Courage is a term thrown about recklessly with regards to sport. One may attribute this to the role sport fills in our lives; an argument can be made that in the absense of armed conflict, games played on a court, pitch or field fulfill a primitive urge to compete, and to be victorious. The tribalism that accompanies sport is a by-product of this, and helps to explain the mania of supporters who feel intrinsically tied to a club by geography, heritage or social standing. This is why such words as 'courage', and 'heroic' are tied so often with athletic feats, as sport brings out an energy and passion that is perhaps only rivaled, albeit to a far greater degree, by war. We may say that 'battles' are fought on the pitch between rival clubs, but as fans we know this to be hyperbole, an overdramatization of something that has greater importance to us than perhaps it should.
