Time To Find A New Sport/Team To Follow

Laurent Robert of Newcastle United

Newcastle United 1 - Manchester United 3

For the past few years I have only followed one sport - soccer (or football, depending on where you live). I have played co-ed and men's soccer for the last 6 or 7 years and I follow Newcastle United in the English Premier League. When I got cable TV a few years ago I discovered Fox Sports World, which covers a variety of soccer leagues throughout the world. When I looked for a team to follow, I looked no further than my fridge, which usually has a few bottles of Newcastle Brown in it. They also have one of the best strikers in the world, Alan Shearer, which is nearly the same age as I am. Over the years, they have been an entertaining team to follow, yet probably one of the least predictable as well. It'd be so easy to follow Arsenal, Man U or Chelsea - fairly consistant and on TV nearly every week. But no, I've picked Newcastle, who are about 90% there, but for a variety of reasons they have failed to establish themselves in the league's top 5 teams. This weekend was bad - games against the big 3 are always greatly anticipated, yet they almost always end the same. This game could have ended up with the score reversed, but for a couple of missed chances and a few blunders from the ref. I'm still in a funk over it, but hey, it's just too late to switch my allegiance to another team.

My co-ed and men's soccer teams are another matter. I sponser my men's team (Double Crown Records). We play outdoor soccer in the summer and indoor soccer in the winter. We are a good team and get better each year, yet the competition keeps getting better at a faster rate. As a result, we haven't won a game since July or so. I haven't minded, until recently. I love the players that I play with and we always cap off gameday with a round or two of beers. However, the consistant losing is really dampening my enthusiasm for soccer. What makes it worse is the fact that my co-ed team hasn't won since August! I haven't counted how many games in a row my teams have lost, but it's got to be about 40 games in a row. Oh well, it's good exercise and it's something to do during the winter.