Sport it out - or pay the penalty!

I’m sure, like me, many of you out there are sport mad. I’d have to say that I’m a sports mad, watching sport Dad rather than being big on my own participation. Well, that’s probably a bit unfair on me as I play a bit of golf, I do a bit of ‘fit-less’, a bit of paddle boarding and a bit of kayaking. But - I do a lot of watching sport - and I don’t just mean on the TV.

When you become a Dad, I think you believe it’s your duty to get your kids to like a sport. With our son, we tried everything; a bit of tennis, a bit of football, a bit of cricket, a bit of swimming, a bit of badminton, a bit of golf, a bit of basketball, a bit of kayaking. I guess that’s why he is ‘a bit’ ok at all of them. Should you concentrate on a smaller number of sports when they are young? Or give them as much variety as possible? I suppose it depends on the end game (and I don’t mean those Avengers film). If your end game is a pension pot with a superstar sporting genius in the house - I guess you need focus! As for us, it simply meant the garage and house became cluttered with all manner of sporting goods! As for the number of cricket bats we’ve accumulated…there must be at least 20 in the house. All in different stages of destruction - chunks missing out of them, splits down the centre, snapped handles.

As for watching them play sport, this is an adventure in itself; the emotions you go through! Not great as you get older, I’m sure there is a specific stress level for ‘Dad watching kids’ sport’. Whether it’s watching them learn to swim; sat at the edge of the pool as though on ‘starters blocks’ ready to leap into action if you hear so much as a cough or sat until late at night, freezing cold on a British summer evening watching the dying embers of another cricketing defeat - praying there’s no duck, no ball or wide. Then there’s when you first hand over a golf club and see it shoot off down the driving range like something from a wellie wanging contest. “Oops, sorry everyone, I’ll just quickly grab that.” Actually, I’ve just realised, I do more sport than I thought! It’s me that my son uses as the bowling machine down the nets. Chucking ball after ball down the strip, each delivery taking a little more out of the old body, already creaking at the seams. I even took the step to get a ‘sidearm’ - this is the ball throwing device of choice for all cricket coaches to avoid a dislocated shoulder. You effectively treat your son like a dog (because the sidearm looks just like a ball throwing gadget for dogs). Instead of fetching the ball like a dog would, he just smashes it back at you with added pace. “Try and catch it next time Dad - you won’t have to walk as far to get it” a common accompaniment to a solidly hit straight drive.

I guess one saving grace is that our daughter thinks sport is weird. “Err why would I want to do that” her general response. “In this..I don’t think so.” “Why would someone want to do that to themselves?” another common question as to why sports people would put themselves through such physical exertion. We have made the effort and tried with our daughter - “how about trying another sport” you might say. Generally this is greeted with a little laughter as though to say “you must be joking”. I actually think she may be allergic to sport. Is that a thing? Can you actually be allergic to sport? Maybe she’s just suffering with ‘boneidleness’. That sounds more like it.

Back to watching sport. I love watching cricket on TV. I love all the England games and really enjoy test match cricket the most but more than happy to watch the one dayers and a good T20. I’m even looking forward to The Hundred!

Although not such a fan of the football these days, the EURO’s has been an absolute bonkers time. Maybe it’s because we still have some Covid restrictions and are all suffering a little bit of cabin fever! The football has been agony and ecstasy in equal measures - well apart from the complete agony of losing on penalties again. Just a thought - any chance we can start a petition to get penalties banned. There must be something better than penalties - how about a spit ball off? England sports people are very good at spitting great globs of phlegm - whether it‘s football, cricket, golf, actually any sport outdoors (and some indoors…) we seem to be great at that. I’m sure if you set up a target 12 yards away we would have a lot more success. Sorry - that’s just gross!!!

Our son has been hilarious during the football. More used to playing the type of football on FIFA video games, this year he has been much more engaged by the real thing. At the beginning of the tournament he was fairly calm. Let’s call it a slow burner. His comments would be pretty reserved “come on England, you can do it, great clean sheet, good assist”. As we got further into the group and to the knockout stages this became more animated - leaping out of his seat at the long shot or mimicking the glancing header or full stretch save from Pickford. Then, for quarter and semi final it was like he was possessed - charging around the room like a small child, trying bicycle kicks and smashing an imaginary half volley into the net plus the general jumping up and down and "shouting it’s coming home, it’s coming home". Followed by “ouch, I think I may have damaged my foot on the coffee table” and “sorry about the drink all over the floor”. Let’s not talk about the final - that was like Armageddon!!!!

I guess my final point would be simply to say - get out there and give as many sports a go as you can. One good thing with that is you don’t have to watch it…. You can ‘sport it out’ instead or switch your allegiance to another sport - “football, what football?” - The Open Championship starts this week. Good news too… there’s a different type of penalty in golf!

Happy golfing everyone…