted him to win and having watched the first set, which he lost, I couldn't bring myself to watch the rest.

I watched the whole of Murray's US Open win, til the early hours on a school night. It was one of the greatest tennis matches I've ever seen, a brutal war of attrition with very little between Murray and the automaton Djokovic. I watched that one in full, but overall I have a weird, freaky relationship with watching live sport. I guess it's down to nerves when it comes to watching my football team that I have my rituals and the like. I won't share them all of course, and the weird thing is that they don't always work. I'm not exactly behind the sofa, and goodness knows what it'd be like playing.

A wee anecdote about watching live sport. I was in an Edinburgh pub a bundle of years ago watching rugby, Scotland at home to Wales. The Welsh were winning and Scotland were awarded a crucial penalty just before half-time. Up steps Gavin Hastings to take it, as the pub watches on the big screen. Laughter comes from a group to the left, and it's greeted by a guy from the front, who turns round with his finger to his mouth and growls 'shhhh!' That noise in the pub three miles away may put the penalty-taker off. You don't want to curse it, obviously.