Sporting Thoughts
I often have nightmares where I am sat in a circle of people. Each stands and says their name and makes a confession. When it comes to my turn I slowly rise from my chair, pause for a moment and a bead of sweat will run down my forehead. Finally I will say: "My name is James and I am a netball player."
Just for one moment consider your reaction to that statement; maybe you don't care, maybe you think it's fine for a boy to play a girls sport, maybe, just maybe, you respect me for doing something unusual. Indeed by playing netball I'm making a stand against "the man", I'm looking conformity straight in the eye and saying I am not a machine, I am my own person... well, maybe.
OK, OK, so perhaps I'm making a big deal about this but hey, I'm a netball player, I'm in touch with my feminine side and therefore I can moan about everything and anything. I can moan that the court is too slippery, I can moan that I look fat in our new training tops, I can moan that the captain is pulling fitter people than me. I don't do these things however because at the end of the day, when I take off my bib and Mansfield College Netball top, I am still a bloke. This means also that I take my netball seriously. Imagine a football team that nobody else cares about, but means the world to you; Charlton fans should find this particularly easy. Basically I can celebrate if we win, be mad if we lose and either way nobody else really cares; brilliant, failure is no longer a worry! Added to this the fact that I am always taller than my marker, that netball is actually a really simple game and that it only lasts 24 minutes, then maybe you can understand why I spend my Friday's at Worcester courts.
Last week I won Man, or in this politically correct world of ours, Person of the Match, I was so proud. So ladies, but particularly gentlemen, I advise you take up the one true sport at Oxford, and if one day they create a man's league perhaps I won't feel like such a twat!
13th Feb 2003