Sports report

Bullrings don’t feature high on the list of sights that tourists want to see, but there’s a statue in front of one of them that gives us all pause for thought.

In front of the bullring in Castellon de la Plana is a statue that captures a moment in time.

The text on the notepad reads: “At five in the afternoon and at five in the afternoon exactly…”

The sculpture is of local journalist, José María Iglesias, better known as Arenillas who spent 50 years recounting bullfights up until his death in 2001.

It’s a part of Spanish culture that most visitors choose to look away from. Many Spaniards feel the same and audiences have dwindled, while blood-free sports like football have surged.

It’s a similar picture across Europe. In places like the UK, it can be hard to believe it was just a generation ago that hunting hares and foxes with packs of dogs was legal.

But this statue poses a question. What’s the story?

Humans 1 Bovines 0 - again?

It’s easy for lilly-livered types like me to write bullfighting off as blood-lust, while feeding fears about how thin the veneer of our civilisation actually is.

But people don’t just want to watch animals being killed. If they did, slaughterhouses would have ringside seats.

We don’t want to see it and we don’t want to do it. If we did, then working at the local abbatoir would be in demand - you might even have to pay to get the prime job with the stun-gun or pole-axe.

So what’s the appeal for the waiters, barbers or dairy farmers buying a paper, turning to the arena pages and reading out what happened yesterday at 5 pm?

What’s newsworthy about men in tight-fitting threads, despatching animals in front of a crowd?

Is it perhaps the pressure of the crowd? Isn’t that the essence of the specacle?

A penalty shoot out with an Espada vs horns.

If you started watching me typing this, I would become all fingers and thumbs. It takes skill, confidence and nerve to perform under pressure.

The barber knows something about using skill under a watchful eye in the mirror. They know how to use a sharp blade well. The waiter knows the value of performance. We value glass of wine that has been poured for us rather than helping ourselves from the bottle on the table. The dairy farmer knows the limited value of alpha males. They have their moment and then life moves on.

The previous day’s results were never in doubt - it wasn’t news. While the matador dispatched, the barber shaved, the waiter served and the farmer herded. Only one of them performed their trade to an expectant crowd and is that why the others read on?