1. You grew up addicted to Eurosport
2. You think you’re cool by virtue of the fact that Jonny Sexton is also a self-confessed ‘sports nerd’
3. You think Bill Simmons is basically God
4. Whenever you were assigned a short story in English class, you’d always write it about the team who came back from an impossible scenario to secure a heroic victory (basically, the end of The Waterboy)
5. You were useless at computer games, apart from FIFA, Pro Evo and Jonah Lomu rugby, at which you excelled
6. You blame all of your failures in life on Football Manager-related distractions
7. You drink coffee on account of your fondness for insomnia/staying up late and watching NFL
8. You castigate bandwagon-jumpers whenever Ireland win a medal in some obscure sport that you’ve followed closely for years
9. Not only do you play Fantasy Football but you also play Fantasy Rugby, Fantasy GAA, all the Fantasy US sports, study the numbers religiously and bet serious sums on them
10. When someone asks an “impossible” sporting trivia question in the bar, you’re the person who refuses to give up until you’ve guessed the right answer
11. You have the Football Italia theme tune as your ringtone
12. When someone says “I think it was…” in relation to a sporting event, you’re able to give them chapter and verse until they’re bored stiff with the details
13. Every year, you make an effort to read all of the book’s nominated for the William Hill prize
14. You tell everyone you know to watch ‘Hoop Dreams’
15. You buy newspapers/read websites solely on the strength of their sports coverage
16. You’re a big fan of snooker, darts and WWE and insist that ACTUALLY, they do count as real sports
17. You’re not going on holidays this summer — you’re taking a month off to watch the World Cup instead
18. You enjoy explaining the finer points of minority sports to people who only watch them during the Olympics
19. You constantly get frustrated at people’s failure to understand sportspeak
20. You were a big fan of shows like Fantasy Football before graduating to newer ones like Soccer AM
21. You support the women’s national teams just as fervently as the men’s equivalent
22. You admire more cerebral TV pundits like Gary Neville and Shane Horgan
23. You regularly quote the speech from ‘Any Given Sunday’
24. You prefer to watch matches at home rather than in a pub, so you can concentrate
25. You roll your eyes when someone claims that a last-minute goal denied them their 12-team accumulator
26. You remember years by sporting achievements
All images via PA Images and gifs via Reaction Gifs
What signs have we missed?
You buy a newspaper and read from back to front unlike normal people who read front to back
No matter who’s playing and no matter what the sport, there’s no such thing as neutral.
No.24 spot on…..
Sadface :(
Yep, no. 24 is me too. Cant understand why in earth anyone would want to watch big match in a crowded pub rather than the comfort (and clear, unobstructed view) of one’s home!!
I’m the same lads. Plus you miss the half time studio analysis as well.
Yep that’s pretty much my life – WWE aside. That’s not a sport.
Off now to make some preliminary assessments for the upcoming Fantasy Baseball season.
Eurosport where they televise obscure tennis tournaments taking place in some hotel somewhere in Spain and where a scoreline shows KZC 0:0 AKE – some football match in some middle eastern countries second division.
27 – you’ve watched the ESPN 30 for 30 docs and insist Len Bias would’ve been better than Jordan.
I once saw the eurosport commentator announce a goal before it happened even though “live” was on the corner of the screen…
Long live Archie McPhearson, ‘that left foot would prove to be very important later in the match…’
Darts is a real sport
Espn classic was your life and those 15 minute fifa world cup minis
You watch re runs of your county winning a provincial championship that you have recorded on UPC….ten years ago
You buy a newspaper and read from the back to about 8 pages from the back..
The Ultimate Warrior (albeit someone dressed up as him) in an article in the Journal. Perfect.
sports stadium
Saturdays were sorted with BBC Granstand and UTVs World of Sport – finished off with Giant Haystacks v Big Daddy in the wrestling while you wait for the viddyprinter for final score
In fairness soccer am isn’t a patch on fantasy football league…..remember the theme song
you watched Trans World Sport at 8am on Channel 4 on a Saturday morning…
…then some James Richardson horsing about with Gazza on Football Italia!
Bill Simmons is god …FACT :p
No. 22. I’m afraid Shane Horgan makes that impossible