Rich pickings for sports trauma

I WAS watching cable TV the other day. Not a crime, is it? News to me if it’s a crime. Anyway, I kept encountering that commercial inviting people to ring up and claim compensation for anything that had ever happened to them in their life — car accidents, tripping over paving stones, not getting enough jelly at tea-time, visiting your mother-in-law on Sundays, carrying your wife to the grocery, that sort of thing. “Remember, this could be the most important call you make today,” the voice-over exhorted. A modest claim considering the amounts of money successful applicants had apparently received for a variety of hurts, upsets or setbacks. It struck me, however, that the company was leaving a vast area of potential business untapped — sporting payback.

Take World Cup qualifiers. Year after year, Trinidad and Tobago followers of the national team are given to understand that they are going to win their group and automatically qualify. Newspapers, magazines and television all foster the impression that it is going to be our turn to get the big money from World Cup participation but every year we don’t. Instead the big money goes to other Trinidadians and their families. Strike Squad? Calypso Boys!!! How damaging must this be to the collective psyche of those who support the Trinis at the Brian Lara Promenade? What, I wonder, is the psychological effect of this recurring cycle of encouragement-hope-disappointment? “Mrs War...., of Oropouche, received $75,000 for long-term stress as a result of WCHS (World Cup Hope Syndrome).”
 
“I am delighted with the award,” said Mrs War..... “I am saving for a street party to celebrate Trinidad and Tobago’s future World Cup success.” But football is far from the only area where there are rich pickings to be made. Consider the position of the loyal cricket followers who spend years of their life in fruitless support and thwarted expectation. “Mrs Leq....., of Arcadian Avenue, received $5,000 following exposure to the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board of Control (TTCBC) over a 30-year period.” “Thanks to this money I am now able to lead a normal life,” said Mrs Leq..... “I have already bought a complete set of 1968-69 programmes and a life-size colour poster of Gary Sobers.” I would additionally suggest that the advertising company’s personal- injury specialists consider the huge potential the average football follower possesses for retrospective claims. How many dodgy pies, roti, hot-dogs and burgers have been consumed as the seasons have passed? Many. Long-term health implications? I should say so! And all that clapping and shouting — residual damage to the joints and larynx there, surely!

What of the athletics follower? They too have traumas to weigh in the balance. Week after week throughout the months of July and August, as the world’s most expensive runners and jumpers are expensively assembled in meetings around Europe, spectators and television viewers are promised a mind-numbing succession of good performances from the National Amateur Athletic Association (NAAA). There is, admittedly, some residual entertainment value in trying to guess at what point the commentator will accept that he is commentating on a failed attempt. The guiding principle here is that the later he leaves it, the more entertaining it is. “And so as Ronnie Holassie approaches the bell those last two laps have left him well outside his scheduled pace... but if he can kick again and produce a last lap of something under 12 seconds, the record is his... 10, 11, 12... no, not this time for the Trini Motor Man, he can only finish in position 700 now in the Marathon.”

Claims should surely now be invited from track and field enthusiasts who have suffered over the years with RSI (Repetitive Scheduling Impact), or the rarer, but equally debilitating, SOWAT (So What) Syndrome, whereby the knowledge that 0.02 sec has been trimmed from a world record after a procession which has shed pacemakers like so many burned-out rocket sections fails to ignite either surprise or rapture in the mind of the observer. Boxing presents a subtly different profit scenario. Here the big money is within grasping distance for those who have suffered the mind-bending experience of watching bouts where the clear winner gets the verdict. Such decisions can prove bewildering for the regular fight fan. In these cases, immediate compensation should be sought to enable the sufferer to visit the next available Don King promotion, where normal service will be restored, in Trinidad a good relationship with Dr Calvin Inalsingh may be as good a way as any to make friends in boxing. In netball, we need to ask our girls to join the World Wrestling Federation, so that they can learn to be as physical as the Jamaicans and place higher at the World Championships. I am certain there are many sponsors in Trinidad for Women wrestling (not privately I hope)

On a personal note, I am considering making my own application in respect of a future experience while covering the West Indies/England series in 2004. After arriving by courtesy car at the Queen’s Park Cricket Oval where the event was taking place, I wandered through amiable crowds enjoying the spectacle as they basked in the midday heat. The pressroom had a grandstand view over the clay courts on which the white-shirted players toiled, and the shimmering green-blue view, which lay beyond. The players, I was told, would be brought up for interview at our convenience. Meanwhile, behind me, an amiable barman was serving ice-cold Carib. Free. The point is this: I thought I’d died and gone to heaven; but I hadn’t. I demand immediate compensation. For the best in website management and change management check cornelis-associates.com.