Balls
I am a total duffer at sports.
I cannot kick a ball, throw a ball, catch a ball, or hit a ball with a bat.
I cannot even dance at a ball.
For a short while I tried 5 - a - side football (soccer) with a Bank team. Later I attempted to play in a football (soccer) team with some buddies in the Bristol Downs’ League. I played (if that’s the word!) tennis one summer whilst working at the National Westminster Bank residential training College in Oxfordshire.
But it’s all hopeless. I cannot kick a ball, throw a ball, catch a ball, or hit a ball with a bat.
And I am not even very interested in sports or athletics. Except that for 31 years as a Pastor in Massachusetts I learned that I should be enthusiastic about the Boston Red Sox (Baseball); the New England Patriots (American Football); and the Boston Celtics (Basketball).
I needed to be enthusiastic about these teams in order to be a popular Pastor, even though I do not understand one whit about baseball, American football or basketball.
Go Sox, Patriots, and Celtics I say!
It was the same years ago.
I grew up in east Bristol, living less than a mile away from the Bristol Rovers Football Club Stadium in Eastville. My destiny was to become a Rovers’ fan. They were the local team. Their Supporters’ Club was known as the Pirates; the team’s nickname is “The Gas” (they played next to an old “plant” which made cooking and heating gas from coal); and their team song was and is “Goodnight Irene”.
But when I was about 11 years old I had a school chum whose last name was “Nairn”. I am not sure that I even ever knew his first name. He lived on Stapleton Road in Eastville, within sound of the Rovers’ Stadium, and but three or four doors away from the Supporters’ Club shop front office.
And he had the “balls” (excuse me please!) to be a supporter of the rival team, Bristol City Football Club who played across town in south Bristol at Ashton Gate.
I was “hooked”. If a boy who lived (literally) under the shadow of the Eastville Club could be a supporter of the cross town rival club, then so could I!
And since then “my” team has been Bristol City Football Club. They play at Ashton Gate; their nick-name is “The Robins” (they play in red); and their theme song is “When the red red Robin goes bob bob bobbing along”
My sister Maureen had the good sense to marry a man who is a City fan. So is their son, my nephew Nick.
My mother (after Dad’s death) married a Rovers Fan.
My younger brother Andrew is crazy for the Rovers. He tells me that I “forced” him to attend Bristol City matches; but that one day I took him to a Rovers’ game, and from then on he was a convinced Rovers fan.
He also tells me that he’d complained to Dad about my “forcing” him to attend the City games at Ashton Gate.
He reports that Dad said “you do not have to be stupid to go to Ashton Gate, but it helps“.
Thanks Dad!
But, GO Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bristol City, even though I cannot kick a ball, throw a ball, catch a ball, or hit a ball with a bat.
I cannot kick a ball, throw a ball, catch a ball, or hit a ball with a bat.
I cannot even dance at a ball.
For a short while I tried 5 - a - side football (soccer) with a Bank team. Later I attempted to play in a football (soccer) team with some buddies in the Bristol Downs’ League. I played (if that’s the word!) tennis one summer whilst working at the National Westminster Bank residential training College in Oxfordshire.
But it’s all hopeless. I cannot kick a ball, throw a ball, catch a ball, or hit a ball with a bat.
And I am not even very interested in sports or athletics. Except that for 31 years as a Pastor in Massachusetts I learned that I should be enthusiastic about the Boston Red Sox (Baseball); the New England Patriots (American Football); and the Boston Celtics (Basketball).
I needed to be enthusiastic about these teams in order to be a popular Pastor, even though I do not understand one whit about baseball, American football or basketball.
Go Sox, Patriots, and Celtics I say!
It was the same years ago.
I grew up in east Bristol, living less than a mile away from the Bristol Rovers Football Club Stadium in Eastville. My destiny was to become a Rovers’ fan. They were the local team. Their Supporters’ Club was known as the Pirates; the team’s nickname is “The Gas” (they played next to an old “plant” which made cooking and heating gas from coal); and their team song was and is “Goodnight Irene”.
But when I was about 11 years old I had a school chum whose last name was “Nairn”. I am not sure that I even ever knew his first name. He lived on Stapleton Road in Eastville, within sound of the Rovers’ Stadium, and but three or four doors away from the Supporters’ Club shop front office.
And he had the “balls” (excuse me please!) to be a supporter of the rival team, Bristol City Football Club who played across town in south Bristol at Ashton Gate.
I was “hooked”. If a boy who lived (literally) under the shadow of the Eastville Club could be a supporter of the cross town rival club, then so could I!
And since then “my” team has been Bristol City Football Club. They play at Ashton Gate; their nick-name is “The Robins” (they play in red); and their theme song is “When the red red Robin goes bob bob bobbing along”
My sister Maureen had the good sense to marry a man who is a City fan. So is their son, my nephew Nick.
My mother (after Dad’s death) married a Rovers Fan.
My younger brother Andrew is crazy for the Rovers. He tells me that I “forced” him to attend Bristol City matches; but that one day I took him to a Rovers’ game, and from then on he was a convinced Rovers fan.
He also tells me that he’d complained to Dad about my “forcing” him to attend the City games at Ashton Gate.
He reports that Dad said “you do not have to be stupid to go to Ashton Gate, but it helps“.
Thanks Dad!
But, GO Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bristol City, even though I cannot kick a ball, throw a ball, catch a ball, or hit a ball with a bat.
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