NERVES were touched raw by last week’s column, which expounded on what may constitute a sport.

My assertion – and after all it is my column – that tug of war should be classed as a pastime rather than a sport drew a considerable weight of antagonism and acrimony, and not exclusively from an irate band of tug of warriors.

Some may be glad to know I have accepted an invitation to join a training session with the York Tug Of War Club, which resumes its training programme in January.

However, a Walmgate colleague’s speculation that I might find myself attached to the middle of the rope with each team then tugging their respective and opposing ways for dear life come the New Year produced a gulp in the throat of yours truly.

Stressing now that I am not a glutton for punishment, this week’s column – while leaving the previous subject alone – will still stray to a variant on last week’s tirade.

Rather than try to define what makes a sport, the next few paragraphs will list those sports/activities/pastimes which I expressly loathe, either as a participant or as a spectator.

Come, come – some of you might say. As a sports reporter of some three decades or more experience chronicling all manner of exultation and exasperation, surely I should love all sports.

There should be no animosity to any. There should be no sniping at a single one. After all, sport is what I make a living from.

Such an all-embracing, peace-and-love sentiment can be frankly dismissed by any rower’s reaction to messing up his timing while charting the best route through a river – rollocks.

We are five on The Press sportsdesk and we all have our own faves and flaws, regardless of the gamut of sports we endeavour to cover.

As one of the quintet I can assure you there are sports/activities/pastimes – let’s call them SAPS for brevity – that get on our respective wires.

One of our clan has gladly distanced himself from a Premier League football team he supported for many years because of the way they treated a former manager as well as the general grab-all greed of professional football at its most elite.

Others of our number ridicule the idea of golf, bemoaning it as people clubbing a little ball with sticks. And you can guarantee the liveliest of slanging matches whenever the merits of rugby league and rugby union are discussed.

But that is the ultimate beauty, the sheer essence, the entire point of SAPS. They cleave apart opinions, strengthen alliances and divide into passionate factions.

As I mentioned last week, snooker and darts do not top the rankings in the Kelly sporting mindset, even though in my formative years I used to cover darts for my first strike paper, which included a superb interview with one of the gents of the oche, former world champion John Lowe.

But neither of that brace reside at the bottom of the heap.

Propping up my SAPS ratings is a sport which, if the money inherent in it were to be employed elsewhere, would wipe out the current euro zone crisis at a stroke – Formula One racing.

Oh what a bore. A procession of gaudy four-wheeled billboards guzzling fossil fuel and rubber as if Mother Earth never had an environmental care in her pretty little head. Round and round and round like so many robotic rodents on an asphalt wheel. Zzzzzzzz.

Yawnsville is another destination I frequently visit when having to watch horse racing on the television. The spectacle refuses to excite even if I have some hard-earned cash on a horse – yet the pulses race when actually watching the action live, especially the tearing of the turf by the thundering hooves towards the winning post. The only downside then is that the horse in front is never my choice.

Wrestling is another no-go area, whether grunt ‘n’ groan grappling from Bridlington Spa or the American insincerity of the WWA, or WWB, or some such other acronym of fake anger. I think a meeting of the WI would provide more entertainment.

What about sports to participate in? Despite my advanced years – those creaks are my bones – I still revel in playing football frequently, golf rarely and tennis before, during and after a certain fortnight in summer.

What I hate with a vengeance more than any other sport I have attempted – from athletics to yachting – is volleyball. And for that you can blame being on the same side as a certain lad at school, Albie Baker, who would leap, jump, dive, sprint to get to any return from over the net before you could react.

In a job where getting both sides of the story is paramount, we are all affected, some may say afflicted, by our own likes and dislikes – and long may they run.