ONLY A GAME

As the year-end football feast begins (note the restraint exhibited by not writing “kicks off”), millions of Americans will get comfy on the couch, with salty snacks and refreshing beverage at one hand, the TV remote at the other. According to a new study by the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Britain’s University of Birmingham, fans might want to keep a defibrillator handy as well.

OK, the study was about that other so-called football, the one where people in short pants frantically chase a round ball so they can kick it. But the findings likely apply to real football as well: close, exciting games that are deemed crucial in the sense that they are conducted in the pursuit of a championship can – literally – be heart-stopping events.

The study tracked hospital admissions the day of, and the two days following, a 1998 World Cup soccer match between England and Argentina. The game would decide which team would continue in the tournament and which would be knocked out. It was hyped to the hilt as a Falklands War rematch with national honor and all that at stake. England lost in an overtime penalty shootout. Myocardial infarction – heart attack, the death or permanent damage to an area of heart muscle because of an inadequate supply of oxygen to that area – shot up nationwide by 25 percent.

OK, the study was included in the British Medical Journal’s annual Christmas collection of bizarre research (such as an investigation that concluded there is no actual Egyptian mummy’s curse), but it was conducted by one of the most esteemed institutions in the field and it was done according to the highest scientific standards. It also confirms similar research done elsewhere on the hazards of spectator sports – The Netherlands and South Korea also reported links between big games and cardiac arrest among the viewers at home. It also closely tracks data collected during and immediately after earthquakes in Greece, Japan and California, the Iraqi missile attacks on Israel in 1991 and the war in Croatia.

Football, whichever version, is not a natural disaster or a state of war. Fans, though certainly encouraged to cheer with gusto or groan in disappointment, would do well to remember that it’s only a game, they’re only watching and injuries should not exceed a few extra pounds or a mild case of clicker thumb. Sudden death, after all, is only a figure of speech.