Been a while – longer than I realised. And not sure if I’m back or if the mistiness of the grey matter will render this do-able, or not.
Haven’t written about cricket for faaar tooo long. But guess what? Been on a cricket coaching and playing rampage for months. (Maybe I should write about that?) Millfield/Aberystwyth/Shrewsbury/Cathedral School/Gowerton/Llandeilo/Tockington Manor/Llangennech/Crickhowell/Blaina and the rest. Buckinghamshire/Little Stoke (was that Staffordshire?)/Somerset/Gloucester, to play for Wales Old Fellas.
Missed out (and missed) most of the Pembs Seniors action, coz of all the coaching work; the usual madness, just more of it. Heatwaves, some proper exhaustion and crocked calves. Comradeship and disappointment. With the kids, yaknow… development.
How to go there without intruding, though? This may be more personal, more of the person than people imagine. Maybe just stay general. Talk about principles or things learnt rather than What Jonny Did. Maybe I can do that?
Been coaching U10s and U11s. ‘Regional kids’, on a pathway for which their families do have to pay. Have concerns about that and the concentration of activity around certain kinds of venues: the time may come when I am vociferous in this regard but that time is not now.
Now I can celebrate and absolutely unreservedly say that our various crews – been coaching four teams, with my outstanding partner-in-crime – have enjoyed massively, and developed massively. (If that’s a boast, don’t care). And though I do feel a bit head’s-gone and maybe post-energy-slump-tastic just now, my own level of enjoyment has been absurdly fabulous. (Again. Can hardly believe it). Outstanding kids and wonderfully supportive families: almost everybody buying in and letting us coaches do our thing. The Lads rowing that boat and being great company. On and off the pitch. Doing that thing where they try like hell then let go immediately of a battering – too much fun to be had.
Took an U11 side to Shrewsbury School, for an epic five days/four nights of cricket and an U10s side – two, in fact, but was personally responsible for one – to Aberystwyth, for three days/two nights. All this bigger than cricket. All this both a privilege and a pretty profound responsibility. Young lads, some of whom were tearful, come 10pm, at the prospect of mum and dad not being immediately at hand. Opposition that was often much stronger. But still masses of that precious, immediate, innocent commitment – the stuff that builds the team and that feeling that this is good, irrespective of scores, achievements or results.
Sure our team won an incredible, topsy-turvy T20 at Aber, and they were thrilled, meaning *they obviously cared*, but the several defeats either side flew from the collective consciousness a whole lot quicker than the steam train that chugged past. (Young kids can do that, yes? Wipe the slate and get on?) And this is wonderful; to be so undamaged. To go have a laugh, to grab the nearest ball and chuck or kick it, ‘anyway?’ Time enough to get real or rational. We can and did ‘review’ but it doesn’t have to be in the moment of deflation or disappointment. Let’s go jump in the ocean: (we did).
In my experience there are no rules, but ten and eleven year-olds are likely to be able to scoot past ‘failure’ in a way that us Fully-growed-up Humans might do well to recall. Yes they maybe should revisit in order to learn – to develop – but no there’s nothing wrong or inadequate or concerning about the switch back into play or banter. As coaches, we are maybe a bit stuck with the idea that we have to host an instant post-game review (or maybe be seen to host one) but as always this will depend on how present individuals are in that moment. What gives the most value? Have words later, if you intuit that gazes are a bit blank, or players need food or family or freedom. It’s a blessing that the result or the performance isn’t everything, aged ten: let that sense abide, for now.
We Westies often go into fixtures or festivals expecting to be out-gunned by regions who have more and more highly-developed players. Some of this is geography and some of it is privilege and opportunity. Neither of these factors are likely to change(!) so we are left with two broad options: fight like hell or capitulate.
I like to think that we engage option one, but do it with what we might (in foolishly retro language) call a generous or comradely spirit rather than coming over all chopsy and adversarial.
Ah. There may be those at the back of the class here fearing that my insistence on ‘being great company’ as well as bringing top competitive energy necessarily nudges us towards capitulation but no, not for me. I get that this is by nature an adversarial situation and that it may entirely healthily challenge folks’ toughness and resilience – accepted, no issues. But I’m holding out on a kind of faith in sport. Cornier still, I’m gonna say that because I believe the essence of sport is romance (not conflict), there should be a way to compete wholly and powerfully, whilst being a good opponent. Someone who’s good company, even in the heat of all that stuff. It’s possible and I aspire to that – I urge my teams in that direction.
Some may of course think this is naive madness; outdated, outmoded madness. I don’t. I’m a competitive guy but this, for me, is how sport should be understood. Yup – at all levels. Play fair; play to win.
Aberystwyth is a triumph – a word I rarely use, or take care with – every year. A 10s festival, about a hundred young lads (in our case, the girls followed) playing six games of cricket. But also starting their #bantz journey, and their being independent journey, and their eating in a big communal space adventure. Battling (a little, or maaybee a lot) against fear of the ball/fear of the bed/fear of strangeness. Needing and then finding a mate or twelve. Like magic.
But who knew that coaching was so much about getting people comfortable; being nice; being friendly?
Amazing, year after year, to find reinforced that (aged ten/eleven) what’s needed is to be seen; to be encouraged; to be given a chance. Yes we are conscious that *our job* is to develop cricket skills but that bigger picture seems ever clearer. Because these guys are young, because things really do need to be appropriate, we’re confidence-building; we’re in the wider, looser, lovelier business of experience and enjoyment. First imperative? We want these lads/lasses/however they may identify to fall in love with this sport, and (zoom out again, bro’) be ready and inclined towards a life built around activity.
So me and my mad partner-in-crime almost always bowl ten bowlers; almost always rotate the batting order; always know when Jonny or Dafydd ‘needs a bat or a bowl’, or when somebody’s homesick. We’re there, we listen.
Soon as, we muck in and we have a laugh – has to be done. Sometimes, on those ‘residentials’ it’s us that leads the mischief, into the sea, into the arcades. We’re invested in that smiley, woolly stuff as much as the technical gubbins, because this IS bigger than the cricket. The players need, in their individual ways, to feel settled. They need a giggle.
Included below; the audio from our Beautiful games book launch, at The Mariners, Nolton Haven, Pembs, on Sat 23rd March 2024.
Hosted by my good friend the treble-fabulous Mr Stephen Hedges, it features some daft bloke warbling about sport and the Meaning of Everything – as he does – plus some background noises and a wee bit of ambient pre-amble. Would’ve *really loved* to include the genuinely brilliant and hugely generous #pubchat that immediately followed the talk, but certain individuals shared some personal stuff about family experiences that it just wouldn’t have been right to include. So cut.
We had intended that the aforementioned #pubchat would dig in to and expand upon the Waltonian propositions… and it certainly did that. Some concerns were raised about school experiences in activity needing to ‘mirror real life’ rather than ‘just look to cater for all’. I hear that argument, and respect the need for (for example) competitive sport. I grew up – and I do mean grew up – through competitive sport, where (amongst other things) I learned to value guys in my teams who found little support or encouragement elsewhere, because they were either fully-fledged or aspiring football hooligans. Don’t ask them to spell much, or do their French homework but stick ’em on a sports field and watch the fekkers fly. Suddenly brilliant; suddenly selfless; suddenly valuable. I get how magnificent organised sport can be, for shedloads of reasons including that one.
But only about 20% of schoolkids are getting it: or only about 20% are developing a culture of lifelong activity. Twenty per cent. This means that BIG THINGS ARE IN PLAY. It means that (without sacrificing opportunities for ‘organised sport’) we have to include everyone – get everyone active.
The speech and the book then, have to come over all philosophical. I think there are moral imperatives in play as well as economic arguments: society cannot afford for zillions of people to be physically or mentally un-healthy. We all deserve a lump of happiness and the wider clan needs us to be productive. It’s a no-brainer that activity *nearly always supports* health. Great, uplifting, compelling experiences in Physical Education for young people can be personally transformative, can maybe lift where we’re at, as individuals, on the Happiness Index.
I want all of it – generous and ‘holistic’ approaches to PE, throughout the age-groups, and fabulous recreational sports and/or pathways. Change the thinking and invest in all of it. (Surely we’re sliding somewhere quite dark, if we don’t?)
There are political and philosophical notions we just can’t duck out of. My argument, I suppose, is that we need to prioritise and invest in wellness, not maxxing-out on profits. Because every one of us is valuable.
After the verbals I include a transcript of my speech.
BOOK LAUNCH.
Enough already of this welcome and adoration. It can’t last. For as sure as eggs are eggs… and beans are beans… and brown sauce is better than red, on bangers and bacon, you will desert me. For we are fickle, are we not? We ‘like’ everything but then move on, to the next story – the next poor, unfortunate target for our fleeting attention. I’m a realist, friends. There’ll be a lol-tastic notification coming along any minute – over here; over there – cats on the Twitters; dancers on the twick-twocks – and my moment in the spotlight will be gone.
I blame the Kardashians – I blame the Kardashians for everything – just ask the kids. Pouting. Potholes on the A40. Climate Change. Footballers diving and Raducanu changing coaches every twenty minutes. I blame the Kardashians. Cold toast; hot – fuck me, burning hot – Cornish pasties; V.A.R.; 30p Lee; too many adverts spoiling yer telly. I blame the Kardashians.
Surprisingly however, Beautiful Games is not the work of an embittered old bloke who can’t pout. The closest it gets to Worldly Cynicism is maybe through the introductory quote, from Naomi Klein:
‘Everywhere we look we find “binaries where thinking once existed.”
I kinda like that, because it makes me sound brainy. To be honest I haven’t the faintest idea what she’s onnabout but it seemed a good idea to have something wordy and philosophical in the first few pages. The rest is bollocks about Ford Escorts and beer. And sport.
‘Everywhere we look we find “binaries where thinking once existed”. Wish I’d said that. Instead I said
on P xii “I really want this book to be explainer-lite. Can’t stand the idea that the dots have to be joined/profundities unpicked for a readership that is thereby presumed to be brain-dead: insulting bollocks… (more)… not everything will be revealed”.
I also say “this book, whilst wading through the baggage of a middle-aged white guy, will be anti-bigotry. Believe it or not. Its purpose is to celebrate personal and universal stuff about activity. Not sure that can be done without advocating for those damp essentials love and understanding”.
But what the feck does that mean?!?
Glad you asked. Let me have a thrash at this. The book is in three sections: the first is called ‘Formations’ because it digs into things that may have made me… but which also relate, surely, to all of us? Family; environment; good energies; trauma or tragedy.
So ‘Formations’ is Big Relatable Stories. There’s stuff about ‘cannonballs’ – the heavy, soapy, brown-leather footballs we used to head, as kids, even though they weighed about twelve tons. There’s stuff about travelling to Canada dressed as Elvis Costello, and the hairs in my nostrils freezing as we stepped off the plane into the North American winter – at minus 26. (Fact). Then about playing indoor soccer with mad Italians and some geezer pulling a large hairy knife on my best mate in a nightclub in Thunder Bay. Exactly the kind of thing we’ve all experienced, yes?
Look, there is family, adventure and growth and maaaybee one of the central themes of the book, poisons in the ether – machismo; toughness; the ever-present fraudulence that is ‘masculinity.’ But also the wonder of sport and camaraderie and the craic. So the wild, contradictory kaleidoscope that is life… as a bloke(?)… or (know what?) however we may identify.
It’s no accident that chapter one – Unwise Tendencies – is about the violent homophobia that was everywhere, in our childhoods. I may need to come out as boringly, resolutely straight at this point, but that prejudice (in the North of England, in the 60s/70s) had a massive, conditioning effect on how I was and who I became. I wonder if it might be something of a surprise to many of you to discover *how much* the book has to say about blokeyness and ‘strength’ and pressures around behaviour. Let me read you something on this – true story:
Reading from P4 …”Much of the rich hinterland around this…
and no, I don’t know what that means either”.
I don’t happen to be gay… but I/we who were skinny or medium-brainy or had some facility for French or English Lit were in mortal danger, at school and beyond. I understand this excruciatingly poisonous, mind-boggingly pervasive plane of enlightenment marks the extreme edge of ‘laddishness’ but I think we know it’s still with us – and maybe in places we don’t really care to look. Certainly machismo in sport lies very close to prejudice. Beautiful Games deals with some of this; sympathetically, I hope, but also has a pop, creates some mischief.
On a happier note, the first section of the book does contain plenty in the way of wholesome tribute to Welsh heroes at Solva Athletic Football Club and later at Llanrhian CC. There’s lots of heading (a football) and some speculation about the effect of that. There’s a brief ode to K D Lang. There’s a coupla key chapters about family tragedy because *absolutely* that has made us… and a lot of family pride. This is not just about sport: it’s about formation.
Part Two is called ‘Practice’, meaning the hows and whys of sport. And the brilliance, and the inspirational figures or methods that become your way/my way.
We’re into culture and good practice; the Wonderstuff, whether that be through the All Blacks’ ‘No Dickheads’ policy or Brian Clough’s ‘OH YOO ARE BLOODY ‘OPELESS!!’
Both were godlike and inspirational, in ver-ry different ways; the one a kind of code of honour and way of being that set extraordinary and (dare we say it) civilised standards of behaviour *as well as* producing an 86% win-rate in international rugby over more than a decade. (And this is a very high figure). The other – Brian Clough – was a law unto himself but found a way to motivate his teams through personal magnetism, elite-level pig-headedness and a truly intuitive but profound understanding of a) football and b) people.
At my own daft level I love coaching teams: in fact I really like the word – is that sad? TEEEEEAAMMM! Teams are gangs of mates or soul-sisters who do that walk-through-fire thing or just pat you on the shoulder when you’re bowling like an arse. Teams encourage and build and take you, the individual no-hoper somewhere hilarious and miraculous. And know what? Teams aren’t just for sport… and they aren’t *just about* sport.
Clough was maybe something of a drunk and something of a bully. (I’m neither, honest). But he took two mid-ranking teams – Derby and Forest – to league titles and he and Peter Taylor engineered two European Cup wins. Incredible… and I think fascinating. His players ‘just knew’ he was a genius. They followed him and believed in him. He did ‘just know’. This was about relationships as much as skill.
This may be anorak central but bear with. Clough’s former players talk about his team-talks. (I like team-talks). Apparently on occasion, even before massive games, he would spread a towel on the floor of the changing rooms, and place a football on it. Like some druid ritual. Then he would just say something like “OI. You lot. This is a ball. There’ll be one out there. Go get it… and keep the fucking thing”.
Interestingly – I think –the great All Blacks coaches Sir Graham Henry and Sir Steve Hansen – allegedly got to a point where they barely said anything on matchdays. The players were so prepared, so in charge, so empowered, that there was no hairdryer and no Churchillian rhetoric from the coaches. No need. The players are ready. I’m aware this may be a bit niche, friends. But compare and contrast with Guardiola, Klopp, Tuchel, etc etc – with the zillions of messages going out before and during top-level football matches, now. I think that may be a kind of madness.
In Part Two I write chapters on the All Blacks, Clough, Guardiola, Bazball, the fabulous and universe-changing development of women and girl’s sport. There are also Honourable Mentions for Dutch football/Bobby Charlton/Chloe Kelly/Welsh rugby/the Baabaas and many more. I do make the point that though women and girls sport is better supported than before there is still much work to be done and throughout this book, I promise, I am mindful that competitive, organised sport is not the be-all and end-all, in any event. Beautiful Games moves towards being about Sport Development – that is the provision of activity for all. More on this in a moment.
Some of you will know that I have ECB Accreditation as Written Media and most often use this to follow England and Wales Women cricket: it’s been a real privilege to have been quite close to the powerful surge in that half of the game, for towards a decade. I talk about this in the book – in both books, asitappens.
Locally, Llanrhian Ladies are a spectacular example of the joy and development occurring in cricket. They are absolutely magic and have transformed our cricket club so they are in Beautiful Games – of course they are! Finally, in the section on practice, the book turns to the other great revelation of the current moment, namely Pembrokeshire Seniors cricket.
Reading from P155 ‘Here’s something weird and wonderful...
To p157 …”I am going to be bereft when I can’t bowl”.
Sad but true, I really AM gonna be bereft when I can’t bowl. But onwards, in haste. To the final section, which I’ve called ‘The Case for Sport’.
I have worked as a coach for Cricket Wales – still doing it – and as a peripatetic PE teacher for Sport Pembrokeshire. Ver-ry proud of my colleagues in both organisations. Latterly I also did some work ploughing through a significant bundle of reports on wellbeing/activity/lifestyles for children. I’m no academic but this was ‘my territory’ so Matt at Sport Pembrokeshire let me loose on this to try and draw insights about what good, enlightened provision might look like. Who needs activity most? What’s most effective? What can we justify doing? Inevitably political/philosophical and strategic stuff, in an environment where (criminally, to be frank) budgets are likely to tighten, not loosen up.
I may have gone into this feeling a tad cynical about surveys. As a deliverer of sport you can’t help but think that it’s bloody obvious that activity is so essential and life-affirming and developmentally important in every way we don’t need reports to tell us that! They feel a bit like exercises commissioned by dead-souled office wallahs. Like who doesn’t know that exercise is good and that we have to fund absolutely everything that’s legitimate, to fight the good fight against obesity, poor mental health, the fall into sedentary behaviour and the peer pressure around body-image – for which I blame the Kardashians!
We all know this! And yet, because the more I looked at the surveys – from Pembs County Council/Senedd/the Happen Survey/the Good Childhood Report, from the Children’s Society etc, etc – the more I bought into the idea that they are often very sophisticated and skilful, and they do provide us with good, even valuable information. We just have to act on it.
So I talk about personally taking the Happen Survey into Pembrokeshire Primary Schools and then producing a kind of brainstorming document around good practice (for our Sport Pembs practitioners – Active Young People Officers, by name). About the conclusions we might draw, the options we might take. I try to weed out from the mighty, meaty documents some workable priorities or undeniable truths. I offered them to my colleagues in Sport Development across West Wales, and I offer them to you, in Beautiful Games.
Reading from p 195…
“I wrote two reports…
To end of chapter on p196.
Part Three then, does make the Case for Sport, indeed it campaigns, in a way that I hope still manages to provide some entertainment. You don’t have to be wearing a tracksuit to get this book. You really don’t. Despite being ‘sport-mad’, I can tell you that those of us who coach or teach Physical Education (or sports, or games), now understand that given where we are – deep into a wellbeing crisis, with no sign that authorities get that – we have to get moving. All of us. So PE becomes more about everybody; welcomes Joey who can’t catch and Sara who can’t run in. Welcomes them; offers them something they can do and enjoy – probably with their friends.
You don’t have to be a Sports Development geek to sense the requirement for a wider, broader remit, for Physical Education. We have to get every child comfortable with movement. Find the funding, make the change, acknowledge the crisis and the need for a re-fresh of the offer. Ludicrously, in my view, despite being lumped in to a new Area of Learning with Wellbeing & Mental Health, PE is still not a core subject. Make it a core subject.
Let me finish, dear friends, with a Mad Idea. There is nothing more important than the physical and mental health of our young people. Could we be bold enough, then, generous enough, civilised enough to *actually invest* in what matters? By this I mean – amongst other things – look at and think about the UNICEF National Happiness Index as a meaningful measure of where we’re at. Stick the GDP and the Footsie right up yer arris. Forget this charade about ‘economic growth’. Value that which is valuable: health; wellbeing; the capacity to move and make adventures. Let’s ‘get going’ on that.
I was interviewed about Beautiful Games and the meaning of life and all, by the treble-fabulous Mr Fraser Watson, of the Daily Mirror and (more significantly) Llanrhian CC. It sounded like this.
You Folks In A Hurry go to about 34 minutes in – on the Pure WestSports Show. 11/3/2024.
I shouldn’t need any reminders but I just had one, so without breaching too many confidences, here’s another personal gambit.
In a week where I attended a rather depressing BBC cricket writing thing – on Zoom, all about cramming things down, writing one-sentence paragraphs and therefore, inevitably falling in line with the murderous, soulless brevity of Online Reality – an actual game of cricket was like a quiet marvel. It was slow; it was warm; it was generous. It smelt of humans, not algorithms.
The game was a competitive friendly, between Mainly Good 40-odd Year-olds and Us. (Us being Mainly Good 60 Year-olds). I was the newcomer and – as it turned out – The Impostor. Mad keen but less agile and less able than I’d hoped. Kindof expecting to be able to wing it, through energy and effort but unable to claw my way back up to the level of these skilled, experienced guys. Plus crocked: I didn’t realised how crocked ’til now.
It’s only after I started calculating the Waltonian cricket absence – twelve years since my last competitive game, I reckon – that I begin to cut myself some slack, on what felt like a poor performance. I used to be okaaay. I used to be able to really bowl, at some pace, leg-cutters a speciality. (*Coughs*). You wouldn’t have known, I fear.
I’ve done some nets with stars (and I do mean that, in every sense) of the local Seniors scene but of course there’s nothing like playing. All those unique movements. All that adjustment for bounce, turf, speed, quality of roll. All that running and bending down. And bowling. Wonderful, balletic, deathly movements. I’ve been yomping the Coast Path for years, coaching for years, even (recently) enjoying some practice with my son, in the hope and knowledge that the day must come. But there’s nothing like playing.
Now that I’m still hobbling badly, two full days later, with a proper hospital-sized concern about my right achilles, as well as a decent crop of entirely predictable and indeed appropriate aches and pains, things have landed. Of course I should have bowled off about four paces not sixteen. Of course I should have stopped bowling when *that wee twinge* announced itself, gently at first, in my second over. Of course I should have gone round against their left-hander but…
Calculations suggest it may be 12 years since I played a proper game. So I’m not going to change anything, once I’ve marked out that run. No sir. Just kee-ping it sim-ple. And ignoring that ankle (and yaknow, everything).
Everybody’s hurting, fer chrisssakes. Push on, boyo. Bowl, yougret wazzuck. What’s that one compelling truism in the pile of platitudinous crap? (WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, THE TOUGH GET GOING!!)
Try. Look how hard all these magnificent, stupid old buggers are trying!
*Lump-in-throat moment* Blimey, yeh, look at ’em. We’ve barely met yet we’re a team. A bloody team! There’s no choice – crack on, mun.
We lost… and it didn’t matter. I only knew, when I pitched up, about four of our players… and it didn’t matter. Game-wise the sunny ambience/honourably competitive combo-thing was humming in the air; balanced; beautiful; idyllic and ideal. It was a real welcome. I got battered but was encouraged, throughout, by patently better men and players. We held our own, enough, as a side, because some of our lads took us within 30-odd of their 242. (40 overs).
In the bar it felt good. We had a few laughs and the unspoken awareness that we had ju-ust begun to morph into another ridicubrotherhood – though in defeat – bounced or spread agreeably round the room. Strangers brought together: that corny, wonderful, sporting cobblers.
But when and how, exactly, did that start? (There’s another post on that!) Could be we felt it on the outfield from the first lumber. It *really can* transmit subconsciously, eh – or somehow? From the first ball – before then? – there was something. Body-language. Verbals. Team Humour.
Maybe it passed or blossomed in the friendly exchanges over our modest consumption of alcohol. (This was no riot). Maybe with the quiz card, or during the Few Words from captain and visiting stalwart – who knows? It was quiet, undeniable magic, with the Pembrokeshire sunshine and the open doors and the guys all ‘suffering’ or recovering: blokes who can really play being good to those who possibly can’t.
I got an award – an allegedly cuddly duck, in take-no-prisoners yellow. I hadn’t batted, on merit, but had probably made the telling contributions in our defeat. So fair cop. We go again, god-willing, on Thursday.
Some thoughts on coaching, from a Community Cricket Coach just returned to action. What does it feel like, ‘going back?’ What are the real differences, in the Covid Universe? Given that (as a ver-ry fine Headteacher just suggested to me) children “really have to find or build new Covid-aware games”, what role can we coaches play in prompting thoughtfulness and creativity, as well as those movements and skills?
Not at all saying I know the way but have a pertinent question, I reckon…
A ramble, a confessional, an indulgence: course. But also a laugh and a conversation-starter, or something which *might make you think*, I hope. Might even make you a) tell me which bands are keeping you going b) start yoga c) buy a guitar chord book d) stir yourself generally – even if it’s only to rant against my indulgences.
Or, who knows, it may even possibly make you nod in recognition at my experience of the ‘weird prejudices’ out there – the baggage all-around us, or inside of us? Or make you angry about that stuff.
Whatever, it’s supposed to stoke some activity. Please think about that bit, eh?
Eve of Easter. Sun blazing. Barely a motor about, not that we get many but blimey this isextraordinary – idyllic actually, with all due respect to thegrockles that prop up our entire county, year on year. The shingle, artfully dolloped around our tiny front garden, is baking; the dog is maybe overheating. Junior (well, six foot four) Walton’s smiliferous uni’ dance-music swells at an appropriately easy pitch for a thoughtful lounge. Proper indulgence.
Where we are (forgive us) the Covid-19 situation really does feel like a phoney war. We’re aware of both ‘some Pembrokeshire cases’ and also also of our responsibilities but frisson around exercising is at an entirely lower level than it might be around Bute Park, Cardiff – to take a random example from the known world.
Now that we’re barred from walking the coast path, we generally yomp about a mile and a quarter to a favourite beach along the road, but in doing so don’t tend to see a single vehicle and only occasionally another couple or family taking their own, equivalent quiet promenade.
Big tides so the beach is a zillion, golden, slumbering cricket-pitches at low water. We tramp like sedately ecstatic lurv-zombies the entire width, more than once, unashamedly breasting through the one hour limit our sagacious minister(s) may or may not have made available for Daily Soul-Maintenance. Done this three times this week; estimated duration six hours. Seen five people, total.
But what else? What else for you? What’s it like?
I’m working a bit, on media/social media stuff. This should constitute about a third of my weekly graft – the remainder being the Community Coach role. Doing no coaching in schools or anywhere else, for obvious reasons. So if I was so inclined, things could be pret-ty sedentary: only (and this is not a boast) I don’t do sedentary.
Have no viable garden – or at least genuinely not viable for most ball games. (This probably accounts for current, high step numbers on the roads). Am honestly outstanding at clattering my way into or through jobs, so been on that – garden, kitchen, garage – and will return. But it’s the pleasurable and the healthy stuff we need to get to yes?What do you do? What can, or do we do? I’m gonna tell you some of my restorative strategies and by all means send me yours.
Restorative bloody Strategies! Who am I kidding? Like you miserably shapeless lot, I am almost exclusively following instinct. Working pretty good, mind.
Prepare to be shamed, bored, amused or utterly gobsmacked by the torrent of indulgobollocks about to spew forth. Cos it’s all about What I Done, Lately. (*Of course I have some faint hope it may either make you laugh, or get you off yer arse, thereby neatly dodging the allegation that this is all a bit me, but hey).
Those of you who know me will maybe take the following without too much offence: that I’m such a shamelessly persistent clown I really don’t care what you might think. This – by that I mean this blog – is about entertaining ourselves, getting stuff done, not about whether I happen to be good at something. To my mind, the ‘me’ is taken right out of this: it is, therefore, merely an offering.
Hey but let me start with something kosher – something that seems relevant, that figures.
Two or three times in the last fortnight I’ve ambled across the road into the dingletastic field opposite, armed with three coloured hoops, two newish sidearms and a bag of balls. Purpose? Being to get somewhere near competent with the slingers. Have gone up to the almost-flat-but-still-unhelpfully-tussocky heights a hundred and thirty-seven yards from the front door, paced out a pitch length and laid the hoops out. Then slung.
Awful, so far. Too many snatched, accidental bouncers: line okay but if I had been in a net with a group of juniors (let’s say), I’d be banged up unceremoniously by now, for Affray With a Sidearm. So work to do; which is fine in the current time-rich era, yes? May need to look at a couple of videos but will be back up there soonish, trying to hook into a groove: consistency is tough.
The other stuff is both daft and almost ludicrously ‘creative,’ darlings, so now strap in for the cringeathon: some surreal slings of fortune and geography bundled in here, which I hope may be diverting.
Great mates have a caravan on the sweet, relatively unobtrusive wee site down close to our beach. (‘Our Beach’ – lols!) The owners can’t use it as the site, like the county, is effectively sealed-up. They are, however, well up for me checking it over and using it discreetly as a retreat or for any legal purpose, particularly as this has involved heroic clearing-out of 14 million flies that had recklessly expired over the winter/early spring. (What is it with caravans and flies, by the way? Had to wade in to a mincemeat horror-show, which has taken several visits to clear).
Whatever. This caravan has become a haven for two alarmingly healthy pursuits but before I spill the wotsits on those, I feel the urge to say, rather intently, that I’m not looking to escape from anyone or anything (thank you ver-ry much) when I ‘nip down’ there. Relationships all good. Just living in a tiny house – as we do – it makes practical sense.
But what does? Yoga and guitar.
Eh?
Yoga I’ve been doing, clunkily and inconsistently for a couple of years but I now really get it. Guitar, well as the angriest of youffs emerging from the punk epiphany, I acquired a fairly horrible Gibson Les Paul copy and, flukily, a marvellous Ibanez acoustic, before becoming a half-decent rhythm-geetar strumster. Criminally, I stopped playing, almost completely, about twenty years ago.
Some of you will be aware that my wife is often referred to as The Finest Yoga teacher in Wales ‘cos, yes… she is. For twenty years, hugely to her credit, she restrained herself completely from bundling me towards the classes she teaches in nearby Haverfordwest, Narberth and St Davids but finally that wall of restraint (or restraining wall?) crumbled. Not sure quite how, fascinatingly, but I found myself attending sessions and did so with little enjoyment for about eighteen months. This despite being aware that yoga was blindingly obviously something that might benefit a berk like me: I’m 84% fast-twitch fibres. Mostly, life is lived in an optimistic rage. Plus, me back is stiff.
Eventually another wall (or something) broke – or, on reflection, I lump-hammered my way through it. Whether it was working with the breath, just finding myself less gutty and bloated, or something mystical about rhythms and space, couldn’t tell you. But eventually I have begun, despite the continuing lack of flow in my super-annuated, sporty-but-brittle frame, to enjoy yoga. So I’ve been doing some on my own, down the caravan.
Bethan’s classes continue, via the grace of Facebook Live but because we really do live in a tiny house, I can’t work alongside her, out of view. In time I’ll get back to going to classes but for now I stroll beatifically down the van with my iPad, from which an emailed practice can be conjured. (Did I mention, by the way, that caravans these days are more like apartments? Smart). So picture me, silently, unhindered and (ahem) unselfconscious, as I inhale, pause, move, in the medium-copious ‘living area’. Like a cross between Peter Crouch mid-robot and erm… a ballerina.
I’m going down there nearly every day, just now, to ‘do something’. Having had a hernia op’ some months ago – and therefore a yoga gap – I’m building back up towards the 75 or 90-minute sessions typical of a Bethan W class.
But my retreats to the caravan aren’t just about yoga, or even just about that yoga/guitar combo. I am kinda rehabilitating my fingers to the strings and re-engaging the muscle memory for chords: I’m also going to try to learn a few songs. And I’m also trying to write a few songs. This means, among other things, singing.
Real blokes don’t sing, do they? Or not whilst sober – not in front of people. But hang on; let’s go back a little.
Writing songs; song-writing. Shocking truth is I’ve always felt I should or could have done that… but only played at it. Intently, once or twice, but never with any discipline. There was a time when there were fantastic people around me – I make no apology for calling them soulbrothers – who might have joined with a committed rock and roll adventure: didn’t happen.
Not at all saying it’s likely to happen now. Not even remotely suggesting that what I’m doing is good. (It’s at least as likely to be raw embarrassing and I really am fine with that). I’m just saying I’m actually trying, over a period of time, to *finish* some songs – or get them to a place where they feel done.
I know plenty folks live via fixations or aspirations towards Pole Stars or Intentions but I’ve never worked like that: (you?) I lack the Ambition Gear Thing and I suspect this is something I’m perversely proud of.
Right now what feels clear and ‘important’ to me is the instinct to create something while the time and opportunity is there. Broadly, that’s it. There’s flow and energy around so I’m using it. Specifically, this means re-learning the guitar – which I know I can do – honing and crafting some ideas into song lyrics – which maybe I really can’t – and either finding my voice and performing – doubt it – or passing the songs on if there’s any real merit in them, to someone who can perform. Or… leaving them in the metaphorical cupboard, which is fine, particularly if they’re *finished*.
What’s both great and scary is I really do not know if the proto-songs are garbage. And I’m more sure than not that my singing is pret-ty embarrassing. And I’m recording, as part of the challenge! But maybe the result doesn’t matter? Maybe this is a truly developmental experience, whatever?
Yes. Emphatically yes.
The caravan and the glorious, generous, idyllic solitude makes it possible to bawl out loud, bollocks up the guitar, grimace or preen to the mirror. (I do all three). Mainly I forget the words and fear I’m sounding ‘like James Blunt’s dad’ – think it’s likely I look like him.
But none of this matters. The ludicrous nerves(!), even when flying utterly solo; the angst about how lyrics might be understood – would people get the irony, here? – all that is clearly strikingly testing, but great. Part of the newness and growth.
(Re-cap: I’m a reasonably oldish geezer who feels about 34. I get that every word of this is ridiculous – and beginning to sound like some self-help guide – but the point is I’m bloody invigorated by this challenge. Being unsure of whether you really are a complete embarrassment but ploughing on, anyway, is a manifestly edgy place to be, believe me. I recommend it).
I have four songs or song lyrics which feel close enough for rock and roll. I hope to practice versions of them all, over the next few weeks. Could well be they never get aired outside that caravan: who cares? In a month my guitar will be on the up and that will feel good. The documents that are my songs will be there, good or bad, but there.
Have tumbled into a longish read – apologies. Ditto for the extravagant indulgences. Hope that some of this resonates in some way: I think it’s about committing, about making your contribution and just not worrying about where it might sit in the hierarchy of things. There is no good or bad that can undermine the brilliance of your commitment.
So, what’s your guitar, your yoga? Get to it, c’mon. With me. We can support each other, okay?
So we’ll be back, alright, but when? We just don’t know.
Let’s face it, there are a zillion things we can’t and don’t know at the moment. Please god that doesn’t mean untold stress and outright fear for too many of YOU. For me, it’s kinda fine, or rather more odd than scary, so far. Odd-arousing, ‘cos so-o extraordinary – and so consuming.
I’m well though, apparently, and so is the family – even the 92 year-old father-in-law and his 80-something year-old wife and my own 83 year-old ma. They’re all fine. To be honest, not asking for much more than that, currently. Why would I?
I get that many folks are either raw scared of the demon virus, or concerned about implications around work. I’m neither, but this is not to say that those things are immutable, or that the Walton family are going to be blasé about anything, or that I’m entirely free of doubts. This is a startling, extraordinary, medium-selectively dangerous doubt-fest, is it not?
My wife is right at this moment trying – battling, rather – to keep her yoga classes going, online, via Facebook Live. It’s going pret-ty well, I think, except for some angsty moments around punters signing in and the perennial issue at our gaff of absolutely pitiful wifi. (Have myself nipped next door to await a techno-wotsit Team Gathering, because there’s no way we could both be online for important stuff at the same time: next door is a second home and yes I do have permission).
Spent hours, ultimately, fannying about with iPad, phone and this, my wife’s secondhand Mac, whilst failing crucifyingly-painfully to join a meeting. Then more hours – I kid you not – trying to download Google Chrome, so as to offer the teeniest hope of success for the next internet fiasco. But I digress… and I’m leaking energy on stuff I hate… and this is not good. The point is, we’ve never had to do this stuff before.
My own work, right at the moment of maximum kaboom – going full-on into schools to try to entertain and capture children for cricket – is stalled, to put it mildly. Schools shut; all cricket on hold. There will be admin to do and planning – well up for all that. Plus the ‘creative thinking’ that’s so ubiquitous in team emails as the corona curve launches towards vertical. But Proper Work? Minimal, for the foreseeable.
So, for me, existential questions and practical dinkie-doos rather than medical urgencies. How are we supposed to feel about this? (Differently, I guess, like about everything else). In the face of corona-wireless – and therefore meaning-shift – is it okay to ‘carry on?’ Is it okay to loaf about a bit, consider all options and think about daft stuff like cricket? Write about it, even? Is that an acceptable way to Fill The Void? Maybe if I add rather swiftly that I want to work, I’m old-school work-ethic-tastic and proud of that?
My old man was a magnificently honest plodder and so too, my grandpa and to me it just feels right to pour in some honest, blokey graft, to whatever. Genuinely hope I can continue to do that for our cricket community – put in ‘a shift’, something that can make a difference, feel worthwhile, feel legitimately real to me. And if my hours at that coal-face are reduced then like most of the universe I’ll be all over the domestic chores: bathroom, kitchen, garage, garden: whirlwind, incoming. I’ll commit heavily to something.
But what of cricket and the larger picture? All Stars and Dynamos (the two major projects I have been/would have been working towards, as a Community Cricket Coach) will be either delayed or possibly cancelled entirely, for the season. That’s not just personally gutting, that’s potentially really significant in terms of stalling the *powerful progress* we’ve been making around bringing ‘new children’ and ‘new families’ into the game.
*In case you’re wondering, we really have been providing the local grassroots game – Pembrokeshire/Carmarthenshire/Swansea – with a proper boost. Uptake into junior leagues from U9s to U11s in particular (that is, the entry levels for organised games, from softball festivals to hardball cricket) has spiked strongly upwards over the last two years. This is unquestionably largely the result of Community Coaches working in schools and signposting children over to local clubs. Of course many of the clubs have been fabulously pro-active in this process… but some have not. Kids have joined in, anyway.
If the last para sounds like some sort of sales pitch then sorry but tough. It’s not – that’s not its purpose. Not everything (in fact few things of any real import or value) are measurable, but the arrival of new kids and new teams into cricket leagues is closely tracked, inevitably, by Cricket Development Officers. Numbers are up, so the opportunity might be there to build a bright, bulkier future for junior cricket across Wales.
Of course bigger isn’t always better. And bigger can’t happen unless clubs can accommodate. And, clearly, corona pain-in-the-anus might well challenge the notion of survival, for many clubs, never mind the possibility for growth. So doubts, or yes – challenges.
After a prolonged period of (probably) no revenue, how do clubs go on?
Will we get the green light to gather again whist we still have some weather?
If not, will the hit the ECB take stymie or stall the recovery across the game? How do we choose what gets funded, in the aftermath of carnage?
How much of any of this anyway, is ultimately about dosh?
If money/funding/strategy really are critical, how much help can the ECB, Cricket Wales, Sport Wales or any other partner offer?
No idea – yet.
Contentiously… do we think that they will be trying to help the stuff that we care about? What will the priorities be?
Are the huge implications around the professional game so mind-boggling and cash-gobbling that the small potatoes, the All Stars, the Dynamos, the clubs are going to be Item 74b on the agenda?
Can’t speak for any of those aforementioned bodies, not even the one I work directly for, except to say that every individual I know at Cricket Wales is already psyching themselves up for an irresistible surge back from whatever it is we’re in. A weird, thunderously heavy stall? A brutal re-set? A death-throw? Who cares about the labels, the sequencing, the minutiae of this thing? Because there’s no perspective that ain’t scary, we’re surely liberated? We can get that full-throated roar going. We can charge out there and smash it.
How? Why? Know what, I think that’s simple. Because great people, in clubs. Because your 72 year-old scorer and our 71 year-old groundsman. Because we see the coronascumbag and we choose to deny it – though we recognise its temporary hold.
We deny not out of arrogance or through strategy but via a love of the game that will keep us (and it) alive. For I’m guessing it won’t be money that keeps either grassroots cricket or the professional game afloat, not really. It will be a relative small number of stalwarts, who ‘do everything’, who, despite being in the cross-hairs of this disease, will be quietly invincible.
So it might be irresponsible, indulged, delusional. It might be plain wrong. But I genuinely think that cricket – o-kaaay, maybe I’m talking about club cricket, the soul of cricket – will come through this relatively unchanged and unharmed. This is not to say that we won’t lose some soulbrothers and sisters along the way, or that profound adjustments and brutal cancellations aren’t going to happen: they are. But, like other sports, we just have the people, right?
Most of you will know that I’m a Community Coach, for Cricket Wales. This means, amongst other things, that I go into schools – I typically describe myself as “the daft bugger who throws things around, with kids, in schools”.
It’s sometimes challenging but mostly so magbloodynificent I need to ramp the language over the scoreboard to describe it. Today is one of those flowtastically energising days. Sorry.
I’ve been into a Primary School, on our Chance to Shine mission, which is so multi-faceted (in a good way) I’m going to invent some swift bullet-points, to give the sense of covering it all briefly.
Frankly don’t care if this sounds like a salespitch: what happened today was mercifully and definitively beyond mere capitalism, dear friends. Here’s some edited highlights from the err, manifesto.
We Community Coaches, we Chance to Shiners aim to;
offer a load of sporty fun.
Build co-ordination around cricket-based games.
Build confidence through and confidence in movement.
Offer new stuff – skills, ‘drills’, ways in to catching, throwing, striking etc.
Stimulate listening skills, teamwork &/or individual application to challenges: build numeracy (yes I do mean that!) and communication skills – oracy.
Get familiar, or more familiar with a bat, a ball, or different bats, different balls.
Specifically follow, more or less, a curriculum which Chance to Shine has assembled, drawing on masses of expertise and research… and stuff.
In the abstract we aim (I certainly aim) to make kids laugh a bit, whilst charging round the place with purpose. Structured bursting and giggling and launching and swiping and mostly achieving something, which may or may not be measurable but may well be actually rather profound.
Hence my sickening upbeat-ness. Cos we did all that this morning. Two brilliant sessions with children from Year 2 then Year 3. Brilliant? Them – them! – not me. They lit up the place.
In my post-euphoric foolishness, I’m wondering if there might be some merit in describing what we did. So here goes.
Last week with these children, we followed the Chance to Shine model for batting games, via Striking Star and Super Skills Circuit – you can find these here and I do recommend them.
Having done the ‘get familiar with the bats’ thing, it made sense to do something different, today. So out with hoops and spots and balls, for games again developed from that C2S curriculum.
We were inside, in an average-sized school hall. I drew out a Throwing Line, with red cones, then placed three yellow hoops and a spot, about four or five metres out, parallel to the Throwing Line, spaced evenly apart. Three or four metres beyond, two blue hoops and two blue spots, again making a line, across the hall. Finally, the distant targets – four red hoops.
I welcomed the children in, in English and inadequate Welsh, as per. Then, after asking them again how they turned their ears on and warning them in the nicest possible way that the games would change, briefly described (rather than demonstrated) what we would do. We would throw underarm at the yellow targets.
What would we throw? Cricket ball-sized sponge balls and two or three significantly bigger but still unthreatening, lightweight ‘footballs’, plus a softly-spiky pink plastic ball: all of which I said I’d like to see shared around.
The children had a couple of goes before I tried that “Ok people, imagine if I was an alien and I’d just landed on Planet Har’ford; how would you explain how this underarm throw works(?)” routine. “What’s moving?”
I might now be modelling the throw but not saying anything. Instead I ask the ‘coaches’ (kids) to talk me through “pushing my palm, stepping forward, aiming with my hand-that-isn’t-throwing”. It’s a listening event and describing event, for the children; hopefully more than a demonstration.
We move on, as soon as; we want to be throwing, more, further, harder!
I ask how many points we should give ourselves for hitting the nearest (yellow) hoops ”first bounce – on the full?” Somebody confidently shouts “Ten!” Ten it is.
”So how many for the blue?”
(Somebody else). “Thir-teee!”
”And what about the red?!?”
”FIFF-TEEEE!!!”
Suddenly we have a Proper Game. In which “for a bitta fun” we can keep score if we want.
I offer them more choices; they can now throw under or overarm and they can aim at any hoop or spot. (Incidentally, if it felt necessary, I would offer the discussion about whether a blue hoop is worth more or less points than a blue spot – which is smaller. Feels unnecessary, here. Note too, that we haven’t discussed throwing overarm yet; let them launch a few first).
Surprise surprise, everybody lashes it out there in the general direction of the distant red hoops. It’s wonderful, stretchy-wild and energetic. They love it.
Before the next round of throws – just to focus the concentration a tad – I bring in A Rule. “You have to name the colour before you throw”. We go on. It’s still fairly chaotic… but great.
Next up we revisit the scoring. “Which are the easiest targets to hit? Why? So if we really were counting our score, what colour do we think might be the one where we are most likely to get some points? Or… if we are enjoying throwing harder, further (at the red, maybe) what can we do, to give ourselves every chance of hitting?”
It’s gotten tactical. They realise that. There’s that lovely sense of liberation – through the physical act of throwing – and also the whirr of cognition and ‘getting the game’.
”I’m going yellow – no, blue!”
”I’m going red. I’m still going red, because…”
It’s gotten to a point where I think there is some real value in me demonstrating an overarm throw – despite my half-decent grasp of ECBCA initiatives towards Core Principles, as opposed to old-school ‘coaching’. So I offer three suggestions; feet wide apart and in line with the target; ‘pointing’ or aiming with the non-throwing hand; throwing hand waaaaay up and back away from the face.
In my defence, as it were, I do offer this model via a story, with questions.
”Who’s got a dog, friends?
Half the class.
”Okaaay. So have I. Picture the scene, on Newgale (beach). Me and one very waggy dog and a ball. Does my dog want me to do this… (throws with hand at his ear, feebly)… or (collects ball and notably draws elbow and hand high and loooong and back, away from the head) does your dog want you to launch one?” (Launches one, to unsolicited whhooooos and whoooorrs from the kids).
”Your dog wants you to zap it. To enjoy throwing hard and far. Powerfully. Come on, let’s get wide feet, pointy hands and get that ball awaaaay from our faces. Let’s ab-so-lute-ly lash it AT THESE TARGETS!!
Typically I shift one red hoop to the furthest, furthest point and up the ante to 500 points for that one. It’s a blast – slightly wild – but my personal mission to teach the mini-universe to be able to throw, to love throwing has bounded forward… and that’s magic.
I’ve missed some details out but this is the gist of a session that I repeated, this morning. Minimal changes for Years 2 then 3. Biggish groups – 30-odd. I guarantee you that nobody felt inadequate, or left out. The level of engagement was stratospheric.
I finished both sessions with my Moving Target challenge, for a thousand points. It offers a kind of individual moment for everyone; one in which everyone Wins Big.
I walk across in front of the children, holding a hoop up at what feels like a comfortable height for their throws. One by one, they all have to throw through the hoop, as I move. Miraculously (possibly with an occasional strategic twitch from yours truly) everybody nails it! It’s crazily, dizzily, wonderfully satisfying – maybe especially for those who weren’t throwing ‘naturally?’
“A thousand points! What a way to finish!”
About fifty minutes-worth of entertaining, challenging, sometimes mind-bending Chance to Shine/CricketWales fun. With balls. And hoops. In January, in a school hall. Some educational boxes ticked but mainly, mainly a deeply pleasurable experience for all concerned; including me.
Awards Season. Meaning mixed feelings, right? Because most of us know that should we actually win something, there are always so-o many people who are worthier/better/better qualified in every way. And sometimes (let’s be honest) people get ‘recognised’ when actually they are sheisters or monsters or simply there and have somehow endured over time.
But c’mon, fortunately, it’s often the reverse. People get fleetingly recognised when they should be hugged and hoisted and fed with booze or chocs or given everlasting Gunn and Moore or Gray Nicholls contracts; they get waaay less than they deserve – under-recognised. I know loads of these people. People whose goodness and commitment is real.
Some of these people have won awards; some are up for awards this winter. I personally may even see some of them pick up some trophy – hope I do.
Some of you will know I bang on a fair bit about the importance of sport, of activity. I’m fully aware how cornball all this can sound, particularly in the context of the endless schmatzfest/tritefest/pompfest that is social media, which I contribute so readily-heavily to. But the thing is we really do have to gear up and get real around this: society must have a strategy, a compulsion, an irresistible way-in and lifelong relationship with movement… like the guys and gals at the sports awards.
Doesn’t, of course, have to be sport. Doesn’t have to be competitive. But movement, activity, the sense that doing stuff is the essential and natural way to be, simply has to be built-in to all of us. Not most – all.
This becomes massive in the sense that it means national and local governments must address it as urgently as we, as individuals, must. If the first job of government is to keep citizens safe then maybe this notion might include the responsibility to steer citizens away from the self-harm that (for example) indolence or dietary ignorance engender. (Yup *can of worms* provocatively opened).
If that responsibility feels a tad mushy for Rule One then okay let’s stick it into Rule Two: ‘Government must provide direction and support around Wellness’.
For me that’s a reasonably agreeable purpose, in every sense, for Politics.
It may even be that the next phase for where we’re at demands that urgent consideration be given to what the necessary levels of opportunity and provision look like – and possibly how, if at all, this strategy is braced with compulsion/coercion. (I get that we’d all prefer inspiration to compulsion but… how to make the resolutely non-doers doers?)
I need to divert into politics here – forgive me. My own view is that our current government is disgracefully adrift and indeed indifferent of the issues here in much the same way as it is re Climate Change. Being arguably amoral and unarguably in thrall to shockingly narrow, mindlessly pro-capitalist views, they lack both the understanding and the vision to change things. So we drift towards calamity: there’s an emergency but no response.
Of course many of us do the same, as individuals – drift, I mean. It’s easier. Plus things conspire (food/agriculture industry, Right Now This Instant culture, political expediency, lobbyists) towards a depressingly rudderless status quo.
Weird mind, that whilst in terms that the Honourable Leadership might understand, we clearly cannot afford to be a fat, sedentary nation, there is still no determined grasping of that thorny issue of ownership of said inactivity. Unforgivable, or understandable, given the political dangers?
Rule 3 might be ‘Governments must lead’. Transformations can and must begin in early years, maybe somehow at home as well as in schools, with a radical re-positioning of activity close to the centre of everything ‘educational’. This, obviously, is government-level stuff, it has to be that way – has to be led.
However, if there is a ‘we’, the people, then we have to accept some responsibility alongside The Few (who can actually legislate). That bit is tough – especially the desire/compulsion towards wellness amongst those of us who lack familiarity or confidence around sport. Understand that. We do, all of us though, need to acknowlege that the conversation around obesity, diabetes, etc bloody-well has to happen. And then we need that to lead somewhere.
The difficulty (or the question) appears to be that if there is such a thing as society then does that society has every right to expect
a) the chance to be well?
b) Individuals to commit towards wellness?
These can be worryingly divergent aspirations. Fully accept that (as with capitalism) some people are much better equipped to ‘succeed’ and that therefore extra support must be in place to bear those who are struggling towards a better place. But we do need them to get on that journey – to get active on that. Fair enough?
Sports Awards; this is where we came in, remember? People being recognised for coaching, playing, enabling activity. People who are kinda wonderfully and disproportionately positively tipping the balance, god bless’em. People actually reclaiming words like value and inspiration from sheisters who glibly stick them into adverts or company policy, or blogs.
Sounds feeble to say we need these folks more than ever but there is some truth in that, given the chronic – and it is chronic – state we’re in. How can there be anything ahead of general and individual wellbeing, in the queue of priorities? How do us sportyfolks lobby harder?
Most of those slipping shyly onto stages before humbly acknowledging those acknowledging them won’t be dwelling especially on the philosophical import of what they do: or the societal impact, or even the physical good. They’ll be there because they love sport and can’t stop, or even contemplate stopping. Why would they?
Let’s raise a cheer, or a (yaknow) sensible glass, to those who are leading the movement.
sportslaureate 