It is Better at Night

Tonight is something special, something that I have not done for maybe 10 years. Now that I am semi-retired I am in Scarborough at night so I can finally go to a Middlesbrough home soccer game on a mid-week evening. I am really looking forward to it because there is something special about an evening game, and I think that this can apply across sports, especially those that take place outside.

First of all there is a different anticipation on a working, or retired day. You can feel the build-up during the day. Secondly there is a different feeling when you approach a stadium where the floodlights are on, making it standout in its neighbourhood. It is much more like a gladiatorial arena. This is repeated inside the arena where from the off the colours are highlighted by the impact of the lights. The brightness of the lighting contrasts to the blackness of the sky. I will take some pictures and post them on tomorrow’s blog.

Obviously the soccer is no better or worse, but it somehow seems more dramatic, a more visceral manifestation of the game.

I also get this feeling when I attend a baseball game, the whole spectacle being more dramatic after night falls. When we visited CTI field earlier this year this is amplified by the twinkling lights of the aircraft taking off from the nearby La Guardia airport. The new baseball stadiums seem to highlight this by framing vista in their configuration. Philadelphia earlier in the summer is a great example of this. The cityscape is completely framed by the stadium so as it becomes dark the impact of the sun and then the lights in the darkness is even more dramatic. I have never attended a floodlight cricket game but would imagine that the same atmosphere holds good.

Well I will be driving to the game in a couple of hours, hang all the drama and the atmosphere; I want to see a great Boro win and three points. You see that is the other important thing, partisanship – more about that in a later blog.