Inglorious Mud

It may not surprise you to learn that I'm not really interested in sport or games of any sort. I was a regular member of various teams at school – I was the First XI Hockey goalkeeper for six years – and for some while was a keen participant in junior judo, but I never felt part of either the jock set or the sports fan-base, and haven't played football, rugby, cricket, hockey, or visited a dojo in the 47 years since leaving school. That whole homosocial sports experience of packed terraces, locker-rooms, and Ing-ger-land! chanting leaves me cold. I sincerely couldn't care less about the fortunes of any football team, or whether England ever win the Ashes. I do love to walk, however, and usually do a few miles most days, but truly dislike running, even for a bus. I seem fairly healthy, nonetheless, and – unlike many runners – my knees are still reasonably good at 65.

To be honest, I don't understand sport. I'm not terribly interested in "winning" artificially-constructed contests as a life-goal – it always seems like some sort of trap – and must have been off school on the days when the rules and tactics of the various games we were required to play on Wednesday afternoons and (for the unlucky, chosen few) Saturday mornings were explained. In fact, I suspect those rules and tactics were never actually explained to us: it was just sort of assumed that boys have a special gene that gives us an instinctive grasp of offside, knock-ons, drop-goals, and all the rest of it. Yet my entire grasp of rugby, after six years of playing the game, never evolved beyond running aimlessly around a muddy field knocking people over, getting rid of the ball ASAP in order not to be knocked over, and periodically being required to form a "scrum" – an unpleasant experience necessitating close face-to-buttock contact, accompanied by much surreptitious punching and elbowing – or a "lineout", a jumping contest in which, at 5' 6", I was clearly never going to shine, except as a stable object for some taller lad to use as a springboard.

Rugby is so much more fun when played with girls
(Boys' v. Girls' Grammar, Stevenage 1970)

But of all the games I fail to understand, golf stands unchallenged, head and shoulders above even squash and chess. I've gone on about this before, so won't repeat myself. I mention it only because I like to walk through our municipal golf course, which at this time of year can offer some pleasant vistas, if you ignore the golfers. No need to ignore them, though, this week: the greens are waterlogged, and – unlike other, more mud-spattered pursuits – it appears golfers are not allowed to trample the ground into a boot-swallowing mire. Although, I admit, the temptation to go and kick up some soggy clods on the manicured greens is strong, like jumping into a pristine patch of snow. Which reminds me of an event, many years ago now, when our daughter was about 4 or 5 years old.

We'd had our garden lawn returfed, and part of the process of bedding down the rolls of turf is to leave a sprinkler on for most of the day to give them a good soaking. Obviously, to walk on the lawn at this stage is totally forbidden as it would completely mash up the new grass, something I made abundantly clear to our kids. However, if you're 4 or 5 years old with an impish taste for mischief, any such strict rules laid down by The Patriarchy are to be regarded as more by way of negotiable guidelines. So I looked out of the kitchen window to see a gleeful mite clog-dancing in the water spray, right in the middle of the newly-laid turf. I was more than a little annoyed, and did my best Angry Daddy act, to no avail. She merely laughed and – effectively giving me the finger – challenged me to come and chase her off, if I thought I was hard enough. Which, for the sake of the new lawn, was something I was not going to be able to do. Some very one-sided hilarity ensued. Grrr. Just you wait, young lady! Although I still haven't decided on a suitable reprisal, some 20 years later. As I say, negotiable guidelines...

My goal is beyond...