Hong Kong has seen much high-quality sports action of late. In 2008, the city took part in hosting the Beijing Olympics, followed by last year’s East Asian Games. World-class tennis and golf tournaments take place annually, while this month’s Hong Kong Sevens might be considered the most hyped event of the year.

Impressive as these tournaments may be, locals still overwhelmingly gravitate toward the world’s most popular sport: football. Men’s football, to be exact. I polled locals to check the truth of this statement and the agreement was resounding, but observation alone is confirmation enough. Incidents of football-related injuries serve as a good measure to judge just how much Hong Kong boys and men are willing to endure for this game. A close friend who only plays recreationally has returned to the field after three separate, life-threatening injuries: heatstroke which landed him in hospital, a fractured jaw for which he spent several excruciating months on a liquid diet, and a concussion which left him lying unconscious in a pool of vomit. Stories of knee surgery necessitated by football are rampant, usually told by lamenting girlfriends, wives and mothers. The players, undeterred, heal to play another day. All for what? “Nothing beats male bonding,” one enthusiast tells me.

As a spectator sport, the devotion is even more steadfast. I can scarcely recall a greater occasion of patriotism than the one ignited throughout the city when Hong Kong’s football team took a surprise gold at December’s East Asian Games. More telling is the time I went on holiday to a faraway land with a Hong Kong football fan who insisted on returning to the hotel to catch a game on television between two South American teams. And this wasn’t even the English Premier League.

As with rugby, the popularity of football has a lot to do with Hong Kong’s status as a former British colony. As one die-hard tells me, Hong Kong people born in the 1970s are usually Liverpool fans, children of the 1980s love Manchester United, and those from the 1990s worship Chelsea. The extent of this British influence can be seen on a visit to the playing fields of Victoria Park in Causeway Bay, the prime spot for pickup games, where youth bursting with energy and groups of vivacious elderly men play in adjacent fields. “What better way is there for older men to meet once a week for a healthy, daytime, non-alcoholic activity?” muses one devotee. In June, they might move indoors as armchair viewers rather than participants, taking sides during the World Cup. But for now, it’s just weekends of scrimmages, sprains and good, sweaty fun.