Dialogue

Weekend Sports

(in the restaurant, two friends speaking)

Susan: Oh, this is lovely. Would you like to try some?

Christine: No thanks, Susan. I'm really enjoying my pasta!

Susan: So, do you want to play tennis this weekend?

Christine: I'm afraid I can't play tennis.

Susan: NO, are you joking? I'm sure you can play tennis. EVERYBODY can play tennis.

Christine: Well, I can't. BUT I can play golf.

Susan: Really, I can play golf, too. - but not very well.

Christine: I have an idea. Why don't we play tennis this weekend and then next weekend golf?

Susan: OK, that's a good idea. You don't play tennis - I don't play golf. We both can learn a new sport!

Christine: That's it. I think it's a brilliant idea!

Susan: Now, tell me about your new job. When do you start?

Christine: Next week. I'm in the accounting department. I make telephone calls to the banks, check the accounts, keep records... that sort of thing.

Susan: It sounds like an excellent job.

Christine: How is your job?

Susan: Oh, it's OK. It's boring. I work at the computer all day long, each and every day at the computer.

Christine: I'm sure it isn't so bad!

Exercise 9. Make up a dialogue using expressions from the sample dialogue above.

Exercise 10. Share your ideas as to the following phrases.

From Ben Hogan, a golfer:

"Selecting a stroke is like selecting a wife. To each his own."

"There are no shortcuts in the quest for perfection."

"I play with friends, but we don't play friendly games."

TEXTS FOR DISCUSSION

TEXT 1. WINNING AT ALL COSTS

In 1988, Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson became the fastest man in the world by breaking the world record when he won the Olympic 100 metres final. He had beaten his great rival Carl Lewis in the most important race of all. Johnson was on top of the world. Days later he was sent home from the games and stripped of his medal because a drug test on his urine was positive. He was banned from international athletics for two years.

Many kinds of drugs are used by athletes competing in sports all over the world. Some are used to build muscles or give the athlete extra energy. Others kill the pain of injuries or calm nerves, but many are illegal.

Taking substances to improve sports performance is not new. Athletes in ancient Egypt drank a mixture of boiled donkey hoof, rose petals and rose-hips, believing it would make them winners. The winner of the 200 metres at the Olympic Games of 668 BC in ancient Greece used a special diet of figs.

What kinds of drugs are used by some people in sport?

The anabolic steroids which are used in sport resemble male hormones. "Anabolic" means to build up - in this case to build up muscles. Body-builders use anabolic steroids in order to look good in competitions but big muscles do not necessarily mean extra strength!

Stimulants make you feel full of energy and confidence, but they can also make you feel more aggressive. They are officially banned in sport, but amphetamines have been abused by cyclists, who need lots of stamina, and cocaine has been used by basketballers and footballers to make them more competitive.

Beta-blockers are drugs which are normally prescribed by doctors for people with high blood pressure or heart problems. They help calm you down and relieve stress. Snooker players, archers and those who shoot in competition all need steady hands and cool nerves. It is rumoured that some athletes have taken beta-blockers for this reason.

All of these drugs can cause health problems if taken in large doses. For example, steroids can cause liver cancer in men and infertility in women. There is also evidence that people who take steroids can become very aggressive.

Stimulants are also very dangerous. They do not create energy - they take it from the body. Eventually, users feel exhausted and washed-out. When doing hard exercise, there is a danger of having a heart attack. The problem is that people who take stimulants think they can keep going and they push their bodies too far. A British cyclist, Tommy Simpson, and Len Bias, an American basketball player, both died in this way.

TEXT 2. LEISURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN

Think of your favourite sport. Whatever it is, there is a good chance that it was first played in Britain, and an even better chance that its modern rules were first codified in Britain. The public schools of the Victorian era believed that organized competitive games had many psychological benefits. These games appealed to, and developed, the British sense of "fair play". This concept went far beyond abiding by the written rules of a game. It also meant observing its unwritten rules, which governed behavior before, during and after the game. You had to be a "good loser". To be a cheat was shameful, but to lose was just "part of the game". Team games were best, because they developed "team spirit".

Modern sport in Britain is very different. Sport probably plays a more important part in people's lives in Britain than it does in most other countries. For a very large number, and this is especially true for men, it is their main form of entertainment. Sports and other pastimes have been growing in popularity, reflected by increasing membership of the main organisations concerned with outdoor activities, although for some sports, such as greyhound racing, the number of spectators has been declining. Walking and swimming are the two most popular sporting activities. Snooker/billiards/pool and darts are the next most popular sports. Keep-fit, yoga, squash and cycling are among the sports where participation has been increasing in recent years. The most popular spectator sports are football and rugby in the winter, and cricket and athletics in the summer.

Britain has nothing quite like the national lotteries of some other European countries. However, gambling is a popular activity with horse racing being one of the biggest attractions, particularly for famous races such as The Grand National and The Derby. Betting shops ("bookmakers") can be found in most high streets. Other forms of gambling include pub games, casinos, bingo, and the weekly football pools where very large prizes of a million pounds or more can be won.

TEXT 3. FOOTBALL HOOLIGANISM

Violence has often been connected with certain sporting events. But crowd violence or hooliganism in and around the football stadiums has escalated in recent years. Off and on the pitches there have been mass arrests of fanatical football supporters at matches. There are often mounted police in riot gear with truncheons and dogs. They from security cordons to separate supporters of the home team and fans of the opposing / visiting team.

A possible sequence of events:

The hooligans

• set off fireworks and start brawling on the terraces;

• rip out sits and use them as weapons;

• assault rival fans and attack the police.

The hooligans run amok, cause mayhem or go on the rampage: on their way home the looting and marauding gangs smash windows. Cause all kinds of damage and even vandalize the train on the return journey.

The police try to arrest the worst offenders. There are sometimes many casualties; a lot of people are injured and some may even die.

The circumstances in which such situations arise:

• during the soccer season;

• at home matches and away matches;

• at club friendlies abroad;

• at Cup matches.

For advanced students

TEXT 3. KEEP POLITICS OUT OF SPORT

The organizers of international athletics meetings, however loudly they may reject "political interference", have long organized such games on an overtly political basis by construing them not as a competition between free individuals, but between representatives of nation states.

In principle there is no reason why international athletic events should not involve multinational teams of Methodists, divorcees, employees of General Motors, monks, lawyers, freemasons or homosexuals - but they do not. People are only allowed to run, throw or jump for a State with a flag, a national anthem and the other paraphernalia of a political territorial unit. This is hardly surprising, since the skills on display are of no value except to the military establishment of the State, who still respect these archaic military techniques and virtues.

An athlete who throws a javelin must have in mind that it is designed to skewer, impale and disembowel an enemy soldier. Otherwise no adult could ever take seriously the childish antics of javelin throwers, fencers, shot-putters or sprinters, which would otherwise be on a par with egg-and-spoon and sack races.

The main value of these anachronistic military tasks is that they indirectly indoctrinate the male youth of a country with the vital martial virtues of patriotism, blind obedience and loyalty, and the physical courage to commit aggression.

In a world where disputes between nations are settled by force of arms, male participation in athletics is a regrettable necessity, but female athletes are merely a grotesque parody of their masculine counterparts. We should regard female hurdlers or caber-tossers with the same horror we feel at the idea of women being employed as combat troops.

In the days before rigorous sex tests were applied, there were few sights more repellent than that of the Eastern block on the sports tracks of the world; some of these unfortunate ladies were on occasions even force-led with male hormone pills to assist muscular development. If feminists had any sense, they should be protesting against this callous forcing of women into a male mould. Instead, they are likely to demand government funding to try and produce women who will run, throw, hop-skip-and-jump as well as men.

The flaw in their case is that true equality demands unisex events where women compete directly with men. It is true that the women would hardly ever win, but that it is just too bad. We do not have separate and special events for nations whose people are naturally short, slender or feeble - there is no special low high jump for pygmies or Welshmen, no 10 yard start for heavy-calved white men running in the 100 metres.

We rightly reject the very idea as racist. Why then are there separate and very much second-class events for women? Why are women debarred from events such as boxing and wrestling? The answer is not one that will please the egalitarians, for it resides in the fact that women are specifically designed for bearing children.

The athlete, then, is either a potential soldier or an actual clown, and only the dignity of the former role can rescue him - and I mean him - from the obloquy reserved for the latter. Fortunately the periodic fuss and farce over the Olympic Games has suggested a solution, for it has made everyone conscious of the essentially military and political nature of sport.

The time has come to make this explicit by replacing traditional athletics with overtly military exercises and abolishing female participation altogether. What is needed instead is some form of minimally-lethal ritual clash between each nation's elite military or police units.

I am sure it is not beyond the wit of the world's military staff colleges to design active and competitive Kriegspielen that would be of value to them, no more dangerous than boxing or motor racing and thoroughly good television. We can make a start right away by transforming our Minister of Sport into a Junior Minister at the Ministry of Defence.

TASK

Discuss the following:

• Your attitude towards winning at all costs.

• Sport divides more than it brings together.

• There’s too much sport on TV.

• Sport is of no benefit to humanity.

• Violence at football matches is inevitable.

• The use of animals in sport.

• Sport which involve physical violence between contestants.

• The main problems facing the international sport today.

• Politics and sport should always be kept separate.