Anyway, back at home, late at night, I put aside the books I was reading, and opened the Sportstar. I read the articles enthusiastically, watched all the pictures, and then realized why it is not the phenomenon that it once used to be. I already knew everything (almost) that was written there, thanks to my daily dose of Sportscenter / Sportszone on TV. The high resolution images look glossier on the web pages. The newspapers are covering sports over three pages. The sports channels almost never fails to show a live event. There was nothing in Sportstar for which I should have to wait till the weekend. Very very different from the days when it used to be a novelty, something to look forward to.
You have to be one of those kids born in the 70s, growing up in the 80s to probably understand the sentiment here. You see, when I was a kid, we didn't have TV at home. Even when we did eventually get a TV, there were two precious channels (a third if you added a booster to the antenna). So sports news was a capsule of a few minutes within 15 minutes of news, which ended before it started. Live action meant cricket matches when they happened, football world cups every four years, and Wimbledon every year.
Even the newspapers were thinner, and sports was a one / one and half page affair in it. For sports crazy kids like us, Sportstar magazine and its likes were a life saver. We would wait for it to hit the stands and gobble up all the news from around the world. The special attraction was the centre four-fold poster. In those internet deprived days, you can only imagine what a high resolution Steffi Graf (or Boris Becker if you like) poster meant to us. In fact before Archies Gallery made it big, those posters with visible fold lines, were the only standard decoration items for our rooms / cupboards. Heck, I even had those old editions clubbed together every year in a thick bind for posterity. I guess every thing has their own time to live, to prosper, and then give way to newer things.
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15 comments:
Guess for the likes of us Sportstar will forever remind us of those days without internet and tv!!
This also reminds me of waiting eagerly for the Sportstar year end edition and also the special ones for the Football WorldCup..
Still have those posters and magazines stacked away in trunks at home,that I am ever reminded to cleanup everytime I go back home.
I remember my brother being a similar crazy sports fanatic in those years when the football world cup and Wimbledon had ten times more craze associated with them. About Steffi Graf and Stefan Edberg too. :-)
reminded me of an incident when i went to New Delhi station to pickup my mom and Dad. While waiting for the train i bought a chacha chowdahri comic...
nostalgimpulsive :)
@Anu
You bet. Oh yes... the special editions. Even I have them stashed away somewhere. :)
@RB
Oh yes... Stefan Edberg, Mats Wilandar, Navratilova, Pat Cash... my favorite was Ivan Lendl though.
@Aseem
:)
Truly understand the sentiment in here :-)
And yeah Archies gallery did good to a lot of sports fans..
Kuch aayega to kuch jayega bhi!
These days most of the things are so readily available that the charm of waiting or the hidden emotional values attached to them have been long lost somewhere...
@Skeety
:)
Archies did a lot of good to sports fans and lovers. Killed the tradition (at least in my family) of hand made cards though.
@Prashant
Exactly. "What to do?"
Its tough bro... you can't slow down with this fast paced world anyway!
There are things however at your personal level that can be done.
Just don't loose the emotion and that sentiment that the generation you belong to has for a few long lost things!
You know what, your blog also looks like a sports magazine now, with 'Bohemian Rhapsody' written in such huge letters!;-) Seems like the headline or something...
Anyway,its true that everything is very readily available now-a-days. Even then,the world cups are still held every four years. So,its not that there is never anything to look forward too. Even when we get regular updates about the scores of an ongoing cricket match, we still eagerly wait to watch the rest of the match after going home. So, the fun really is not lost.:-) But then, like you said, one has to be a kid born in the 70s to understand the sentiment behind this post...
@Prashant
:)
"generation you belong to"?!? May I remind you that you are 30 now? :P
@Butterfly
Yes, I just experimented with the huge letters. Do you like it?
I still look forward to all the events. It is just that we already know all about the events, and have nothing new to look forward to from a weekly magazine was my point.
Oh am I :P
almost forgot ! does not feel like it :)
You are right. Have heard similar things from people of your age group. All I do if refresh a webpage and stay updated. But I have to agree that print has its own charm :)
and it's funny when I imagine you say "when I was a kid"
Dadu! :D
@RT
Yeah, print definitely has it's charm. I just can't read an e-book.
What's wrong with "When I was a kid"? I am not Benjamin Button, you know!
Uhm, I can't really describe it. Essentially, I imagine you taking a while to comprehend the imagery in your mind and come up with appropriate description, as it was long long time ago for you.
(BURN.) :P
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