‘Sports stories…’ bombshells

Sports stories that are sports stories, which appeared here two Fridays ago, specifically on Friday, August 25, 2023, is still generating interests – luxurious and non-luxurious interests, if I may say so – in my readers. Some of them even – from their telephone conversations with me – hurried upstairs to their studies with it.

And some of them carried the column as they usually carry apple-and-blackcurrant cup and soda water in it into the garden of their tongues and taste-buds and charming hearts and minds of learning. Yet other readers there were who saw the column as an uncontaminated bombshell, and respectively sent me responses which I considered (and still consider) as bombshells – bombshells that exceedingly and enormously appeal appealingly to my more than splendid writing fortune.

They gave (and still give) me a kind of pleasure as my sparkling reader-commentators of last Friday did with radiant manners and un-chilly intelligence. Let me now cull the grand bombshells of some of these new readers of pedigree.

Professor Omajuwa Igho Natufe (from across the Atlantic):
Thanks, my dear most distinguished Brother, for this invaluable collection of thoughts by your contributors, or shall I say guest combatants? Poor Professor IBK was unjustly attacked for his frank analysis of the lookery imposed on female spectators of the beautiful game played by female footballers.

If truth be told, male spectators satisfactorily enjoy watching female sports – football, track-and field events, figure skating, high jump, long jump, etc., for the momentary arousal of (males’) imaginations

It is intriguingly interesting to hear Professor Da Silva claiming to hide under the blanket of innocence (Ha! Ha! Ha!). Professor Mabel Evwierhoma did a feminist destructive rhetoric on IBK reminiscent of the battle of the sexes between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. That is the beauty of the game.

Your injection of Luis Rubiales’ kiss of Jennifer Hermoso of the Spanish Female National Football Team conceptually aligns with IBK’s theory on the irresistible pull of male spectators in watching female football. I agree with you that the Spanish FA is very hypocritical in its condemnation of Luis Rubiales. As a coach of the game, I found myself restricted in expressing my spontaneity when I was coaching a female team, as I had pulled my hands back, on numerous occasions, from embracing my female players the same way I embraced my male players and patting them on their back-sides.

Dr. X (from across the Atlantic):
I agree with the second Professor, sir. I also agree with the Spanish FA President. One thing that is affecting football, male or female football, is bringing, that is, introducing politics to the game. USA and Canada (where I have been living in for many years now) have been shamed for this; they played (and still play) football outside the pitch than on it.

FIFA President is so strong – they have tried to accuse him of misogynistic tendencies but he subtly and cleverly uses his being a father of daughters as a cover to blunt their political accusation. I don’t support harassment of any sort, but it is clear that Jennifer Hermoso was forced to change her earlier stance (that did not incriminate the Spanish FA President – please watch the You-tube I have enclosed). How dare you? I guess the other ladies, the feminists out there, asked her. Why excuse him? The Spanish female team were not left out as well either because of politics before the tournament (or something hidden and unknown to the FA President), so Luis Rubiales was having a gap moment, one in which he fell into a trap.

Maybe we should ask: wetin women want sef? Isms will kill their sports faster than anything else. In addition, they didn’t even talk more about the lack of adherence to protocol during the medals-giving ceremony, for instance. Here in Canada the news I saw following the tournament were more of things like: “Why women coaches are needed”; “Why women don’t wear white shorts” and stuffs like that. I’m not sure I saw one single man on the line as an assistant referee. Most of the TV analysts and pundits were women. In men’s football, the introduction of female referees was celebrated but when men participate in women’s events, it is patriarchy and male dominance of women. There’s so much double standard which cannot be argued against by any sane lover of the game. Men know this and just allow them to have their fun for they know that they can’t stomach half of what they and get away with it in men’s games.

Professor Owojecho Omoha:
You got to be a little bit out of sense to write this! You turn the reader to look fixedly at thighs hidden for centuries, suddenly mistakenly displayed for entertainments. Will they keep the sport with this exposure, and the hidden notions and looks of masculinity, in our pen, your pen! I respect your voice, mighty Professor TA.

Columnist Ayodele Suyi:
Professor IBK is a ‘bhad’ man. He deserves what Professor Da Sylva recommended! May the good Lord forgive Professor IBK some of his ‘sins’, especially for selling bad ideas to my teacher’s mind! As for Professor Mabel and her poem ‘Clitoridectomy,’ you sure have a ‘gang’ of wonderful people, dear pre-eminent professor-columnist and poet who makes us to tremble! To think all those egg-heads also think and joke like us mere mortals!

Professor Sonny Awhefeada:
Good morning, Sir. I have read the views of the three professors… I laughed and laughed… the whole discourse deserves convening a seminar on… I really liked it…

Dr. Paul Onomuakpokpo:
Your latest offering is very, very interesting. The piece takes me back to advanced classes in post-modernism, deconstruction, post-colonialism, and re-reading. This is really un-putdown-able. It will surely provoke a fierce debate. This is taking The Guardian to its beginnings.

For once, I won’t say anything categorical, I won’t issue any statement that might be absolutely categorical – to dilute or counter these pleasurably pleasurable bombshells – from different angles and perspectives – as I hereby re-christen, or re-born these well-born tropes. Let us keep on reading, re-reading and re-capturing what is before us – as we tell and re-tell the dress a lady (for the women, a gentleman) was wearing when we first saw and admired or did not admire her (or him – again for the ladies) – how she (or he) came (or did not come) to us as a wondrous essay or book and how we came to the essay or book and entered it as it entered us as we engrossed it.

But we must lie in ambush for the one who called this composer “a nicely, beautifully ‘wicked’ Professor of Writing’’ to be relentlessly relentless in a related but fresh discourse he and his frontline ‘combatants’ will open and lead. As usual I will be the referee-and-umpire who shall not play the politics of diabolical Spanish football waiting in ambush like a silent tiger for a lamb to slay with one cruel blow.
Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.