Ever wondered what it was all about?  The meaning of life?  If you have, hark back to a moment when you felt overcome with joy.  It may have been passing a final exam, being reacquainted with an old friend, maybe even falling in love.  Remember that feeling?  The butterflies, the anticipation, the fear?  The ecstasy, the relief, the tears of happiness?  Those are the moments that make you say, ‘this is why I bother’.  It may not be the meaning of life, but it is pretty close to personal fulfilment, which is what we all strive for in our few decades of existence.

How many of those moments in your life apply to sport?  Can you recall at least one moment where you found yourself hugging the person next to you in pure delirium over what you had just witnessed?  Or squashed in the sanctity of a pile of team-mates going barmy with wild celebration?

The last minute winner, the split second victory, the margin of millimetres between triumph and disaster – that’s what it’s all about in sport, what makes it obsessive, what makes us passionate, what makes it one of the biggest industries in the world.  And that is what Simon Barnes has written nearly four-hundred profound, sometimes rambling, but utterly addictive pages about.

Simon Barnes is Chief Sports Writer for The Times newspaper.  It is an esteemed position; all the glamour and perks that go with sports writing, less the pressure that comes with being an editor.  Just go, watch, write, leave.  It isn’t a cushy role by any means, but it is a desirable one. 

But Barnes isn’t a classic sports nut, the type you would expect to be filling such a role.  He is a writer first, sports writer second.  He doesn’t claim to have an in-depth knowledge or area of expertise in sport.  He just tells the stories: the great dramas, the heartbreak and the glory.  Rather, he just writes, purely, and honestly, about sport, what it does to us, what it does for us.  The Meaning of Sport.

“Sport is everything: sport is nothing.  Sport is important: sport is trivial.  Sport is packed with meaning: sport means nothing….Sport is simple: sport is complex.  Sport is beautiful: sport is irredeemably ugly.  Sport is only about winning: sport is mainly about losing.”

Of 158 chapters, that is an excerpt from number 156.  He has over a page of this.  If you need a definition of sport, this is it.  But first you must (repeat: must) read the previous 155 chapters to understand how he reached this point, otherwise, those words will be wasted.

You will not learn any new facts.  There are no revelations.  But your opinions will change.  Was George Best really a legend?  Is Michael Jordan truly great?  Much of Barnes’s writing focuses on the make-up of such individuals in sport: the behemoths.  And the person who stands out most in the mind of Barnes, and therefore in the pages of this book, is Sir Steve Redgrave. 

“Redgrave is not only a person.  Redgrave is also a quality.  You look for someone who might achieve great things in sport.  Napoleon would ask of his generals: ‘Has he luck?’  I ask of athletes: ‘has he Redgrave?’  Redgrave is the ability to go beyond yourself…It is the ability to commit, day after day, to the one goal of winning.”

On reflection of writing his report on Redgrave’s fifth and final gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics he said:  “It was an epic, I wrote, it was the fifth book of Redgravidad, and it was an extraordinary privilege to be allowed to write it.  It was not the greatest piece of sport I have ever seen.  It was the greatest piece of sport that anybody has seen.”

His admiration of Redgrave is unparalleled in this book.  But so it should be.  Is there another individual who had done what he has?  Achieved the ultimate sporting glory, consistently, through the entire feasible duration of his career? 

There is hope for us all though, and that is what makes reading this book so rewarding.  It isn’t about individuals who operate on a higher plain from us mere mortals.  Yes, they are often referred to, but in doing what they do, Barnes points out that they, and sport, can be an inspiration to us all.

“There is greatness in us all.  We can’t all be champions of the world: but we all have moments in our lives when we get it absolutely right: mind, body and spirit combining to produce something beyond our normal capacity.  Not only in sport, but in all kinds of areas of our normal lives: moments when we become champions of ourselves.”

The Meaning of Sport may not give you the meaning of life, but it opens your eyes as to how important sport can be in giving your life some meaning.

To buy this book, click here:

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