Welcome back, Noel!

My good friend Noel Villaflor, the former Copy Editor and, at one time, Sports Editor, of Sun.Star Cebu, has returned to writing. Today, Saturday (Dec. 29), is the first day of his first column on the sports pages of the leading regional newspaper in the Philippines.

Noel is a big, big football fan. He follows the worldwide football news, reads about the latest RP soccer stories and, best of all, plays football himself. So his column, aptly called “FOOTNOTE,” is perfect for Cebu. You can read his column here.

But let me quote what Noel wrote in the second part of his article…

You must be wondering, dear accidental reader, why this column suddenly popped up on this page. The truth is, this column is six months overdue, and I now have a vague idea how it feels to give birth. It is excruciating to undergo labor when you’re pregnant with ideas and there’s not much pushing, huffing and puffing. Call this writing’s equivalent of a caesarian section. You get the drift.

But I am just a taker of notes of the sport I love best (I dig boxing but, football, I can play). Lately though, I have found my weekends devoid of football games. Blame this on my feeble joints.

So what must one do when the spirit is willing but the body, stubborn? Write.

Last I heard, nobody tears ligaments typing. Besides, the sport can do with one less lout off the field. But I suffer from a niggling urge.

The Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, a frustrated footballer himself, couldn’t have said it any better: “By writing, I was going to do with my hands what I never could accomplish with my feet: irredeemable klutz, disgrace of the playing fields, I had no choice but to ask of words what the ball I so desired denied me.”

So embrace me, dear muse of sports writing.
Welcome back to sports-writing, Noel!