A few weeks ago, BBC Sport had a blog post all about the superstitions and pre-match rituals of football players. There was everything ranging from the traditional lucky underpants to eating the same meal every evening before a match. This got me thinking about my superstitions with Sport and it seems that I’m close to bringing rabbits feet to the match!

One of the superstitions I regret not abiding by related to the US Ice Hockey Team I support: The Philadelphia Flyers. During April and May of this year, they were in the knockout, best of 7 game playoffs that lead up to the Stanley Cup finals (also a best of 7 game playoff). In the first two rounds, the Flyers swept past the opposition. They lost the first game in both series however and I believed this was because I had a Flyers related wallpaper on my computer desktop. I changed the wallpaper both times, and the Flyers won the series. When it came time for the Sem-Finals, my computer had stopped working…with a Flyers wallpaper still up. I wasn’t able to get the wallpaper down and the Flyers lost the series to the most hated rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins (The Hibs of Ice Hockey).  This only fueled my sports superstition.

Another example relates to my Dad. Last season, we went to see Rangers play Hearts at Tynecastle and the JT’s won 4-2 in what was quiet a thriller. This may not seem unusual, but my Dad had forgotten his Hearts scarf. So far this season, my Dad has been to see Hearts loose to Dundee Utd. at Tannadice 3-0, Hearts draw with Dundee Utd. 0-0 at Tynecastle and Hearts most recent draw with St Mirren and at all three matches he had worn his scarf. Now, just in case he’s reading this, I’m not saying my Dad is unlucky, just his Hearts scarf. So I’m tempted to ask him not to bring it next time.

If this sounds a little harsh, I have a self imposed ban relating to the Hearts strip. I happen to own both the home and away strips but I refuse to wear them to a match because I suspect it will be unlucky.

This may be a strange cornucopia of superstitions (I’ll be eating powdered horseshoe with my match day pie next…) but without them, Hearts might not be where they are now…

…although, Maybe Hearts would doing better without my superstitions? I hadn’t thought of that…

A Very Superstitious Believer

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 at 6:00 pm and is filed under Hearts Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.