Sport by Accident

It may be that the last ‘Blog’ might have given the impression that I grew up in the back of beyond. This is not quite true.

If you went to a small hill near the house I grew up in and used a pair of powerful binoculars you could possibly just make out the back of beyond from there.

A bus ride would take you to that point and then, of course, it was relatively easy to get to parts that were construed as civilised but were, as a matter of fact, not quite.

Civilisation seemed to start around a hundred and eighty miles away outside Gran’s house in Mortlake, Surrey.

It is at Mortlake where the annual Boat Race contested between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge are concluded. Level with what was ‘Watney’s Brewery’ but is now ‘Budweiser’, I am told.

Appropriate, really. It seems that a large percentage of the boat crews are American. Makes them feel at home, no doubt, to see the ‘Budweiser’ sign at the end of their exhausting struggle up the River Thames.

“Older Budweiser,” as the saying goes. Perhaps, in their case, the difference may be regarded as marginal at best.

As a small lad I went in for sport. It was completely accidental. If I had my time over again I feel that I should possibly do something better with my time.

Sport is wonderful to watch but, for some reason, I find it arduous to participate.

Over the years I have tried many sports. Mostly accidentally. For example, we went to Bristol with the Air Training Corps swimming team. Bristol is another of those places that you feel should be civilised but, somehow, never quite grasped the concept and fell by the wayside. We may come back to that.

The thing about this trip is that I cannot swim. It is inexplicable how it is that I came to be involved with this trip other than as a general dogsbody. Sadly, they discovered that they were one short for the team and asked if I could swim. In a rash act of total stupidity I mentioned that I could probably manage a width backstroke without drowning.

They put me down as the Squadron backstroke champion.

I was last. By a very, very long chalk! It is entirely possible that most people had gone home before I finished the one length required of me.

The ‘Boss’ was jubilant. I had earned the team a point by the simple expedient of actually finishing.

Athletics. I accidently won the school high jump in the annual sports day. That doomed me to represent the school in the area championships. I accidentally won that, too. I had no technique, no skill, no real clue what I was supposed to be doing but I won and represented the County at the National Schools Sports Day in Sheffield.

A nightmare.

Nothing wrong with Sheffield. Myself and another fellow were lodged with a guy from the Royal Observer Corps who had a gammy leg and a jubilant expression when he discovered I was in the Air Training Corps. He took us to see the sights that were, largely, the Bessemer furnaces firing up at night. Impressive. The sight is still an image in my memory to this day.

I lost. Fortunately. Being well outclassed by many other boys was such a relief.

I tried rugby but was banned for violent misconduct; football (soccer) showed up my inability to coordinate with the ball—something that has left me to eschew the likes of golf, tennis and badminton. I can barely hit a cricket ball with a bat but the direction that the ball ends up in is a complete mystery to me before and after striking the ball.

I found a niche refereeing football. I like football so this was convenient. It is always worthwhile doing something physical in the military; the ‘powers that be’ seem to like that sort of thing. Doing physical things with young ladies seems to be frowned upon so we kept that side of things carefully under wraps!

At a ‘certain age’ they seem content to let you do more restful things. I went fishing. In the sea. The advantage with such a sport is that you can eat the result for tea.

I try to avoid becoming accidentally entwined with sport now.

A weekly sortie into the worlds of football predictions is plenty of exercise for my ancient muscles now.

The doctor told me to get more exercise so I bought a bigger keyboard.