I have always known that I am in no way a sportswoman. I can’t run competitively, I can’t jump competitively, for the life of me I can’t swim competitively, and I am terrified of balls which are thrown towards me. Instinct tells me to close my eyes when the ball is headed in my general direction, and what use is a netball player who stretches out her arms to catch the ball with her eyes screwed shut and her fingers shaking? The only sport I know I can somewhat excel in is sailing and kayaking, and neither of those are events in our annual games carnival. (The lack of which is an injustice to all the poor non-sports-inclined people like me. But I digress.)

This is why I can’t pull off the ‘games’ in ‘Games Carnival.’ Luckily for me, Games carnival isn’t just about the sports. We must not forget the ‘carnival’ part of the week, the part in which people like me cheer and shout and scream and lose our voice in support of those people who can actually play sports.

This is a big deal. It’s more than just cheering for your team. It’s a job. A responsibility. It’s passion and team spirit. Oh, you may smile to yourself but I don’t suppose you realize how seriously we take this.

This? This is our sport. The sport of those people who are doomed to remain on the sidelines because instead of sinewy muscle and six-packs we have flab and spare tires. And here I’m going to pick a quote I like and change it to make it mine.

I always get annoyed when people say the fanclub is a matter of life and death. They’re wrong. It is much more than that.

Interested? Want to hear our job description?

We go to cheras and arrive on time. On time is any time before eight for us. We lug along banners, flags, noise-makers, tape, ice-boxes, drinks, and hope that today we our house will get gold for many sports. After our items are transported to our respective grand stands with the help of many kind people who lend a hand, we practice our first strategy of the day.

Divide and conquer.

Banners must be hung in conspicuous and open places for the world to see. There must be at least one banner in every sports arena that is open on that day, be it the hall or the field or the swimming pool. Tell someone to bring along the flags and noise-makers for added marks. Sigh in exasperation because you forgot to bring your scissors, and you have to bite the tape to tear it with your teeth because no-one else wants to do it, and the tape tastes disgusting.

Assign someone to divide the drinks (water and hundred plus, mind, we want our players to be refreshed and happy) equally among the sports and put them in the assigned coolers that some of our members had kindly brought. Lug these monstrous coolers from one end of the field to the other. On certain days, lug them up to the hall for basketball and badminton. Make doe eyes at some helpful person to persuade them to help carry the coolers with you.

Whip out the brush and the paint and ambush unsuspecting people, and assign your right-hand-man to paint their faces, arms, legs and hands with your house colors. Tie colored ribbons in the girls’ hair. Tie colored ribbons around the boys’ wrists. In fact, tie colored ribbons everywhere.

Get your juniors to give your contact number to all the teachers-in charge, and tell the teachers to give you a ring five or ten minutes before we are scheduled for a match. The minute the phone rings, round up all the nearby people in your house and herd them towards the field or court or section where the match is.

Steal ten-minute breaks in between matches to drink Season’s barley, picking the coldest one you can find, at the back of the fridge. Wonderful.

Back to the cheering business again. Make sure someone leads the cheers if you aren’t.

Shout orders to the players, like “Shoot! SHOOT!” and “No, run forward, FORWARD!” and “Somebody, mark him! I said, SOMEBODY MARK HIM!”

At half time, shout orders to the fans, like, “Get off the cooler! Drinks, drinks, they need drinks - take the hundred plus - no, no, they want water - I said get OFF the cooler!”

Do all this while waving a huge flag around.

When the games are over, pour out the water from the coolers and carry them back to the grand stands. (They’re much, much lighter without ice and drinks in them, really.) Totter unsteadily up the stairs to the car and dump everything in the boot. Sleep on the ride home. When you reach home, shower for an hour at least, prepare some ice for the coolers tomorrow, and fall into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.

Repeat for a week.

It may sound daunting, and yes, I don’t want to wake up in the mornings, and I feel my muscles ache even when I’m not playing any sports because of all the lifting that I’m doing, but when you’re actually cheering for your team during a match you don’t feel tired at all. Its hard to remain silent in a crowd of cheering people, and the team spirit virus is infectious.

You will start cheering until you feel dizzy and gasp and you turn purple in the face and you have no more breath to continue the cheer. Until your voice scratches against your throat and rubs it so raw that no amount of Strepsils or fisherman’s friend will soothe it. You will be so engrossed with this painful activity that you wont notice your skin pulling over your face, dry and burnt and brown with sunlight, and you wont notice how much it hurts when you slather on after-sun lotion after your shower, because you’ll be sleeping like the dead in your bed, with the lights still on, without brushing your teeth or eating your dinner.

Next time, when people as me whether I play sports, I’m going to say - “Yeah. I definitely play sports. I’m a fanclub gold medallist.”