The drive to commercialise sport and commoditize players can seem all powerful but there is an equal and opposite force in sport which gets significantly less media spotlight yet continues to grow just as inexorably. How to describe it? We could call it the spirit and soul of sport. The intrinsic value that can’t be measured in transfer fees but has a greater and much longer lasting worth. Or simply the magic of sport. It may never be the hot topic on Match of the Day, but sport can never cut itself off from the fundamental human experiences at its core.
It’s the reason why we all love to watch, play and engage in sport, whether it’s the battle of the two Lukes in the gripping darts world championship final, Roger Federer’s sublime shots at Wimbledon, or those moments of joy that a crowd feels when watching their favourite team do the impossible in the dying seconds of extra time. We don’t always stop to question what is going on beyond the trophies and titles, but the BBC sports presenter Simon Mundie has written a book to help us understand it more.
