Category: Sports

I’d always been curious about rowing but had always believed that I didn’t have the right physical make up to do it. I’d also never seen or heard of any local clubs, or even knew anyone involved in it. Like most other people my only exposure to it was watching Redgrave and Pinsent pick up their Olympic gold medals every four years or randomly catching the Boat Race on TV. I’d used the indoor rowing machine on many occasions at the gym, but that was it.

I first became intrigued in actually doing it as a sport at a work sales conference in Dublin, Ireland. As with many other similar meetings we had an external speaker come along to use as a motivational tactic. These took on various forms throughout the years, including the Olympic gold medal cyclist Chris Boardman, a hostage negotiator, a blind marathon runner, Olympic gold medal swimmer Adrian Moorhouse and a host of others. Being sports mad, I always find these really interesting. But I know there are many people who find the whole thing completely irritating. In fairness, there is always a tenuous link between the experience of the presenter and how that can be applied in a business context. It’s very hard to make the leap from someone sat on a bike as a living with one sole aim to win a gold medal, to convincing someone in hospital to buy a sticky dressing. Having a clear plan, meeting targets, playing to your strengths etc are very relevant but it’s an analogy only. I just like hearing from professional sportsmen and getting a glimpse in to their world. One of the perks of the job as far as I’m concerned.

On this particular occasion, the presenter was Garry Herbert. He was the cox for the Searle brothers in the coxed pair at the Atlanta games. He famously cried his eyes out on the podium whilst the Searle brothers towered above him and looked slightly bemused. It’s a very inspirational race. They beat the Italian Abagnale brothers who had been unbeaten in the run up to the games, and they did it through sheer guts and determination. Garry showed the race during his presentation and explained the psychology that they had deployed to win against all the odds. As part of the session he asked for volunteers to row on an ergo for thirty seconds. I can’t even remember why, but being me, I volunteered. It turns out I did ok, Garry made some comment about being impressed with the metres gained and I won whatever challenge it was that he’d got us to do. It may not have been much, but it was enough to get me thinking. Garry completed his presentation and I made a beeline afterwards to say how much I’d enjoyed his talk. He seemed genuinely grateful I’d said something, I think he’d been fairly nervous. I guess it can be pretty daunting to stand up in front of a group of strangers, even if you have won an Olympic gold medal.

On the way back from the conference I got chatting to a colleague of mine and mentioned that I fancied getting in to rowing but didn’t think I had the right physique. He encouraged me to give it a go. ‘What have you got to lose?’ was his remark. He had a point. When I got back home I searched local clubs and found out that there were two not far from me in Burton-Upon-Trent. I literally had no idea they were there. Based on no other reason other than one club looked slightly more appealing than the other, I emailed the club secretary of Burton Leander and enquired about joining. I got a response pretty quickly inviting me to come along to a Sunday morning club session to meet him and have an introductory session, so that’s what I did.

The introduction basically involved a guide around the clubhouse and a lesson on how to row properly on an ergo. The club consisted of a weights room, indoor rowing area, club meeting room complete with kitchen and bar, and a boathouse filled with all sizes of rowing boats from single sculls to Eights. As a member you were allowed to use any club boat and had access to all the facilities for a very small annual membership fee. The clubhouse was right next to the river Trent, and I got to watch the club members row up and down the river in front of the landing pontoon. I was made to feel very welcome and any doubts about being the wrong physical size were dissipated when I looked around and saw all shapes, sizes and ages of those involved. I agreed to come back the following week where they promised I would get to go in a training boat to learn the basics of sculling. Now this was completely new to me too. I wasn’t aware that you could row with two oars i.e. sculling. I had only previously seen people in what I learnt were sweep oar boats i.e. single oar, where you had crew members rowing on different sides. I also learnt that rowing on the right side of a sweep oar boat was called ‘stroke side’, and the left was ‘bow side’. Confusingly the rower at the front of the boat was also called the ‘stroke man’ and the person at the back was at ‘bow’. The stroke person generally set the rhythm of the boat for the other rowers to follow. The person at bow generally steered the boat with their feet using a foot plate attached to the rudder underneath the boat, unless it was a coxed boat which in that case the cox would steer using a pulley system. If there was a cox, they would set the tempo, steer and drive the race tactics. Without a cox, this fell to a nominated person within the boat to make the calls. Confused? Yep, I was too.

Burton Leander as it turned out was more of a sculling club. Most of the boats were used for rowing with two oars each, and of course you could only row single boats by sculling. The minimum for a sweep oar boat was 2 people, which was called a pair. As I later found out, these were the most tricky to row as balance was crucial. But as a beginner at Burton Leander, sculling was the way to learn. That following Sunday I got in the ‘yellow boat’ which was very stable and was attached with a rope to someone on the pontoon so they could reel you back in if you were struggling. The first experience in one of these was quite nerve wracking even though it was virtually impossible to capsize. The technique of placing the oars or ‘blades’ in the water was something you had to get used to whilst learning how to balance the boat using your body position.

It took some time, but slowly I got used to sculling.
It wasn’t long before I was put in an Octuple, an eight man sculling boat. This was fairly safe for everyone because with that amount of people even a complete novice can’t cause the boat to capsize. It also meant that the person behind me could coach me by talking me through the movement and exercises designed to improve technique. The coaches talked about not ‘catching a crab’ which I learnt was not some STD reference, but instead meant not getting your blade stuck in the water because you’d got it twisted. I would catch many crabs throughout my rowing time. A particularly spectacular one occurred whilst rowing in an eight in preparation for the Head of the River race down on the Thames. I unwisely decided that I could tighten my Velcro straps on my footboard whilst rowing. In turns out you can’t. The next thing I knew I was underwater after effectively catapulting myself out of the boat. Bobbing up out of the water I started laughing as the rest of the crew looked at me, trying to understand just how I’d managed to end up out of the boat.

I managed to capsize on numerous occasions whilst in the single scull. Having taken up rowing quite late on I think I was overly nervous about trying not to make a mistake. This didn’t help. Being relaxed is the best way to keep balanced. On one occasion I caught a huge crab in one of the long stretches of water a couple of km’s up river. I ended up upside down but managed to get myself back in and get going again. As I was completely on my own no-one actually saw me do it and by the time I got back to the club I had completely dried out. A clubmate helped pull me in to the pontoon and noticed a large amount of water sloshing about in the foot well. He asked if I’d capsized, and I flatly denied it. There was no other logical reason for the water in the boat but admitting it was a no no. It was just a recipe for relentless ribbing from the lads, so I kept shtum.

The coached outings were great fun and I learnt a lot. The real way to make improvements though is to master the single scull. Once I had learnt the basics in the yellow boat, the next step was to learn to row solo with extra stabiliser floats attached to the rigging. This was to get you used to the narrower design of the single scull and lean balance before progressing to scull without the stabilisers.

It’s fair to say I was very nervous to begin with, as most novice scullers are but the coaches and club mates were very patient and supportive. The challenge was to progress to be good enough to earn a place in the crew boats with the aim of entering races. After a few weeks this is what happened and I began to train in a quad (four man sculling boat). The river in Burton is a great stretch of water. You can row around 4 kilometres from the clubhouse upstream before turning back round. This was great for training sessions as we tended to do drills and exercise on the way up the river, and then do races on the way back down. The feel of a boat moving fast through the water when you are going at full speed is pretty exhilarating and I soon got the bug for racing.

Yes, you’ve read that correctly. I’ve tried hang gliding. This was another one of my random wanderings during my wilderness years. I went through a period of trying to find something new and different.

I’m not sure what led me to try hang gliding to be honest, I wouldn’t say I’m an adrenalin junkie. I’ve never wanted to go anywhere near a motorbike or anything particularly dangerous. The closest I’ve probably come to that is doing a bungee jump whilst on holiday in Turkey. It wasn’t something I’d considered before, it hadn’t even entered my head. During the holiday myself and my partner at the time would walk from the hotel to the resort centre to look for places to eat. Sticking out like a sore thumb due to my pasty white skin or sunburn (I sunbathe, go red, peel and then go back to white again. Standard) we used to get bombarded by the waiters as we walked past their restaurants. This is a common tactic of the local restaurant staff to try and charm you so that you’ll wander in. It’s ok but gets annoying after a few days, particularly when they turn from being all nice and smiley to almost aggressive when you fail to live up to your suggestion of ‘maybe tomorrow’.

Once we’d got through ‘Hassle Street’ you could see the bungee jumpers leaping off a crane over the sea near the resort harbour. The first few days I saw it I was dead set that I would never do it, but as the week went on and I saw more and more people making the jump I started to warm to the idea. One day we were walking past and there was no queue, they had just opened up for the night. Thinking that the best way to approach this was to just get it over and done with quickly with no time to start talking myself out of it, I walked over to the guy selling the tickets and went for it.

After the obligatory signing of the disclaimer document I got measured up for weight and height so that they could calculate the correct bungee length. I was asked if I wanted to dip my head in to the water on the way down, but I politely declined that element. I can understand why people do that but it seemed bad enough without the prospect of slamming my head on water as well. Why anyone would sign up for bungee jumps over land is beyond me. At least over water you should be ok if the length of the bungee is wrong or breaks, over land you’re stuffed. No thanks.

I made my way to the platform where I was going to jump off from and was given a safety talk by the guys up there. To be fair, it was pretty simple. Jump outwards and then plummet. They did all the necessary fastening and tightening so that I was strapped to my bungee cord. I was then told to shuffle to the end of the platform ready for the jump. I stopped when I thought I was at the end only to be told that I need to shuffle about another foot further along. Up until that point I hadn’t looked down, but there was no way I could know where I needed to be without doing so. As soon as I did, reality hit hard. It was a proper scary moment. My heart started going like the clappers. The guys on the platform were more than used to this of course, and were loving the fact that I was clearly starting to panic. Offering me reassurances that ‘don’t worry, we haven’t had any fatalities yet’ was just what I needed.
Checking if I was ready, Mr Motivator started counting me down from 3…2…1…and then I jumped. Oh….my….god. It was the most bizarre sensation, my stomach felt as though it was literally coming out of my mouth on the way down. I tried to scream but I couldn’t. The wind was completely knocked out of me. It felt like I was falling forever. Before I knew it I was bouncing back up again, and then falling again. Knowing that I had to go down again was the worst. By the time I came to a halt I had had more than enough. I put a brave face on it and pretended I loved it, but there was no way I was doing that again. Box ticked, move on.

Back to hang gliding. The bungee jump experience was not something I wanted to repeat. Hang gliding seemed a lot more graceful but with an element of adrenaline attached to it. I’d also had a fascination with flying, so I was curious as to what this would feel like. I’d had thoughts of joining the RAF when I was younger and had even enquired at a school careers fair but that was the sum of it.

Having visions of leaping off mountains I signed up for a two day taster session in the Peak District to decide whether it was something I would enjoy. I put myself down on the list and reserved my slot but as with windsurfing the sport is very weather dependant so there was no guarantee when the lesson would be. The instructor would be in touch when he was confident there would be an appropriate weather window to go ahead. Checking in with him the day before the first lesson he confirmed that the weather was looking good and I was to meet him in the car park of a pub in the Peaks. This sounded very clandestine and when I turned up the next day the fog was rolling in. It was like something out of a Hammer Horror film.
When the instructor turned up, myself and some others who had signed up for the course were told to get in our cars and follow him to a nearby peak. The higher we went, the foggier it got. I wasn’t massively confident that leaping off a mountain would be the best thing to do in this kind of visibility but what did I know.

When we got to the summit, it was clear that no leaping was on the agenda. The idea instead was to experience ‘flying’ by being strapped in to a hang glider whilst the instructor and his helper held on to us with ropes to stop us disappearing. Less flying, more floating. I’m not sure why I’d expected anything more rudimentary than this given I was a complete novice. It’s probably something to do with the fact that I’ve got zero patience and expect to be able to jump straight in to things. You may have guessed this already.

When I got my turn to get strapped in and do my floating, it was actually quite enjoyable. It was a very windy day so we were getting buffeted around quite a bit whilst we were up in the air and you did get a sense of what It would be like, without any of the associated danger of crashing headfirst in to the side of a mountain. At the end of the lesson we were told to come back the next day for the second part.
As it turned out, the weather wasn’t good enough the following day so I had to wait a few more weeks before I got my second stint. Same kind of routine as before but a slightly different location in the Peak District. This time we were taken to a field with a fairly steep incline. Instead of being tethered like we were in the previous lesson, this time we would be getting much more of a flavour of learning to actually hang glide.

Once the glider was assembled the instructor showed us what he wanted us to do. You positioned yourself underneath the wings with the glider resting on your shoulders. You then started to run so that the wind would come under the wings enabling you to get off your feet and glide down the hill by holding on to the metal frame. You could then use the bar of the frame to push the wings up or down to catch the wind, enabling you to stay in the air. This was more like it. He did a few demonstrations and then it was our turn. It wasn’t that easy.

The first time I ran down, I just fell over in to a pile of sheep poo with the hang glider upended. Nice. The same thing happened a few times. Run, jump, crash, sheep poo. The instructor was very patient though and just kept suggesting adjustments to what I was doing. On about the fifth attempt, I ran a bit faster and felt the wind fill up the wings. I jumped up and this time the glider got airborne and I flew for about thirty metres before again landing in sheep poo. It actually felt really good. After that I got the hang of it (no pun intended) and managed to get slightly further each time. The instructor was delighted, much to the annoyance of one of the other guys who was there on the course. He was having a nightmare. However hard he tried he couldn’t get the glider off the ground. We’d had a conversation earlier where he’d admitted that hang gliding was something that he’d always wanted to do. He’d actually signed up for a week long course, so his lack of success was starting to get him down. He was getting a bit despondent and the instructor was clearly getting frustrated with him which can’t have helped. I think he gave in and left before the end of the day.

At the end of the session I was getting on well with the instructor. He was trying to encourage me to get in to it as a serious hobby. He started talking about joining as a member of his hang gliding club and was talking enthusiastically about the cost of gliders. Nice as it was, the experience hadn’t got me hooked. Being a fair weather sportsman the thought of only being able to only do it in windy conditions wasn’t appealing. I wasn’t about to make the same compulsive mistake I’d made with windsurfing and shell out thousands of pounds for a piece of kit I was never going to use. I’m sure the garage would have had room, but I’d had my fill of sheep poo related flying incidents.

It has to be said, golf is not exactly in line with my love of keeping fit. Walking around a course for hours on end whacking a little white ball around doesn’t really float my boat. Why on earth would I by a set of golf clubs then? Good question.

I’d occasionally gone down to Lichfield municipal golf course in Beacon Park with my mates from school whilst we were at the Friary. This mainly happened during the school holidays and involved renting a set of mangled clubs from a little white hut next to the children’s playground and crazy golf course. The course itself was pretty small and was very much designed to be a social thing rather than anything remotely serious. Some of the lads were quite handy players, but I was very much in the ‘whack it and attempt to putt’ category. My technique was awful, and my patience wasn’t much better. I was well known amongst my friends for having a short fuse and getting frustrated if things weren’t going to plan. Playing a game where patience and calm are fundamental was not really playing to my strengths. So it was fair to say that I didn’t take these games very seriously and had no intention of getting better by practising.

We also occasionally went down to the local driving range. This better suited my personality given that it was all whacking and no putting. It also didn’t really matter if your technique was awful as you just picked another ball out of the basket if you hit a complete clanger. Every now and then I’d connect properly with the club and the ball would go sailing off in to the distance. It’s a pretty good feeling to be fair so I do get the attraction of regularly doing that but this was clearly never going to be a serious hobby.

I played a few times at University with my mates. This time we went to proper courses where the etiquette was a lot more formal. Sharing clubs and not wearing the proper attire was frowned upon, but we somehow managed to get a few rounds in. As with my school mates we treated it as a bit of laugh. We were all around the same mediocre standard apart from Ian, who was my roommate in my first year and one of my housemates in the third year. Ian was the first person I met when I arrived at Loughborough University. My parents brought me with all my stuff to the hall on the weekend before term started. I knew I was in the Holt hall of residence, which was off campus. This was a bit of a disappointment when I found out as my expectation was that I’d be in one of the halls situated on the main University site. I’d imagined that being on campus was a normal experience of student life so felt I was going to miss out in some way. It was therefore an even bigger shock to find out when I registered at the hall that I wasn’t actually going to be in the Holt site either. I was in one of the annexes called Westbridge, and this one was an all-male hall. Now, being off site was one thing but being surrounded by blokes only was a different proposition altogether.

It was with some trepidation then that I got back in the car with my parents and headed over to my new home. That’s when I discovered I was sharing a room. Things were going from bad to worse. My student dream life was rapidly going down the pan.

When I got to my room I met Ian who was already unpacking his things. We began the small talk and it soon turned in to one of those weird coincidences that sometimes happen. We got on to the subject of where we were from and at that time I had been living in a village called Whittington, a few miles from Lichfield. We’d moved from Stonnall when I was eleven, just before I went to secondary school. Where we lived was down a quiet lane that ran around the back of the village playing field where there were only a few houses. It was called Vicarage Lane and it turned out that Ian’s Uncle lived in the house at the end of the lane so he had regularly been there for family gatherings. Small world. It was a great icebreaker as we had something in common, even though it was fairly trivial. From that point on we got on pretty well.

Ian was there to study Mechanical Engineering and had signed up for a Masters degree, so would be doing one more year than me. It was obvious that he was very intelligent. He was also a keen golfer (got there in the end, I bet you were beginning to wonder what I was going on about). He had grown up in Sheffield and had been very good friends with Lee Westwood, who went on to be a very successful professional golfer. Like virtually everyone in the hall, Ian soon picked up a nickname. Due to his strong Sheffield accent, he was Ratskin as in ‘two bob and a ratskin’. Can’t recall who’s bright idea it was to name him that, but it stuck. It was a hall ritual of the second year students to provide everyone with nicknames. As well as Ratskin there was a whole variety of new names. My friend Mark became Closet, due to being a closet ginger. Wyn became Hoop as his surname was Hopkins. Paul became Damian, because he had a passing resemblance to a character in Australian soap Neighbours. You get the idea. This made it really difficult when the hall phone rang and a parent asked for their son. Quite often no-one knew the real names of their house mates, so there would be confused scrabble to work out who they were referring to. This soon developed in to the phone game, where the person answering would deliberately put the wrong person on the phone. This was hilarious until you were the one it happened to. It was quite a regular occurrence for the caller to hang up after the third incorrect person came to the phone.

Ratskin ended up doing his Master’s dissertation on golf club design, which was a fairly good indication that he was a fan of the sport. Not only was he a very intelligent guy but he also had the great fortune to have a photographic memory. This was a major advantage for him and a source of great annoyance to us. As we went through the painstaking process of cramming before the exams, Ratskin would be calmly confident as he’d taken it all in from just one reading.

So every now and then we’d head to the golf course to spend a few hours whacking a ball about. Nothing serious, except for when Ratskin joined us and easily got the lowest score of the day. We also played golf after leaving University when we went up to see Closet at his family home in Berwick. The golf course was on the top of a hill, with RAF planes acting out dogfights. There was more than one occasion when we got frightened to death when a fighter jet came roaring over the course.

However, it wasn’t until after University that I went ahead and bought my own set of clubs. It wasn’t because I suddenly had some mad epiphany that I was going to become good at it, it was actually because it was the only chance to really meet up with one of my school mates, Wieland (his real name was Jonny, but in true bloke style we called him by his surname). Wieland was a keen golfer, having inherited his dad’s skills. He was also a policeman working shifts, so it was pretty difficult to see him on a regular basis. A few of us started to join him for a game of golf on one of the council golf courses in Birmingham. We started off by sharing clubs from Wieland’s set but after getting abuse from club members on multiple occasions I decided I’d invest in my own set.

I really was not very good so decided to have a lesson at the driving range in Lichfield. The coach asked me to hit a few balls while he videoed me. The idea was that he would analyse my technique and then offer some tips on how I could make some improvements. I thought I’d done pretty well as I connected with the balls and had hit them a fairly long way. The coach told me he had a couple of suggestions. This included my grip, my stance, my head position, my swing rotation and my eyeline. So basically everything. Once he’s made all his suggestions I could hardly hit the ball, and it felt like learning to write left handed. I’m sure it was all perfectly valid, but it was hardly inspiring me.

Armed with my new knowledge I took to the course with Wieland and company and proceeded to be just as bad as ever, much to everyone’s amusement. Every so often we would organise a weekend away at a hotel and golf course in what became known as the ‘Wielnad Cup’. A handicap system was applied to level the playing field, but Wieland generally won. It didn’t help that getting drunk and having a laugh was the main priority rather than the golf.

Much as it was great to spend time with mates, four or five hours on a golf course was getting a bit unmanageable, particularly when my first daughter, Erica, came along. So apart from a few rounds at stag do’s, and work conferences the golf clubs didn’t really get used. The most memorable golf experience at work was at a course near Cheltenham as part of a national sales event. The UK MD for the company at the time was an American, and he was a mad keen golfer. He also used to be an American football quarterback, so was a pretty big guy. Being the MD he would always be the one to tee off first, proudly knocking lumps out of the golf ball with his massive driver. Being quite a loud bloke as well, he would shout something like ‘watch this!’ before smashing it down the fairway. It turned out that myself and another work colleague called JY were in a four ball behind Jim’s group, which consisted of three senior members of the management team. On the approach to one of the greens, JY managed to slice a shot so badly that it went straight towards Jim’s group who were lining up at the next tee. It must have missed the MD’s head by a couple of inches. JY’s desperate cries of ‘Four’ didn’t so much to alert the group, much to the anger of one of them who stormed over yelling at us. Jim himself wasn’t that fussed and instead tried to coach JY into improving his swing. Needless to say we hung back a little after that.

Unsurprisingly, the golf clubs got consigned to the garage of discarded hobbies soon after this and haven’t been used again since. Not a huge surprise that golf wasn’t my thing but it had provided a few comedy moments and had helped spend some time with a mate. Golf is now an Olympic sport after being introduced at the 2016 games in Rio, which I find slightly strange. Even so, it’s not something I see myself doing again.

Probably should explain this one. I liked swimming. Swimming involved water. Must do some kind of sport that involved water. Logical.

I’d had my first taste of windsurfing whilst on holiday with my parents in Greece. Corfu to be more precise. I was probably about twelve so this definitely wasn’t a ‘going out clubbing’ holiday in some kind of Ibiza Weekender thing. No, this was a family holiday involving a beach and occasional sightseeing to some local ruin (or something like that). The beach that we went to near our villa was one where you can do various watersports like tazzing about on a jet ski, water skiing or windsurfing. After watching this from the comfort of the sun bed we decided it would be good to give the windsurfing a go. There was a guy offering lessons on the beach. He was your fairly typical leather skinned sun worshipper who spent the summer season teaching windsurfing and the winter season being a ski instructor. To a twelve year old kid, that sounded like the coolest life on the planet. Probably still does.

My dad, brother and me signed up for an hour lesson whilst my mum carried on sunbathing. Since my dad and I don’t tan, at all, doing something active was always good. I actually like the sun but my skin definitely doesn’t. Avoiding getting burnt has always been the prime objective even though I have occasionally attempted to go for a lower factor in the vain hope that I would go some other colour than pink or red. I’ve learnt over the years that this is a pointless exercise. My uncle (who practically went black) would take great pleasure in ribbing me for coming back from holiday exactly the same colour as when I left. My mum and brother on the other hand used to put on sun oil and come back looking like they were from deepest, darkest India. All that really happens to me is that my hair and eyebrows go blonde, I turn red for a bit, peel and then go back to normal. Pointless.

Covered from head to toe in factor nine million I headed off to the lesson. The first part involved practising lifting the sail on a demo board on the beach. This was as far as I got. I was a bit small in those days and didn’t have the strength in my skinny arms to pull the sail up, much to my annoyance and embarrassment. I spent the next hour watching my brother and dad learn the basics first on the sand and then in the water. I was pretty jealous so sat there silently fuming.

Fast forward a few years to my mid-twenties and I was well in to my post rugby injury wilderness years. I’d been trying to find a replacement for rugby that involved something a bit more interesting than just swimming or running and somehow landed on windsurfing as a possibility. I can’t recall why I’d settled on that, but it’s probably something to do with regular visits to my parents second home in Aberdovey, mid Wales. My parents had bought it whilst I was working in Paris, having been looking at that area for some time. Some friends of ours from Lichfield Swimming Club owned a house there and we’d stayed there occasionally on a few weekends. Aberdovey itself is a really nice seaside village with a beautiful long beach that is a great place to relax. The house that my parents bought has a fantastic view of the sea that is amazingly calming. From there you can see the boats coming in and out, as well as watching the windsurfers bombing up and down. They occasionally have windsurfing championships there as the wind can be perfect for racing. It’s quite a sight to watch. Jo, my Swimming Club mate was part of the family who owned the house that we had stayed at. She is a pretty decent windsurfer and makes it look easy. I guess I thought that it would be cool to learn how to windsurf and then do it when in Aberdovey. Made perfect sense to me. How hard could it be?

I signed up for beginner’s lessons at Chasewater sailing club, which was only ten miles from where I lived in Lichfield at that time. The lessons were held on three consecutive weekends and I picked up the basics of getting on the board, lifting up the sail, staying on and turning. There were a group of us on the course and I quite enjoyed it. Turning was always a bit of a struggle. Rather than flipping around like Jo and other seasoned windsurfers, I had to basically drop the sail, walk round the end of the board and then lift the sail back up to get going again. Well that was the idea, most of the time I fell off and had to climb back on to start the entire process all over again. Anyway, that’s just part of the learning curve after only a few lessons so I wasn’t too dispirited.

Following that initial course I would regularly go down to the club on Saturdays, borrow a board and practice. After a number of weekends doing this I decided it would be a good idea to get a board of my own. Luckily I’d just got my year-end bonus from work (I was a medical sales representative at the time for 3M. This basically involved selling wound dressings to nurses in hospitals or in the community. I’d never intended to get in to sales but like most of my roles during my career, I fell in to it and ended up quite enjoying it. Getting a year-end bonus for a good year was a pretty good perk in my book) so I decided to buy one. Not knowing an awful lot about what type of gear to get I went to the local windsurfing shop in Chasetown and enquired what to get. I was reliably informed that for a beginner/intermediate like myself a Bic Techno was the board of choice. So that’s what I got.

I fully intended to get competent on it at the club and end up taking it to Aberdovey where I could get out in to the swell at the weekends we were there. I enjoyed the freedom that having my own board brought so went down to Chasewater fairly regularly to practice my turns. Now, the one thing about windsurfing is that the best conditions are when the weather is bad. This completely makes sense of course as stormy weather brings the wind, and provides the best conditions for going fast. It also means that in the UK, these conditions generally mean that it’s cold and miserable. For great windsurfers this isn’t an issue because they don’t often fall in. For relative newcomers like me though, falling in is pretty standard. Not a problem I thought, it’s a necessary part of getting better. The trouble is I’d seen Point Break, the surfing film where Keanu Reeves is a cop who learns to surf in order to infiltrate a gang of surfing bank robbers. In fact I’d watched it dozens of times. Not because it was a fantastic film, but because it was our post pub film in my third year at University. Fuelled by beer and tucking in to kebabs or chips my housemates and I would watch Keanu and Patrick Swayze doing their surfing thing in crystal clear waters in some ocean paradise. It was complete nonsense but myself, Mark, Wyn and Ian (my housemates) would get great amusement from quoting the cheesey lines until we passed out on the sofa.

Windsurfing in the UK, particularly on a lake in the Midlands (which is about as far away from the coast as you can get) bore no resemblance to the Point Break image. I clearly hadn’t thought this through. With very little body fat to insulate me from the cold I tended to get wet and miserable pretty quickly so stormy conditions weren’t very appealing. Rather than embracing the terrible weather and ‘waiting for my set’ like Patrick Swayze’s character in point Break, Bodie, I would avoid going down the club preferring instead to go out it in sunnier, warmer conditions. I basically became a fair weather surfer which defeated the whole point. Mastering the art of quickly turning in windy conditions was not really going to happen. This was in spite of the encouragement from Jo and her husband, Stu, to get out on the board and practice. The trouble was that they were much more used to braving the conditions. In fact they lived in Scotland right on the West Coast where they could rig up on their lawn and jump straight in to the estuary. Stu was an ardent watcher of the weather forecasts and would revel in the approach of storms so he could get out in to the choppy conditions. He has loads of stories of his windsurfing antics including one when he decided to surf in the wake of a surfacing submarine. He ended up getting pulled over by a Police boat, not because it was illegal but more because they were concerned he’d get dragged in to the propeller that followed the vessel. Fearing he’s get minced they suggested he no longer did it. Stu listened politeyly and then continued doing it as soon as they’d gone.

Exciting as these stories sounded, spending my weekends getting cold and wet started to lose its appeal. It wasn’t long before the board was resigned to the garage along with other dropped hobbies. Getting an Olympic medal from Windsurfing was clearly not going to happen. Back to the drawing board once more.

I was given Snowboard lesson vouchers for my birthday one year. These were for Tamworth Snowdome, not far from where I lived in Lichfield. I had always fancied giving it a go but wasn’t sure how I’d get on. I’d always been a skier and I’d been told that snowboarding was a completely different technique more akin to skateboarding. Although it was pretty popular for a few of my mates when I was at school I had never tried getting on a skateboard. I couldn’t see the appeal. Falling off on to concrete just didn’t sound like a barrel of laughs. Not to be put off I enrolled in the lessons with every intention of becoming a snowboarder for an upcoming holiday in Cervinia, Italy.

I ended up doing three lessons in total. It was true that the technique involved is quite different. In skiing I was used to putting my weight forward on to the front of my feet, but snowboarding seemed to involve the weight shifting to your heels. I can’t say I was a natural. I got the basics but it was obviously one that you need to persevere otherwise you end up constantly face planting and eating snow. However, after the lessons I felt capable enough to try it out on holiday.

I made the mistake of hiring out skis for the first two days of the holiday. By the time I hired the snowboard on the third day I was completely used to skiing again. I spent the whole day on my backside. I also found it frustrating when the piste flattened off. Without ski poles to push myself along I ended up unclipping and walking to the next downhill section. After falling down for the umpteenth time I decided to take the board back and get back on to my trusty skis. Probably not quite as cool as the boarding scene, but it all just seemed like far too much hard work to me.

Attempt failed. This wasn’t for me.

Lessons learnt for Ironman? Er…don’t change tack at the last minute and wimp out on your plans? That’s all I can think of, but that’ll do.

I first got introduced to skiing whilst on a boy Scout trip to Scotland. I was a member of the Stonnall Scout club, having started as a Cub at Primary school. My brother and I used to go down to the local scout hut in the village every Thursday evening after school. I remember it was a big deal growing up. Pretty much all of my friends at the school were also members. After going through the ceremony of getting your first woggle (major big deal for a seven year old) the objective seemed to be to try and win as many badges as possible. You won a badge for completing a task or activity. For example, there was a ‘hobby’ badge that you could get by demonstrating your knowledge in your chosen subject. If you passed the criteria outlined in the boy scout handbook you would be awarded a badge which you then sewed on to your shirt or jumper. Having a sleeve full of badges was like getting thousands of likes on Facebook. You were the man. For my hobby badge I chose Star Wars. This was an easy choice as I was completely nuts about the films and was obsessed with collecting all of the action figures. It wasn’t hard to buy me presents for birthday and Christmas. Literally anything related to Star Wars was a result as far as I was concerned. Easiest scout badge earnt ever.

It was a great social environment and we quite often went away on camping trips. These were always to sites geared up for outdoor activities. As a kid growing up it was perfect. I can’t possibly list everything that we did, but we got introduced to abseiling, climbing, orienteering, archery, horse riding and a host of others. I loved the variety. Even then it suited my desire to try as many things as possible. It was on a camping trip not far from Aviemore when I had my first skiing taster. It was during the summer so we went to the dry ski slope. We only went up and down the bottom section of the slope but we were introduced to the basics and it was great fun.

It wasn’t until a few years later that I got my second go at it. The Friary school organised a skiing trip to Austria whilst I was in my third year and my parents agreed to let me go. In preparation, myself and a few others who were novices undertook lessons at the closest dry ski slope in Atherstone. We went regularly for a few weeks and I gradually grew in confidence, eventually going from the top of the slope. One day I got a bit carried away and attempted to go a bit faster rather than the usual approach of zig zagging down. Picking up speed, I lost control and crossed my skis. The next few minutes were a blur. I knew I’d had a crash but didn’t really know what had happened. I picked myself up off the floor and made my way back to the bottom of the slop to get the button lift back up. I was just about to go down again when another skier put his hand on my shoulder and politely suggested I got off the slope. Feeling a bit groggy I followed his advice and went and got changed. It turns out I’d done a somersault and landed on my head! I had a pounding headache over the next few days so I’m pretty sure I momentarily knocked myself out. Always good to get a bout of concussion to fill you with confidence ahead of a week’s skiing holiday.

Undaunted I carried on practicing and got on the plane with the others going from the school a few weeks later. This was my first foreign trip without my parents and it was fantastic. I’m sure they were very nervous about it but I couldn’t wait. The whole thing was an adventure. When we finally arrived at the resort we sorted ourselves in to dormitories. I was in a room with five other lads, with the usual teenage banter. We probably got a few hours sleep that first night and then it was down for breakfast the next morning before getting kitted out with skis, boots and poles.

We were split in to groups based on our ability and met up with our ski instructors. The one who was in charge of the group I was in turned out to be the son of the resort owner. It soon became obvious that he was only bothered about doing exactly what he wanted to do. He didn’t like hanging around for anyone and became easily irritated by those in the group not able to keep up. We stuck to the main pistes for the first couple of days but after that he took us on his own routes. He was a bit of a poser, but he was good fun. We did powder skiing, moguls and lots of other things that we probably shouldn’t have been doing. He basically didn’t care. After all, there was no way he was going to get fired.

This was going well until the fourth day. Mr ‘too cool for this job’ took us straight to the top of the mountain, with the intention of more off-piste skiing. I came off the chair lift as usual, pushed off to start skiing when my clasp that held my right ski boot in place fell off. My instructor took one look at it and rolled his eyes. There was no way he could fix it, the only option was to go back to the hire centre for them to sort it out. Skiing on one ski wasn’t an option so I had to get back on the chair lift and make my way back down to the bottom of the mountain. Going up on a chair lift is fun, going down is pants. I was the only one going down and it was a series of lifts with some walking involved between each lift section. It took hours. When I eventually got to the hire centre I presented my broken ski to the guy behind the desk. He was about as sympathetic as a lion tamer. Muttering something about ‘doing it when I’ve got a spare minute’ he walked off and left me there standing like a proper plum. After Mr miserable finally got round to fixing my ski I was back out with the group later that afternoon.

The rest of the trip went smoothly and time flew. The instructor continued to take us on magical mystery tours and we all improved loads over the course of the week. On top of that, the setting was beautiful. Austria was a perfect location for my first snow skiing holiday. The pistes went through deep forests and the views from the mountain were breath taking. The village itself was really pretty with traditional chalets and restaurants dotted everywhere. In the evenings we had a meal in the hotel followed by some kind of entertainment, mainly discos where we did embarrassing boy dancing in a vain attempt to impress the girls. It didn’t, obviously. Sliding about on your knees pretending to play air guitar is pretty standard for lads, whereas the girls sat around blatantly ignoring us. At least we had a laugh. By the end of the week I was shattered but had had a great time. When we arrived back home our parents were waiting for us. I remember my mum coming over and being delighted to see me. She wanted to know everything about the trip, but I was in a proper grump on the drive back home. I’d had such a great time but my post-holiday blues translated in to an ungrateful teenager. Can’t say I’m proud of that.

I didn’t ski again until a number of years later. After my knee injury I was understandably nervous about doing anything that involved twisting and skiing put a lot of pressure on your knee joints. However, I hadn’t had any issues for a few years following my second ligament repair so I was willing to give it a go. I took the extra precaution of buying a reinforced knee brace and had a trial go at the new Snowdome at Tamworth before going ahead and booking a holiday to Andorra. It was as good as I remember. Spent the week exploring the routes around the mountain, getting used to be being back on the skis. There were some difficult sections where going down a black route was unavoidable, but overall it was just good fun to be on the snow again. It wasn’t long before I was going down the pistes as fast as I possibly could.

I wouldn’t say I’m the most graceful of skiers. In fact, my technique is pretty kamikaze. I’ve subsequently done holidays in Italy, Switzerland and France and my approach is always the same. Start gently for a morning, and then go full gas from then on. I’m not sure it’s the best approach for someone with a dodgy knee but I like the adrenaline rush of flying down a mountain.

I always come back from these holidays more tired than I was before I went but they are great fun and are an amazing leg workout. Probably great preparation for long distance events, although I’m not sure the muscle groups or the injury risk factor necessarily support a build up to an Ironman. Maybe not one to include on the training programme this time round

Every year there was a West Midlands Biathlon race in Evesham, near Worcester, that acted as a qualifier for a newly created British National championships. If you finished in the top six, you went through. Having gained my confidence I came fifth in my first qualifier. This meant I could go to the National GB Championships being held in Southampton. This felt like a big deal to a twelve year old lad, and my parents were massively supportive. We made a weekend of it, driving the three or four hours down in my mum’s red Metro (yes, it was as stylish as it sounds). The Nationals were held over two days, with the swim on the Saturday and the run the following day. I was so excited, but really nervous too. Looking back, it probably wasn’t the best organised event in the world but it was my first taste of something bigger than regional races. We stayed in a hotel on the Friday and went along to the swimming pool at Southampton on the Saturday to register.

I did my usual warm up, practising starts and turns and getting used to the pool. Before long I was lined up waiting to start my race. Competitors were grouped according to swim times so I was with others of the same ability. As usual in all of the biathlons I did, I didn’t quite make my personal best meaning I lost some potential points on offer. This was something I got used to. A slight feeling of disappointment that I couldn’t produce my best when it mattered, and knowing that I was going to have to pull a good performance out of the bag on the run. No pressure then.

After a good night’s sleep, we made it down to the park for the run course. It was similar to the West Midlands course, over fields and finishing in some woods. I wore my spikes as it was slightly damp underfoot and waited as usual in line behind the other competitors for the start. Adopting my new tactic of going out like a bat out of hell for as long as I could, I sprinted out as soon as the official released me. I flew round and set a new personal best of 2mins and 57 seconds, the first time I’d gone under 3 minutes. It was good enough to get the third fastest time of the day, so I knew I’d leap up the leaderboard. It was then a long wait for the results.

My brother by that time was completely bored by the whole thing and was dying to go home. I can’t blame him, I’d have felt exactly the same. After what seemed like an eternity I found out I’d come 11th overall. I guess that doesn’t sound amazing, but in my little brain it meant I was 11th in the whole of Great Britain. That sounded pretty good to me, and was by the far the best result I’d ever achieved. I was chuffed to bits. Disappointed not to be getting medals, but chuffed nonetheless. I know my parents were too. It didn’t seem quite so long on the drive back, well to me anyway. I think my brother might not agree, but I felt like I was on cloud 9.

I subsequently competed in a few national championships, with my best placing being 7th at Corby in 1990. The same year the first International Biathlon event was held, and due to my result at Corby I was selected to represent the Midlands/England. This was undoubtedly the highest level of competition I had been involved in so far, so I was understandably excited about the competition. I started to train hard in preparation, and it was all going well until I contracted chicken pox from my brother a few weeks before the event. Even though my mum had taken us to so called ‘chicken pox’ parties when we were younger, neither of us had caught it. My brother had just started university at Aberystwyth and came home once he started getting ill. It wasn’t much fun for me as a sixteen year old but I got off lightly in comparison with Dave who ended up with shingles. My mum also contracted it, so all three of us were feeling sorry for ourselves at home for a couple of weeks. I remember dousing myself in Camomile lotion every day to try and prevent the itching. I looked like a ghost most of the time, pale and pasty from the cream. One day I decided to have a bath to try and make myself feel slightly more human, but this only intensified the itching when I got out. It was a thoroughly miserable experience for all concerned.

So I wasn’t in the best of shape leading up to the competition but I was determined to take part in case I never got the opportunity again. The event was also held at Corby with the usual format but this time I was part of a team of three representing the region. There was a team prize as well as an individual one, which made things a bit more interesting. I knew some of the competitors from the national championships, but there were also competitors from other countries. The guy to beat was a Welsh guy called Rhys, he won every national championships that I’d been involved in. Unsurprisingly he came first and equally unsurprising was that I didn’t get anywhere near my personal best times. The chicken pox had wiped me out and I hadn’t really had any time to get near my usual fitness. I’d say it was the taking part that mattered, but I don’t really mean that. I’m not much good at accepting defeat.

Having done a few competitions and seeing how they were run, my mum decided that it would be a good idea to stage an event at Lichfield. The sports centre we swam at was attached to the Friary school which had playing fields on site. It had all the facilities to host something like this and provided a great opportunity to raise funds for the club. I’m sure it was much more stressful for everyone to organise than I remember but the event proved a success. It became an annual thing which was great for the club.

As the distances got longer when I got older, I fared less well at the competitions and drifted away from it when I was around 17. I didn’t do another one until I was in my twenties but somehow managed to qualify again for the national championships which were held in Sheffield. I didn’t take it too seriously but it was good fun to do. That was the last one I did. At University I made friends with another member of the swimming squad and found out that he had come sixth at the Corby championships, one position ahead of me. The world’s a small place I guess.

So biathlon was pretty good for me, and might be the event I’ve been most successful at in terms of national standings. However, it’s pretty niche and is not an Olympic event. The search continued.

No, not the winter sport version. Cross country skiing and rifle shooting? In the Midlands where there is two inches of snow every five years? I don’t think so. I’ve done skiing which I will come on to later, but cross country skiing is a different kettle of fish entirely. I’m sure it is fantastic for fitness but it doesn’t look like a lot of fun, although if I was from Norway I’d probably completely disagree.

This type of Biathlon was swimming and running. It certainly isn’t a well-publicised sport and I only heard about it (along with all of my other Lichfield Swimming Club friends) when a leaflet was posted on the swimming club notice board for a competition at Cheslyn Hay, venue to another local swimming club. Given that I was pretty much in to anything sporty, this seemed like a good idea to me so, along with a few others from the club, I entered.

It’s a fairly simple concept. The distances varied by age group, but it was all fairly short stuff. For me at the time, in the twelve and under category it was just 100m swim in the pool and then a 1km run. You did the two events completely separately as opposed to other multi-disciplinary events like triathlon where you did the disciplines consecutively with a transition. So there was generally a fairly long recovery period between the swim and the run which meant you could get changed and warm up again. Sounds a bit tame now looking back.

At that time I got on well with a member of another swimming club called Mark. I’d met him on a few occasions at various open meets and galas and although we often competed against each other, we became friends. He was a slightly faster swimmer than me and had also entered this biathlon. He took great delight in telling me that he was a very good runner and declared he was going to beat me easily. Given that I hadn’t seen him run I had no reason to doubt him.

I’d had a fairly average swim in the morning, and was well down in the rankings after the 100m – you picked up points for your time which would then be added to your run time points to provide your overall score. Mark was a few places before me lining up for the run so I could see how he approached the race. Just to explain, each competitor was set off at 30 second intervals so it was easier for the timekeepers to record the times. It was basically a straight time trial run with you against the clock rather than a bunch start. I must admit I liked this format as you had a competitor to aim at and try and hunt down. Chase the rabbit was my mindset.

Mark was given his countdown from five to one and set off on his run; a 1k lap of the playing fields leisure centre. I was surprised at how fast he went. Whenever I had previously done these types of runs I had always held myself back, not wanting to blow up too soon. What I was watching was a different tactic, Mark was sprinting as fast as he could and attempting to hold on for the whole distance. As I watched him go around the course I wondered whether I could do the same. I wasn’t sure. He kept going, and going, and going right to the end until he crossed the line gasping for air. I was impressed.

As the other competitors were set off in front of me, I got more and more nervous. When it got to my turn, the official put his hand on my shoulder. I got myself ready. He started the countdown, five, four, three, two, one…and took his hand away. I sprinted away as fast as I could. My mum started shouting encouragement as I made my way to the first bend. Following Mark’s example I went as fast as I could, setting my sights on the person in front of me, trying to catch them. My lungs were burning as I continued sprinting. I remember thinking it was a really bad tactic, this was unchartered territory for me. I had never pushed myself this hard, but it felt like the right thing to do. To my complete surprise I managed to keep up the intensity right through the course until I collapsed in a heap over the line. This was my first experience of pushing myself to the limit. It hurt, a lot. My legs were on fire and it took a good few minutes to catch my breath. I distinctly remember my mum coming over and shouting well done. The time I’d clocked was the fastest of the day, by some distance. She was definitely more shocked than I was. I hadn’t told her my tactic so she was panicking that I’d gone off far too quickly. She wasn’t the only one.

As I watched the rest of the runners coming over the line I was watching their splits. No-one was getting close to my time. This was a completely new sensation for me. I’d never been in this kind of position before, I’d always been chasing someone else. It felt great. It felt even better when the last of the competitors came through and I’d still got the fastest split. Mum did a quick calculation of the points and was sure that I’d made the top three but was as surprised as anyone when the results came out and found out that I’d actually won. Winning swimming races at school or within the club was one thing but to win a multi-discipline open event was another. I was pretty chuffed when I got to stand on the podium and collect my winner’s medal and trophy. It didn’t matter to me that this was a little known event, I’d pushed myself as far as I could go and it had worked.

From then on my attitude to competing changed. I felt I could challenge the top guys, particularly when I ran. I had gained a confidence in my running ability that wasn’t there before. It might not be world beating, but I knew I could compete.
I entered more biathlon events after that. I always felt I had opportunities to do well, even if my swim wasn’t a personal best. The kilometre run distance clearly suited me. Not quite a sprint, but long enough to stay fast and leave the true sprinters behind. This is when I gained confidence to run 800 metre races at school flat out. It hurt like hell, but it seemed to work.

Back to the basketball. Every now and then we had a teachers vs students game. This was designed for the teachers to win, at all costs. Our coach ensured that all of the PE staff played, and there was never any danger of them losing. There was a lot of pre-game goading, mainly from the coach who wanted to wind us up as much as possible. Intimidation tactics were deployed relentlessly during practice and Economics lessons. Losing to the students was not an option for them. That would be a serious breach of teacher pride.

Those matches gave us some kind of insight in to what a competitive game with another school would be like. Sure enough, once our coach was satisfied that we had some level of ability and game play to not get completely humiliated, he set up a match with Walton school. This was another level for us entirely, and our coach decided it was about time he gave us some pointers on the rules so that we weren’t all sent off in the first ten minutes. Picking up fouls was pretty natural for us, but they had never really been enforced during our practice sessions. Most of the fouls that we had experienced until then were to do with infringements in the D (the shooting zone). These resulted in free shots to the attacking player who had been foulled, where they could have two attempts to score a basket from the free throw line. Other fouls had not really been part of our games so it came as a bit of a surprise to find out that there were multiple occasions when these could be picked up. Such as contact, double dribbling, travelling etc. If a player picked up five fouls, they were out of the game. This didn’t bode well.

For the match we were presented with our school basketball kit. It was hideous. I don’t know where our coach got them from, but they were dark green with black stripes. This bore no resemblance to the school colours of red and black, so I can only assume he cobbled them together from some local club. Looking like a bunch of badly assorted garden vegetables we took to the court and were given our pre-match motivational speech from the coach. This basically involved a fair few swear words, some comment about tactics but basically the gist was to try and be in their faces as much as possible.

We were 15-0 down within about 3 minutes. It was a shambles. None of us knew how to cope with a team that had clearly been playing together for years, and had skills at a much higher level than us. When we finally managed to score a couple of points, we jumped up and down in delight. To which our coach came running over, sneering at us that we ‘were a bunch of squealing girls’. It may have not been the most motivational comment but it made us all start concentrating on what we could do to actually give the other team some kind of match. I’m not sure what the final score was but it was a hammering, probably something like 70-22 but at least we started putting up a fight once we’d started to get used to the match environment.

We only played one other match against another school, which this time was played away. I was made captain for that one, which I was very proud of. I scored 21 points this time, and as a team we pushed them much closer this time around. We still lost but it was a much better effort. I ended up getting got fouled off, having picked up five offences. I was pretty unhappy about that, but the coach was delighted. We were never going to be anything spectacular, but he was more interested in our passion and fight so he left happy.

I’ve probably made our coach out to be a hard character, but I liked him a lot. We got on very well, and I enjoyed his ruthless competitiveness. It didn’t bother me that this sometimes manifested itself aggressively, that was just his personality and at the end of the day he just wanted everyone to do as well as they could. He loved his sport and always wanted to be the quickest runner or most talented player on the court. I can completely associate with that, and I know if I had been a teacher (heaven forbid) I would have been exactly the same. I went along to his local basketball club a few times and even bought myself some ridiculously large basketball trainers. Honestly, they looked like clown shoes. They had a little pump to inflate them and were designed more like boots to protect your ankles, but they were ridiculous. My mate Jonny took one look at them and wet himself. Quite right too, they were beyond daft. However, I enjoyed playing throughout school and if nothing else, the sport was fantastic for getting fit.
After school I played sporadically at University for fun, but nothing like before. Clearly basketball was not going to be a long term sport for me.

I know what you’re thinking. 5’11’’…Basketball? Really? Well there have been some professional players shorter than six feet tall. Not many, and they all probably grew up in America so the odds weren’t really in my favour. But it was another competitive sport and it looked like fun.

As with the rugby approach, the basketball coach (my future Economics teacher) at the Friary based his selection process on one PE session. He was basically looking for speed, enthusiasm and some kind of competitive streak. Boxes ticked, a few of us started doing basketball training at lunchtimes. Having started quite late at thirteen, our skill levels were pretty bad so he just encouraged us to run around a lot and learn the rules as we went along. Which we did.

Soon we were playing basketball twice a week at lunch times. It was played at a frenetic pace as we really took the ‘run around a lot’ sentiment to heart. We used to come off the court absolutely exhausted and dripping in sweat. I can honestly say it was the most intense workout that we did at the time. The forty-five minute sessions were pretty much non-stop sprinting as we went from one end of the court to another. We slowly got used to the basics and by trial and error we learnt a method of playing that suited us. I took on the position of Guard, which made a lot of sense given I wasn’t the tallest. In my head, this position essentially took on the same role as scrum half or fly half in rugby as you are looking to drive the attack. Most of the time it was looking to get the ball to the tallest or most talented player in an attacking position as quickly as possible so that they could try and score. As most of us weren’t that talented, it ended up going to the tallest players we had. Generally speaking, if they got the ball they would score.

The training sessions would become quite heated at times. The combination of a bunch of teenagers with no idea of the rules, not many skills and a hot indoor court made for a volatile arena. Even though it is supposed to be a non-contact sport, we were always smashing in to each other at full tilt. Our coach did nothing to prevent this, mainly because he was just as competitive as we were but also because he wanted us to have that aggression when we played. He was a talented player and used to run rings around us, much to his own amusement. This added to the frustration for some of the players who would easily get the ball stolen from them by the coach as they were attempting to dribble past.

In one particular session things started to boil over. One of the players, who was not a regular, started to get very annoyed by the fact he kept losing the ball. This ended in a big stand-off with a few of us and him storming off the court. This was shortly followed by a loud smashing sound, which we later discovered was due to him punching a hole through the changing room door. It took him a while to calm down, which we found quite amusing. It all added to the intensity of the sessions.

At this point I hadn’t had a serious injury, or any kind of injury at all. This changed when I picked up two in quick succession. On the first I got an elbow to the face when challenging for a ball in the air. Feeling bits of tooth in my mouth as I came down was a new sensation, but luckily it was only a chip and was easily sorted with a cap by my dentist. The second was slightly worse. As we went along our coach had pointed out to us that there were a few potentially dangerous things that could happen on a basketball court. Most of these involved twisting or flying elbows, but one was seen as a bit of a ‘no no’ when playing. This was known as the ‘Submarine’. It was considered dangerous because it meant that an opposing player was underneath someone while they were either trying to score a basket or just off their feet. This would result in the airborne player becoming upended which could end up with them landing on their neck or head. Now, given we were completely reckless and competitive, this happened much more frequently than it probably should have. So it wasn’t much of a surprise when this happened to me. Craig, who was the other main Guard, managed to Submarine me whilst I was jumping for the ball. I landed on my right forearm with my full weight. I’m not sure whether I heard a crack or not, but for the purposes of high drama I’ll say I did. As there was nothing to see, I didn’t really know whether I had done anything serious or not but within a few minutes I began to feel very nauseous. So I was dispatched to Lichfield A+E.

The A+E at the time was in a very small Hospital, which was really a minor injury clinic and maternity Department. Even though it wasn’t great ending up there, it was never that bad as we knew one of the Senior Nurses who worked there, Mrs Hickinbotham (or Mrs Hicky as she was commonly known). Mrs Hicky was the parent of one of my best friends at the Lichfield Swimming Club, Jane, and I had known her for a very long time. In fact, most of Lichfield knew her as at some point. Much like a local GP she had seen practically everybody either as a patient or family member. She couldn’t walk down the street without someone coming up and chatting to her because she’d either picked stones out of their knees, put plasters on some wound or fixed their broken limbs.

Mrs Hicky gave me the customary ‘what have you done now’ look before sending me for an X-ray. The scan showed that I had a hairline fracture of my forearm. As injuries go it wasn’t massively impressive. The break was clean and would naturally heal over the following weeks, and I would have to wear a sling to protect it. It also meant I couldn’t write for a week or two, which meant I could duck out of school tests until it healed. Result. I didn’t really do the injury many favours over those few weeks. Going to a Wonder Stuff concert and ending up in the mosh pit probably wasn’t on the recommended recovery plan, but they were the band to see at the time and I wasn’t going to miss it. I initially did the sensible thing and stayed at the back of the crowd, but when the concert started I moved forward to get as close to the front as possible. I spent the next two hours being bounced around, jostled, pushed…and I loved it.