Somewhere around ten, I learned to raise my head to watch the play around me instead of constantly staring at the ball. I had watched a midfielder do it a hundred times, and then one afternoon I did it on a suburban sand pitch.
That is what watching football always was for me, though I couldn’t have said so at that age. Not an antagonist to playing but a preparation.
Lately, one of those posts that tries to add up a life caught my attention and made me think. On average, eighty years of life include twenty-six spent asleep, nine at work, a full year in the shower, and four lost to social media. Since the football column was missing, I measured mine.
Until the age of forty-three, I spent roughly 7,000 hours playing football. And seventeen thousand watching it. Twenty-four thousand hours handed to one game—just over four years of waking life.
The apprentice spent years observing the master before practicing; a craft is first learned by watching. The seventeen thousand hours in front of a TV were that kind of study, and the seven thousand on the pitch were what the study was for.
The balance between watching and playing is shifting naturally now. Once, I played four times a week; now, it’s only two, while watching remained constant. Despite the natural decline that comes with a life dedicated to football, I intend to keep playing as long as my legs will carry me. After all this math, it’s up to me to respond to this has prepared me to make the most of my remaining time on and off the pitch.
How the hours were counted, for the curious. All figures are averaged and approximate.
| Playing /Age band | Hours/week | Active months/yr | Years | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10–25 | 6 (4 × 1.5h) | 11 of 12 | 15 | ≈ 4,290 |
| 25–35 | 4.5 (3 × 1.5h) | 10 of 12 | 10 | ≈ 1,950 |
| 35–43.5 | 2 (2 × 1h) | 10 of 12 | 8.5 | ≈ 740 |
| Total | ≈ 6,980 |
| Watching /Age band | Hours/week | Years | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10–25 | 12 | 15 | ≈ 9,360 |
| 25–35 | 10 | 10 | ≈ 5,200 |
| 35–43.5 | 6 | 8.5 | ≈ 2,650 |
| Total | ≈ 17,210 |
Leave a Reply