...usually, when given the chance to publicly shine in the sporting arena, my legs and arms would lose all coordination under the pressure and I would perform like a complete idiot. My confidence went and I stopped bothering, spending most of my adolescence in the swimming pool pretending to be a dolphin.
When was that defining moment I picked up a squash racquet and realised my gift? As a boy growing up in the lush fields of Stratford upon Avon, I remember spending many long summer evenings choosing to hit a tennis ball against the wall of our house rather than actually play the game on a court.
This, I suspect, had more to do with the fact I had no friends than anything else. However, maybe the seeds were sown during those sessions with the yellow, furry ball. Angles could have been learnt and the basics of movement instilled. At school, I'd tried every sport on offer. And in those halcyon days of the country grammar school, there were many. Rugby in the winter months, cross-country running in the autumn and, of course, the sound of willow on leather in the summer. Rugby I loathed. I remember one Saturday morning during training, being forced to grab my wood-work teacher by the thighs again and again. I never understood how that helped my rugby, but Mr. Gibbins seemed to enjoy it. Cross-country running, I never got. Why would any school-boy voluntarily try to keep up with an insane science master with thwarted athletic ambitions as he tore up a vicious hill, when you knew, as soon as he disappeared out of sight, the afternoon was yours to stroll through? And then the cricket. Cricket to me seems a game that encourages general lounging and foppery so, put me in a set of whites on a hot summer's day and the chance of getting any sense out of me was negligable.
So, rugby was out. As was the running and cricket. What was left? I tried basketball (right height, no dribbling skills), fencing (mask made me claustrophobic). Canoeing was a closed book if you weren't a chemist. Mr. Sullivan, the chemistry master, was in charge of the boats, you see, and I had chosen geography over chemistry a year before - a decision based on the fact that Mr. Sullivan scared the shit out of me and, although the geography master was evidently completly bonkers, at least he wasn't a psychotic who enjoyed slamming a four foot broom handle on your desk when you were least expecting it to keep you on your toes. The chemistry lab had smooth wooden stools to sit on and I remember one morning accidently letting a small amount of wind slip out of my behind. Unfortunately, because I was leaning forward with my elbows perched on the afore-mentioned desk, my arse-ring had taken on the shape of a small embouchure and a long, swooping, note lifted from back of me. Mr. Sullivan, decided to stop chalking and turned round to face us. Why? No idea. As far as I was concerned, farting was a bit embarrassing, especially when produced completely by accident. I'd already had painful experience of how one's sphincter can have a mind of its own and let you down at the most inopportune of moments...
When I was twelve, I appeared in two plays at the local theatre. Only this being Stratford-on-Avon, the local theatre was the Royal Shakespeare, so I was very lucky to be involved. One of these was a production of Richard III at the Other Place, directed by Barry Kyle and starring Ian Richardson as the withered one. One afternoon, the entire company was called to the conference hall to rehearse the final scene of the play, where the ghosts of the people Richard had done away with, sat around an eery flame and freaked him out with their chanting. This particular afternoon, the phantastic fire was a metal bucket with some dry ice in it. To show we were ghosties, we we all had brown paper bags on her heads with holes to see through. So there we were, cross-legged on the floor, me and several house-hold names sitting in a circle looking at each other with these bags on our heads. The huge hall was silent as, over the other side, the director went through some finer points with Mr. Richardson. Sure enough, I accidently let off a raspberry that echoed for ever. Now remember I was twelve and a bit shy. Now, with the benefit of the years, I'd like to think I'd lift the bag off and apologise with a grin and get on with it. Then, however, I simply sat there in silence, mortified within the confines of my paper bag, wishing I could die.
Forward a couple of years to the chemistry lab and wooden stool situation and Mr. Sullivan was obviously not going to let this one, as it were, drop. Feeling that the swannee whistle of wind was somehow produced intentionally, that one of his class must have developed the control and uncanny ability to anally reshape themselves and produce comedy swoops at will in order to have a laugh at his expense, he stopped chalking and slowly turned to face us with a look that would've scared the shit out of a grown man let alone a slightly spotty fourteen year old with wind! With cheeks burning, I ignored the fact that everyone was looking in my direction laughing their heads off, and looked behind me at no-one in particular and laughed longer and louder in a desperate attempt to deflect. With hindsight, I like to think Mr. Sullivan found a small nugget of compassion within himself when faced with such a pathetic, cellophane deception, and decided to turn back to the board feeling I'd suffered enough. In any event, me and Mr. Sullivan didn't quite click, so the canooeing was a non-starter.
What else? Athletics again couldn't figure much as Mr. Mallinson probably felt I was lacking in any application in the running department having watched me year after year spend the cross-country season sauntering in last. I enjoyed tennis, but only in the park, and, as I said before, against a brick wall.
I'd always never quite made the team my entire school career. Success was so rare for me, I have still a vivid memory of being put on the football field around the age of eight and, during my short time on there with the school's coolest players, cut through our opponents' defence with the wickedest of passes and, in the process, earned the prime spot on the team photo, even though I had spent most of the match on the substitutes' bench...
But, as I said, usually, when given the chance to publicly shine in the sporting arena, my legs and arms would lose all coordination under the pressure and I would perform like a complete idiot. My confidence went and I stopped bothering, spending most of my adolescence in the swimming pool pretending to be a dolphin.
Sporting glory was going to have to be put on the back burner for a while. I was going to have to find something else to do until adolescence was well over and I was given back some sort of control over the majority of my hormones...