Off The Rails Sportswear

Nell Frizzell is kitted out

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Off The Rails: Sportswear

So, sport, eh? Not just Blur’s work-in-progress band name. Oh no. Sport is also an excuse for aggressive, lazy men to dress like toddlers.

To whit, who else but a ‘sporting man’ would choose to dress in a bright red t-shirt and draw-string, stretchy, don’t-put-a-fly-in-them-it’ll-only-confuse-us trousers? Who else would wear primary-coloured shorts with oversized socks and soft-topped shoes? Who else wants to dress in slightly less impressive versions of their superheroes’ costumes? Why, toddlers of course.

Sports fans are, on the whole, about as sartorially exacting as barely-continent children. They like their colours bright, their waistbands stretchy and have a tendency to accessorise outfits with big foam toys.

It’s not that I’m against sport. Admittedly I can’t quite see the point in weeping, cheering, fighting and mourning a lost game when you are all going to play the same game and the same people in slightly different colours next week. I also don’t understand the basic fact that although you support a team, you don’t mind when that team changes their players, coach, home ground, manager, kit or owner.

The thing about sport that gets me – apart from the obscene amounts of money and unfortunate tendency to maul and possibly kill people who support ‘the other side’ – is that so much of it is so ugly. Football kits, tennis whites, rugby jerseys and swimming costumes have all come to resemble embossed condoms. The Olympics is like watching a nervous virgin’s first frantic attempt at safe sex – condoms snapping and flinging their way across unlikely and possibly dangerous stretches of air and ground.

So, as this year’s World Cup approaches, ignore your inner child. And leave the condoms to it.

Posted on Wednesday 26th May 2010

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