About

Welcome! Thank you for visiting and reading my blog. It would be great to get your views in return, so please share your thoughts – whether positive, negative or somewhere in between.

I’m a total sports fanatic, in particular I love football (Crystal Palace especially), rugby union (Harlequins), tennis, athletics, cricket, boxing, golf…there isn’t much sport I don’t really like.

Medals on the table? Well, it won’t need to be a big table, that’s for sure. I was a humble amateur footballer for a few years, eventually switching from the 11-a-side game to 5-a-side leagues when my age – and, probably, lack of talent – finally caught up with me.

I didn’t give up my playing days easily. My lovely wife was shopping for me once at birthday time, and new kit was needed – the new Crystal Palace shorts to be precise. When the shop assistant asked my wife what age the shorts were for, she probably didn’t expect the reply: “36”.

In the world of 5-a-side I morphed into a fairly decent goalkeeper, if I say so myself (well, it’s my Blog, so I can). Yet still today, my former team-mates think I had a hell of a nerve, forever demanding them to drop back, sweat pouring off their foreheads, lungs burning…whilst I patrolled my penalty area, with its whopping 6 metre radius.

Rugby union was a game I only got to play at school, but scorched many a touchline as a pacy wing. These days, my body shape is more akin to a prop forward’s, but my speed over those vital first few inches is, I’d like to think, still there.

I still play a lot of tennis, a member of Reedham Park Tennis Club, where I never cease to prove that all parts of the racket are valid in decent shot-making, including the frame.

Cricket? Really enjoyed that too, had trials for the Colts side at Kenley CC, more batsman than bowler. However, I was put off pursuing cricket due to the bad experience I had at my trial, facing some very fast, hostile bowling. On reflection, he may have been a spinner, but even so…

One thing that anyone who’s ever played a sport will appreciate –  team or individual, at whatever level – is the camaraderie, the banter and the shared experience of triumph and disaster that the boy Kipling once wrote about. I’m sure we’ve all “been there”.

How that must feel at the very highest levels of sport, only a very lucky few get to experience – the sort of people we love to watch, read about, hear about…and write about.

I’ve worked in publishing for most of my life, which is probably why I love to read good writing on interesting subjects – and not just sport – so much.

But this, of course, is a sports Blog, so I look forward to hearing from you – not just in response to my articles, but on absolutely anything to do with the wonderful world of sport…let’s get talking.

Thank you,

Chris