With the exception of Wimbledon and the Olympics, I detest sports on television. Before I met my husband I would have gone so far as to put sports channels in my Room 101. Yet somehow, I married a man so obsessed with sports that I’ve found myself watching the Manchester football derby in Costa Rica and left alone with my two hour old newborn son as my husband disappeared off to watch a match. You may be asking why a sensible, intelligent woman, like myself, puts up with it, and that’s a very good question indeed.

Anna Bell

Anna Bell

I met my husband and on an organised trek to Everest base camp. We first bonded in a bar in Kathmandu (where our trip began) over beer and live music at a roof top bar. Over the next ten days we chatted for hours on our daily hikes about our careers, our families, and, as cheesy as it sounds, our hopes and dreams. He encouraged me over scary rope bridges and he walked at a snail’s pace when I succumbed to altitude sickness. By the time we had our first official date back in the UK I was well and truly smitten, and I felt as if I knew everything about him. Only I soon learnt that without phones, internet and TV on along our trek he’d manage to conceal the biggest part of his life: his sporting addiction.

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We went to the Isle of Wight for our first date weekend, and alarm bells really should have rung when I found myself in a pub on a Saturday afternoon having a beer watching a football match. And if they didn’t ring then, they should have done when two weeks later he flew off to New York to watch a boxing match in Madison Square Garden. Over the next few months, I discovered the extent of his addiction and how my husband followed anything that Sky Sports deemed worthy of airtime: boxing, darts, rugby, football, formula 1, speedway.

You’d think that at this point that I would have run for the hills, but unfortunately I’d already fallen head over heels. Instead I had to learn to live with it. I started to make sure I always had a book or a Kindle with me for unexpected trips to watch rugby at the pub. I also started to use the time productively, by pursuing my dream of writing a book, which I did to the soundtrack of rugby and football in the background. Then were also the sporting holidays that I’d assumed would be horrendous, but turned out to be pretty good fun. A few hours of watching a live match (with the atmosphere that’s lacking on TV) and then I get the rest of the weekend to explore the rest of the delights that city had to offer.

Without doubt if I’d known about his sporting addiction upfront I would have thought we were majorly incompatible. Yet, somehow me being a sporting widow works. I won’t say I like it but I’ve learnt to live with it. Which is lucky as it looks like I’m going to be one for the rest of my life!