They say the past is a different country, but when it comes to sport, it is like a different planet.
Just take a minute to look at Cristiano Ronaldo.
This is what the very pinnacle of sporting excellence looks like in 2014. Scary, eh? The hours that went into that physique are there for all to see and the results are visible on the pitch too as he scooped the Ballon d’Or.
You might say Ronaldo is an extreme example but if you have seen any professional sports people, or even GAA players, with their kit off (steady) lately you will know that they are all in great nick these days.
Cast your mind back a few decades and it was a very different world. Kenny Dalglish was famous for his large arse, Diego Maradona was famous for lots of things that Ronaldo wouldn’t even dream of touching and all rugby teams were made up of short chubby lads and tall skinny lads.
Now rugby teams – admittedly we are in the professional era – are made up of sculpted behemoths, the types that would pummel even the most fearsome sides of the 1970s and 1980s into the ground.
But even away from the pros, things have changed hugely. You will see lads with shaved legs and white boots at even the lowest level of park football these days, usually with haircuts so sharp you could slice the half-time oranges with them.
The days of a cigarette as the sole element of the warm up routine are all but gone, and before games at many levels now you will see teams doing all manners of warm-ups, drills and stretches, stuff the pros only started doing in recent times.
Even the more sedate sports like snooker and darts, once the preserve of boozy, smoky rooms at even the very highest level, are now filled with fitness fanatics like Ronnie O’Sullivan while even 55-year-old king of the oche Phil Taylor has spoken recently about how a fitness regime helps keep him sharp and improves his concentration.
With even darts players getting fit, you know the world has changed beyond recognition.
Add in the use of sports psychologists, improved playing surfaces, equipment technology and the use of video to both analyse and adjudicate and sport in 2014 is beyond recognition. Those changes have filtered down to mere mortal level too, with most GAA clubs employing some or all of these techniques far away from the bright lights of even the inter-county scene, which is professional in all but name.
Us ordinary blokes have to follow suit. To play at any sort of decent level now you must do a bit more than turn up to training once a week and drinking is off the agenda for months at a time for the more committed amateur athletes.
And even if you are not quite as committed to personal fitness as you should be, you can at least look the part. Rocking up to indoor soccer in a scraggy old pair of Hi Tecs just won’t do these days either. Base layers, cycling shorts for dodgy hammys and sweat wicking socks are all the rage now. Sport is an image driven business now, even at street level, and we are all following suit.
We might (there’s no might about it, to be honest) not look like Ronnie, but at least we can wear his boots.
Being a Man has changed but Man Hunger hasn’t. Brought to you by McDonald’s Quarter Pounder Range – Serious Man Food”
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