School sport – or how I failed to become an athlete

While watching the Commonwealth Games cycling from the velodrome in London, I noticed a sign that read “Sport is just the beginning”. For some reason, that set me thinking about my sporting career.

As I child, I enjoyed the freedom of living a few hundred yards from Victoria Park (see above), in the Polsham area of Paignton, where I could sail my yacht in the circular pond and play on swings and the slide in the children’s playground (located beyond the trees in the distance). There was also a large field in the park where friends and I played cricket in the summer and kickaround football (soccer) in the winter. Cricket was my favourite sport and I joined Paignton Cricket Club so that I could watch games and also operate the scoreboard (being reminded frequently by the official scorer that I had it wrong and therefore the players out on the pitch were being misinformed). Stan Cray (below) was the professional (succeeded by Jack Kelly and Harold “Dickie” Bird, of later umpiring fame) and they were early sporting heroes.

There was no coaching and I had no idea of the technique of the fast bowling I enjoyed, other than to run in off about 30 paces and try and launch the ball somewhere near the batsman. As for batting, all I knew was to hammer the ball as hard as possible: I had no defence and no shots on the off side. Although enthusiastic, I realised that I was never going to be a good player and there was no hope of getting any coaching at Oldway Primary School, as all the teachers, bar one, were women and they concentrated on netball with the girls: Mr Mitchell, the sole male teacher, didn’t seem interested in sport. We had games that involved running around the playground (coloured sashes and equipment like beanbags, and balls of various sizes, being kept in the shelter at the “Oldway Mansion end”) and we played in inter-school games [1]. There was also Music and Movement in the Hall, with all of us following the instructions from a radio, with its speaker contained in an enormous wooden box. The programme was from a different age, as you can hear in a clip [2].

It was left to Torquay Boys’ Grammar School to introduce me to other sports and to get me fit through gymnastics. In winter, it was cross-country running, football, rugby and swimming: in summer it was athletics, cricket, and swimming. Gymnastics was all year round and consisted of learning how to vault (both gate vaults and vaulting horses), walk on a balance beam, hang off wall bars, and do somersaults and stretches while on a mat. It was never explained that these were components of gymnastics competitions, they were just things we were made to do by Mr Stokes and Mr Morrall, the former being serious about getting things right and the latter just being deeply unpleasant. Both had a slightly disconcerting habit of sticking their chests out, but that might have been a requirement for gym teachers. Just as I left the school, another master came along (I think his name was Mr Goulder) and he was quite different, being encouraging rather than taking enjoyment from putting down the less able. I shall always remember Mr Morrall, though.

For swimming, we walked through the town to the Marine Spa baths (see above in an image from the Devon Live web site) and my first lesson involved jumping in to the shallow end. As a non-swimmer who was terrified of putting my head under water, this was a challenge that I avoided by hiding in the showers and, fortunately, Mr Betteridge didn’t notice when a wet RSW climbed down the steps into the pool. All further lessons were with Mr Roberts and even his more encouraging approach did not succeed and I spent my time holding on to the side rail and thrashing about with my legs to give the impression that I was trying. I certainly was trying, but remained a non-swimmer until much later in life.

In cross-country (actually road running) we ran through country lanes, setting out from the sports hut that was located near to the Girls’ Grammar School (it would have been to the right of the far-right corner in the image above – this is a recent view of “our” playing field site, now laid out rather differently [3]). We would walk from the Barton Road TBGS site up to Shiphay, get changed, and then run on a specified route that had staff members located at intervals to see that we completed the course. Some masters, who had no involvement with sport, must have used this as a means of getting away from the staff room early and I remember Mr Evans (“Mole”) scowling at me as I went past in the last few “runners”, as I had delayed him from jumping into his blue MG Midget to get home early.

We were given some coaching in soccer, but knew the basics from the times when we played together with friends. Rugby was different, as many of us knew little about the game. We were taught to tackle, how to pass backwards not forwards, and how to form a scrum – not helped when Mr Stokes hollered “go hard” to encourage us… I had no idea about the rules of the game and this was apparent when I volunteered to play rugby for Dobson House against Clifford House. Our captain, Malcolm Baker, was a very good player who also captained the school side, so knew the game well. I played in the scrum and was so good at jumping for the ball in line-outs that Mr Gillham (“Fritz”), who was refereeing, commented on my prowess after the game. Malcolm was less impressed, as he felt I wasn’t getting the ball to the backs fast enough and, when he called for a short line-out, I felt him forcibly grabbing my collar and yanking me back, as I had no idea what he meant. During the same game, I remembered all that I had been taught about tackling and stood my ground when a large opponent raced toward me and then handed me off, the smack in my face nearly knocking me out. I had no idea that sort of thing was allowed.

In the summer term, I enjoyed it when cricket was the sport of the week, but athletics was more challenging, although it had a lot of variety: discus, shot putt, javelin, sprinting, long jump, and high jump. We knew about the position needed to throw the discus from the image of the statue of the Discobolus of Myron (see below) that was the subject of the badge on Mr Stokes’ CCPR blazer. The other athletic events were easy enough, but high jump was not. We had to jump into a sand pit, invariably damp, and there was a choice between straddle or western roll (this was before the “Fosbury Flop”, and that would have been dangerous, anyway). I used a kind of bunny hop and crashed through the bar, but it was the best I could do. It didn’t garner much praise.

So, my training in sports wasn’t the beginning mentioned in the opening paragraph, but the end. Much later, I took swimming lessons and became a reasonably good swimmer. Surprisingly, I also took up jogging and enjoyed running around set routes; usually not needing to stop for rests, as in my school cross-country days. 

My main “sporting” activity remains walking alone through country lanes and footpaths [4] and it has been since I was a teenager. Now, the distance covered by each walk is a bit shorter, but I can still do 15 miles without a break and at a reasonable pace of over 3 mph, too. I should be grateful that all the attempts of gymnastics, and sports, masters failed to make me an athlete, so that I haven’t needed to look back on past achievements that I know I could never repeat. Ironically, given that the sign mentioned in the opening paragraph was in the velodrome, I never learned to ride a bike. Who knows, I may have found that as pleasurable as walking.

[1] Roger S Wotton (2020) Walking with Gosse. e-book.

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ve-93G9h10&ab_channel=BenMorris

[3] https://www.kayelliott.co.uk/portfolio/project/torquay-girls-grammar-school/

[4] https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2022/08/a-walk-in-countryside-is-not-always.html

 

 

A walk in the countryside is not always a positive experience

In his Introduction to the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Rousseau’s Reveries of the Solitary Walker [1], Russell Goulbourne writes:

For Rousseau, ..musings and movement go hand in hand. Walking is.. ..thought-inspiring: ‘Seated at my table, with my pen in my hand and my paper in front of me, I have never been able to achieve anything. It is when I am out walking among the rocks and the woods, it is at night, sleepless in my bed, that I write in my head’. This link between musings and movement.. ..is fundamental to the Reveries.. ..since Rousseau based his text on notes he had scribbled down on twenty-seven playing cards while out walking..

A similar approach to the creative impulse provided by solitary walking in the countryside was described by Edward Elgar, who also enjoyed riding a bicycle over the lanes and tracks of Worcestershire and, especially, the Malvern Hills (see above). In a letter from Malvern on 11th July 1900 to A.J.Jaeger (“Nimrod” of the Enigma Variations), Elgar writes, describing a musical phrase [2]:

This is what I hear all day – the trees are singing my music – or have I sung theirs? It’s too lovely here.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the genius of Rousseau or Elgar, but I understand their sentiments. For me, walking through the countryside has always been my favourite exercise (I never learned to ride a bicycle) and provides a source of freedom from day-to-day problems. It is more that that, though, in that it enables me to appreciate the natural world and to observe closely all the changes that occur through the year. Like Rousseau and Elgar, my walks are also a time when ideas come to the fore – perhaps for a different way of looking at something, or for generating ideas for a new talk, or blog post.

Early morning walks in summer are especially uplifting and I have recently discovered that short video clips act as aides-memoires. Being a technophobe, I have only recently started using the video recorder on my mobile telephone and the clip below shows a section of country lane that opens to reveal a pretty cottage with well-kept gardens on either side of the road. This has always seemed odd to me, as I am not a gardener and I prefer the wonderful complexity of natural world as it is – there’s no doubting that it is attractive, though.

Further in the dawn walk, I headed through a field and took a path into a wood. The transition appealed to me, so I took a video as I walked from the one to the other and the clip can be viewed below, complete with soundtrack:

My experience was very similar to that of Geoff Nicholson [3]:

Even as I was falling I thought, Oh crap, I’m not going all the way to the ground, am I? I’ll stop myself somehow. I’ll keep my footing. I’ll regain my balance. And then I knew I was mistaken about that. I was going all the way. I’d passed the tipping point. Oh crap indeed.

Then there was the impact, a much greater, more generalised blow than I’d been anticipating. I was on the ground, winded, hurting all over, feeling like a fool, trying to breathe deeply and regularly, and thinking.. ..’Oh man this really, really hurts, this is a bad one’.

Nicholson broke his arm, but I was luckier as I only had cuts on various parts of my face and arms and a badly swollen hand. Once I had recovered a little, I gingerly pushed myself up and then sat for a while on a tree stump before walking the 2 km to my home. A visit to the hospital later in the day revealed a dislocated, and broken, little finger that required surgery under general anaesthetic and, as I write, my hand and lower arm are in plaster and I await the verdict of the medical team as to the extent of healing.

I was a fool to concentrate on making the videoclip and not looking where I was putting my feet. A lesson learned, certainly, but I so look forward to going out on more solitary walks in the countryside. Despite recent evidence, thy are good for me…

[1] Russell Goulbourne (2011) Introduction. Reveries of the Solitary Walker by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

[2] Percy M. Young (1956) Letters of Edward Elgar and Other Writings. London, Geoffrey Bles.

[3] Geoff Nicholson (2010) The Lost Art of Walking. Chelmsford, Harbour.

 

 

 

My thanks to Anna Easton for her advice on the use of videoclips.