Forget about winning honors! Forget about the money spin! The core benefit of playing football game is for you to exercise yourself and stay healthy. I’m not undermining the entertainment benefits; but don’t ever forget it – “Football was originally designed as a form of physical exercise to help the human person stay healthier and alive.”
I know, I know, all that has been derailed, the capitalist has hijacked football and has highly monetized the sport. All the promotional and entertainment hypes were meant to pull our emotions to crescendo so we can return again and again to buy tickets for the next game. Its no problem, we can be entertained. We can be fans of the highest order, but we can be players too – in our own special way.
The truth is, we cannot all play in the World Cup or UEFA Champion’s league; we’re not all-professional football players, but you can play to have fun and most importantly to stay healthy and alive.
Again, human competitive nature and quest for honors has counter the core purpose of the game. Some football tournaments such Bankers Cup or All media football competition were designed to get workers out of their routine duties to exercise, so they can come off stress and re-invigorated for better performance. But these organizations’ quest for honors and awards has driven them to go on to hire mercenaries (professional football players) to compete for their organization.
So what’s the result? The organization display trophies and awards they won during the tournament in their office, but the staff return back with pot bellies or larger than upholstery buttock and the work stress continues. At the long run, the staff begins to suffer Hypertension; Diabetes, Arthritis, Back pains…and it begin to result into poor performance in their jobs.
The greatest honors one can win for one’s self, is the honor to win your health - to stay active and alive. Don’t ever take it for granted! Get involved in routine exercise no matter your schedules. If you don’t, you will soon discover you’re shortchanging yourself. Aging or sicknesses may soon break you down and get you off those schedules you cannot forgo now. That will be a bitter pill to chew, if you cannot enjoy all your hard work.
We have lots of novelty football clubs you can join. We’ve “The All Stars” – for ex-professional football players all over Nigeria. We have the veterans football clubs such as Ex-military Officer football club or Ex-Police Officer football club. They’re not so strict with their membership. You can still join the club even if you’re not an ex-football player or ex-officer. Some of the clubs as Rotary football club in Port Harcourt or the Ikoyi Raging Bulls in Lagos are fun to be with.
Talking about fun exercise, The Ikoyi Raging Bulls’ club is a novel. The team usually comprises of both male and female playing together in one team. Men of 50years as well as female of 40years and above can be admitted as members of the club. They play matches with similar clubs such as Queens Park Rangers of Victoria Garden City (VGC) Lekki Lagos or Man United Veteran football Club in Victoria Island Lagos.
However, I have only one issue with the Ikoyi Raging Bulls. After each day’s exercise, they sit back at club and begin to consume lots of beer with other sugary and alcoholic drinks. So the exercise does not make much sense because they immediately replaced all the burnt up calories.
Well, this is a topic for another day. The bottom line is, it’s your responsibility to compete for your health and football clubs provide you the platform to play and stay alive.
