Patterson's Sports Page

An Arsenal v/s Manchester United clash is one fixture that thrills me a lot. I am sure its the same for many others. The Red Devils certainly have had a dominant history over the Gunners. Yet, Arsene Wenger's side remains the most dreaded opponent for Sir Alex Ferguson's champion team.

My dream club Arsenal made me proud about the fact that they defeated United by a solitary goal, despite the absence of captain Cesc Fabregas. It now seems like, Arsenal are very well able to manage themselves without the wonder kid midfielder. Go Cesc, live your dream life at Camp Nou.

What excites me about the win is that the team has shown remarkable determination and composure in a tensed match like this one. Despite the experience, Arsene Wenger's boys have delivered outstanding performance. Yes I agree they have faltered with it mattered most...but hey 'they just kids'...give them some time.

Sunday's result was a big blow for United. Arsenal's 1-0 win at the Emirates Stadium meant that United will have to wait to play Chelsea later in business end of the Premier League. This could very well be the decider but the teams will also have to keep in mind to maintain a healthy goal difference as the chances of Chelsea and Man United being locked with same points, at the end of the league, seems to be a big possibility.

Leaving the Chelsea-Man Utd chapter aside, let me cherish Arsenal's victory.

And hey Chelsea...u owe us a 'thanks'!

Today I was lucky to get a break from the regular shoots. I had the opportunity of visiting the Boys Home at Ullal, Mangalore. This place is one of the outreach programs of St. Aloysius College. Children from remand homes, broken families are taken care of here.

Well, what was I doing there then? To tell you the fact, students had become teachers for a day. Yes, me along with a couple of my MCMS mates were requested to teach these unfortunate children a few techniques of using the camera. And boy! they were game at it. Although all of them were handling the camera for the first time, they managed to pick up quite a bit from what we explained to them. The best part was that they were breaking all the stereotypical shots and that just left me amazed. We also explained to them a few things about lighting and how to use light wisely.

Working with a video camera is become an habit. Every time I use a camera, whether it is the PD 170, Panasonic 102, Sony HDV or any other, I learn something new as I am not a thorough professional at handling a camera. At MCMS, we have the opportunity of using the camera frequently for our day to day activities. But today's day was special. Don't know why, but 'teaching' is just so much more pleasing compared to 'learning'.

After politics and bollywood, sports is the next popular area of interest for the people of India. However, in Indian context, when we say ‘Sports’ it is mostly restricted to ‘Cricket’. As a result cricket has reached to a level where cricketers are considered not less than God.

It’s amazing that Indian cricket is getting the backing of the media as well as of the people. But when will the other sports grow? Cricket gets more than 75 percent of the total sports coverage by the media, especially electronic media. Cricket, definitely, is not to be blamed for that, but it is the media itself. The simple reason being that they have the freedom to pick the stories they wish to cover. But with this freedom, is the media acting responsible in doing justice to all sports disciplines? And the answer is pretty much visible through the newspapers and television news channels.

There have been instances when the Indian media has neglected major stories of other sports disciplines to make way for ordinary cricket stories that could be published the next day. During the time of former Indian Hockey team captain Dilip Tirkey’s retirement in May 2010, a couple of newspapers carried not more than a 50 to 60-word report while many just did not publish anything about the great sportsman. Tirkey is considered as one among the finest captain’s of the Indian hockey team and certainly, his retirement makes big news. Surprisingly, the media did not consider it to be so. Imagine if it was Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s retirement. How would the media act in this case? There was another case when chess maestro Viswanathan Anand regained the World Chess Championship last year. In Mangalore, only one English daily carried the news, that too as a small story to fill up the space.  Recently India lost all their group matches in the Asia Cup 2011 football tournament. It was after more than 20 years that India had qualified for the mega tournament. Although India lost all of their group matches to Australia, Bahrain and South Korea, critiques maintain that the overall performance of India has been good considering their actual status in world football and the high class opponents they faced. And we very well know how the media made a mockery of the Indian team after their successive defeats. How can we expect the team to perform better if it has never been given the right amount of support and motivation?

If this is the attitude of the media towards sports, other than cricket, how could one expect good results from the low priority sports. India is lagging way behind in football. In Hockey too, the country has lost a lot of ground. But that does not mean we don’t have the potential. The media needs to think beyond TRPs and act in a way that is conducive for all sporting disciplines. The media not only has the power to influence but also encourage and boost the morale of sportspersons through a few words of appreciation.