‘Cor, look at that Billy Bremner! Fantastic! Come on, Leeds United!’ shouts my son, as I potter about on Saturday afternoons, keeping well clear of the telly.
‘Shsh, it’s the cricket score!’ hisses my husband, on summer days, as he wanders past with a transistor.
‘Come on Mum, you could easily play badminton if you’d try!’ calls my daughter as feathered shuttlecocks whizz by like souped-up sea gulls.
But the sad fact is that I am a complete dud where any sort of sporting activity is concerned. And, of course, one of the troubles with being tall and – let us say – lusty looking (no, on second thoughts, let’s not say that) is that everyone thinks you are sure to be frightfully athletic and good at games.
‘Anyone for tennis?’ they cry, bounding off, twirling their racquets and looking keenly in my direction.
‘Care to join us for a spot of golf?’ they ask, slinging great tartan bagfuls of assorted wood and metal into the boots of their cars.
‘Ever tried any hurdling?’ they puff, jogging off down to the rec’ in zippy track suits. But they rarely ask me a second time. Because just as there are people who have a blank spot where foreign languages are concerned, or admit that they can’t draw or sew or carry a tune in their heads, I seem to have something missing where sport is concerned. It isn’t just a matter of ability, although I certainly lack that. It’s also that I really don’t know why they feel the need to chase that ball up and down. Or find it necessary to pound past the winning post first. Why can’t they all pound past together? To music even. With their arms linked?
I have tried to discover the secret of a successful sporting life. Believe me I have tried. Especially in early adulthood when so many of the local social events tended to revolve around sports clubs of one sort or another. But fate always seems to have been against me.
This fact soon became evident at school, particularly when teams were being chosen by that unnerving method in which two leaders take it in turns to pick a player. I remember so well how it was…
‘I’ll have her,’ said our games captain, tossing back great muscular pigtails and pointing to an enthusiastic soul already doing flashy press-ups on the sidelines. ‘In that case I’ll take the one over there,’ said the other team leader indicating a tanned whippet of a girl sprinting round in circles to the whirl of a skipping rope. And so the selection process went on. First the amazons. Then the middlin’ bunch. Then the lame, the halt, the wobbly and the uncoordinated. Then me. In fact, if the numbers were odd, I was often thrown in free with a girl who had pebble lenses and a recent leg fracture, in exchange for the one with wonky hips and a verruca. I still sometimes have a brave go at joining in whatever happens to be the latest activity practised (so easily it seems) by those around me.
In fact, upstairs right now in my wardrobe there are gleaming, hardly-worn tennis shoes, grippy-soled boating shoes, white shorts, blue shorts, ankle socks and a healthy assortment of open-pored Aertex tops. There even used to be, at one time, a pair of specially-made jodhpurs. They had to be specially made because I must be one of the few people who are actually jodhpur-shaped underneath.
However, I always felt so sorry for the poor horses who found themselves saddled with me that I’ve long since relegated my big, baggy breeks to other pastures.
But I still show willing to do my pitiful best in other directions.
‘Come on Mum,’ cry the family, tossing a frisbee up and around and back into their waiting hand. Or sending a cricket ball for six. Or expertly dribbling a football in and out among various darting and swerving opponents.
But, alas, my cricket bat misses or flies off over the horizon with the ball, my dribbling punctures the football and my frisbee sails up into elm trees or open office windows.
It is some small consolation to know that I am not absolutely alone in this.
‘Come along, Daniel,’ said a visiting relative who happens to be a headmaster. ‘I’ll show you how to fly your kite.’ With studious care he clasped the spool of thread and bounded sedately off across the field, only to return a bit shamefacedly shortly afterwards, to say that he’d accidentally let go of the string and the whole thing was now tangled up in an overhead telegraph wire.
And pretty sheepish he and my husband looked, too, throwing sticks into the air for the rest of the afternoon, in their efforts to dislodge it.
My sympathies were also with the frisky Dad who, seeing the local lads scoring a few practice goals in the park, joined in and sent their ball soaring up and away and into a passing lorry.
Then there was the day my husband, keen to impress me with his fishing prowess, cast his line with a great ripple of shoulder muscle, forgot to let go, and zoomed off after it, with a dramatic plunge into the river.
But I am glad to notice that, as the years go by many keen sporting types, both male and female, gradually settle down to become armchair enthusiasts instead. So perhaps the best thing at this stage is for me to practise becoming a good spectator sportswoman.
It doesn’t take all that much coordination or athletic expertise to sway one’s head from side to side at a tennis match. Or to lean forward and Look Keen when someone scores a goal on the telly. Especially now that we’ve got a colour set. I may not know precisely what it is they are doing out there on the field – or even why – but at least I can now unscramble one team from the other.
So ‘Come on, Billy Bremner … Oh, WELL PLAYED!!’