Sports Star

Just to proved that there's always someone worse off than you, my Fresnan friend Marcus has outdone all my recent misadventures in one inglorious moment on the sports field.

He was playing soccer. I had always taken the view that soccer is not the kind of sport in which people suffer serious injuries. Based on what I've seen on the television, the players are not the most robust of athletes. They have been known to fall to the ground screaming and clutching their knees because a stiff breeze has brushed past them. These performances suggest that the worst injury a soccer player is likely to experience is something in the order of a broken nail.

Unfortunately, in the case of Marcus, it turned out to be the nail that held his ankle together. He managed to snap his Achilles tendon, bringing his soccer career, and his ability to walk, to a screaming halt - literally screaming.

You may wonder how such a serious injury could occur while playing a non-contact sport. I certainly did. It would appear that "contact" was not the issue. Marcus snapped his Achilles tendon, all by himself, when he changed direction suddenly.

At first, I found this somewhat difficult to believe. Not only because it is an amazingly nasty injury to incur while standing alone in an empty field, but because Americans change direction so often. With a little reflection, however, I realised that when Americans do demonstrate one of their sudden changes of direction, things often get broken ... treaties ... countries ... international laws ... tendons. It all makes sense.

If only President George W. Bush had been a soccer player instead of the leader of the free world things might look very different now. We would have "tendons of mass destruction" and "ankles of evil."

Poor Marcus has had surgery to reattach his tendon and will be hobbling around on crutches until long after I return. Fortunately, Dad will be around to cheer him up ... you know, kick a soccer ball around in the yard, that sort of thing.