Sometime in the very near future, the books in our new home will take on some sort of order. There are many books in our home. A friend suggested we should sell some. That person is currently serving probation as a friend.
Books are not to be sold because they take up too much space. They form collages of shape and texture on shelves and piled high from the floor. They tell of the history of us, of moments of realisation, identification and inspiration, reminders of chuckles and sorrow, and, for the sports writer in the family, a physical Google of reference and stories. Most of those are autobiographies, which is perhaps the most abused form of sports writing, some running a timeline from birth to death with the odd revelation to make it sell a few more copies.
There are outstanding stories about the lives of athletes, but they are mostly biographies, written from the outside looking in.
There are SA Rugby and Cricket South Africa annuals on our shelves. These are the textbooks of sport, important in South Africa with its iffy digital database of match reports and results. I found my copy of the collection of the late Rodney Hartman’s columns under “Arm-Ball to Zooter; a sideways look at the language of cricket”, by Lawrence Booth.
Both were and are wonderful cricket writers, imbued with the ability to tell a good story quietly, yet with force. I’ve nicked, with credit, ideas and lines from both of them. We miss Rodders every day at The Star. South African sports journalism misses his authority and wisdom.
The ugliness of the behaviour of Nick Kyrgios resulted in a successful search for “The Big Books of Sports Insults”, which is not a big book, which may have been another insult on the reader. In it I found that Tommy Docherty, the former football manager, once said of the media: “I’ve always said there’s a place for the press, but they haven’t dug it yet.”
Sports commentators are treated with much deference in South Africa. Not so in England, as Giles Smith of The Times had this to say about Sky Sports summariser Chris Kamara who will be “… talking as if strapped to the radiator grille of a terrorist truck –bomb hurtling towards a building of serious significance.” And will do so with “… the irate gargle of a hyena that has been shot in the buttocks.” There is at least one local football commentator to whom a similar description can be attached.
I won’t be selling any of the books, and, indeed, will be moving the rest of the books in my house on the East Rand to here soon. Newly-bought books will join them. We will make space for them. They fill the place up with warmth and words. They make our house a home.