The Trophy Cabinet
We're living through an unprecedented golden era for British sport. A Wimbledon winner, the Tour De France, Cricket, Rugby, it seems we are sweeping all before us.
What can be behind this amazing success? I would like to pretend that I have made some sort of contribution to this, but sadly I haven't really had much of an impact. Unless sitting on the sofa with a large bag of Doritos yelling "Come on Andy" at the telly counts.
It seems that sport and I have fallen out of love over the years. In fact even in my prime we were not exactly comfortable bedfellows. However, I did used to play a lot of sports, with a level of ability ranging from mediocre to pitiful. But it is the taking part that counts, so they say.
The main reason I don't really do anything now, or rather the main excuse I use to get out of it, is that I am too busy with the kids. There is an element of truth in this - after all I can't just nip off for a ride on my bike as and when I feel like it if I am looking after the kids. However, even if Claire is here, I lack the inclination. The fact is I got out of the habit of doing exercise of playing any sport after Ollie was born and now I lack the motivation and energy to get back into it. It is too much like hard work on top of all the other things I have to do. I don't feel particularly unfit though. I am quite comfortably hitting my 10,000 steps walking target each day on my phone and the constant cleaning up and housework must keep me in reasonable shape.
I can't imagine getting back to the point of going to the gym again. Believe it or not, it was at the gym where Claire, who had gone there to watch some friends play squash, first decided she wanted to go out with me when she looked through the fitness room window and saw me on the treadmill and thought "I fancy a bit of that". That was seven years ago and unfortunately I didn't come with a guarantee that I'd maintain that shape, but that's contented married life for you.
Despite my rather unremarkable attempts at sporting greatness, I have actually got a few trophies upstairs from various activities so I thought I'd take a few pictures and explain how I came to win these esteemed prizes. Looking at each in turn, it has to be fair to say in most cases, more by luck than skill and a fortunate set of circumstances but win them I did, and when the children ask about them I can always exaggerate my achievements in order to maintain my hero dad status.
OK, this is not exactly a sport, but Fantasy Football is something that I have always been amazingly good at. Just to clarify that statement so it does not sound like bragging, that achievement is something far outweighed by the number of things I am astoundingly bad at.
But Fantasy Footy with its stat based systems is the absolutely perfect game for someone like me with my mathematical brain and I have been very successful at it, winning many times. I've also made a fair bit of money out of it. Some years ago a bookmaker I used to bet with ran a competition which wasn't fantasy football as such, more to do with predicting scores, but I spotted a way to win this game purely by exploiting the scoring system with the likely outcomes of the matches to win out of several thousand people. It was simple case of playing the perecentages over 38 weeks to come out on top. I won the first prize of £1500 for winning that game (it was free to enter) plus a £200 free bet on the Champions League final which I stuck on Barcelona to kick Man Utd's arse which they duly did, adding another £375 to the pot. That paid for our holiday in Lanzarote that year. And it was all down to the beauty of maths and stats, I barely watched a match.
I've won various other leagues in Bicester, at Nielsen, all of which have been quite lucrative when everyone is sticking a tenner in the pot and it is winner takes all. It's all good! Anyway the trophy above is from a league I organised back in the nineties and also won. Well, when I say "I" won that isn't strictly true. To make up the numbers (we needed 20 people) I submitted a second team to be managed by my cat, Susie, under the name "Tuna Felix Eating Tigers". .Susie swept all before her, so technically it was her trophy, but since she is now dead (or is she?) I have inherited the trophy.
I've covered my karting exploits in detail in my book, Fortysomething Father. This is the only trophy I have and it is for 3rd place in a big race we had at a now defunct karting track over in Oxford, in which about 12 of us participated. I actually led this race for a long way, having got pole position in qualifying but only finished third due to the fact that everyone's favourite metalhead maniac Adam "Satan" Wilkins was on the track and decided to ram me up the arse and launch me into a wall of tyres when I was lapping him so I had to wait what seemed like an eternity for the marshalls to come and rescue me. After the race Satan's explanation for his actions was that he did it "for a laugh".
As everyone knows, I am hideously bad at golf, so how on earth did I manage to win a trophy for it. Well this trophy is not quite as amazing as it seems.The HOGS (Heavily Overweight Golf Society) in which I used to play had split the members into three divisions based on their ability. Division One was competent, Division Two was incompetent and Division Three was downright diabolical. Unsurprisingly I was in Division Three and quite used to coming back with cards littered with double figure scores - in fact anything under a round score of 140 was considered good by my standards.
Amazingly however there were people in my division who were even worse. My main opponents on this day in my division were Pete Thornton, the ex landlord of the Hobgoblin, he walked off after about two holes claiming a bout of flu, Eggy (not exactly a natural golfer) and American Rob who could actually hit the ball quite far but had never really got the hang of putting. He could get within a few feet of the hole and then whack it so hard with the putter it would end up thirty yards back down the fairway. So with a round score of about 138 and a dismal 7 Stableford points, I cruised to this famous victory.
At last, a trophy I can feel proud of. In fact I have a few for Aunt Sally. This one is from when I hit my one and only "six" back at the Six Bells during my last season there. I had come close a few times, but never quite managed it. I wasn't sure if I had on this occasion because the last one was very debatable and a 50/50 call, but the scorer didn't have the heart to call "iron" after the first five went in.
I've also got a doubles winner trophy which I won with my old pal Michael Cooke several years ago and various other team trophies for winning divisions and also the year we gloriously triumphed against Launton Sports in the cup final when we were massive underdogs.
So that's my trophy collection. However there are lots of other sports I have participated in over the years, which I have not won trophies in (mostly due to being crap) so I think I may sum up my performances in some of those next time.
If you have enjoyed reading this blog, please take a look at my books on Amazon (Paperback & Kindle), where you can read lots more of the same! Click here.
Jason xx
What can be behind this amazing success? I would like to pretend that I have made some sort of contribution to this, but sadly I haven't really had much of an impact. Unless sitting on the sofa with a large bag of Doritos yelling "Come on Andy" at the telly counts.
It seems that sport and I have fallen out of love over the years. In fact even in my prime we were not exactly comfortable bedfellows. However, I did used to play a lot of sports, with a level of ability ranging from mediocre to pitiful. But it is the taking part that counts, so they say.
The main reason I don't really do anything now, or rather the main excuse I use to get out of it, is that I am too busy with the kids. There is an element of truth in this - after all I can't just nip off for a ride on my bike as and when I feel like it if I am looking after the kids. However, even if Claire is here, I lack the inclination. The fact is I got out of the habit of doing exercise of playing any sport after Ollie was born and now I lack the motivation and energy to get back into it. It is too much like hard work on top of all the other things I have to do. I don't feel particularly unfit though. I am quite comfortably hitting my 10,000 steps walking target each day on my phone and the constant cleaning up and housework must keep me in reasonable shape.
I can't imagine getting back to the point of going to the gym again. Believe it or not, it was at the gym where Claire, who had gone there to watch some friends play squash, first decided she wanted to go out with me when she looked through the fitness room window and saw me on the treadmill and thought "I fancy a bit of that". That was seven years ago and unfortunately I didn't come with a guarantee that I'd maintain that shape, but that's contented married life for you.
Despite my rather unremarkable attempts at sporting greatness, I have actually got a few trophies upstairs from various activities so I thought I'd take a few pictures and explain how I came to win these esteemed prizes. Looking at each in turn, it has to be fair to say in most cases, more by luck than skill and a fortunate set of circumstances but win them I did, and when the children ask about them I can always exaggerate my achievements in order to maintain my hero dad status.
 |
| Table Tennis, 1984 |
This is the first trophy I ever won, for table tennis, in 1984. We were on one of our many camping holidays, but this is one I remember fondly as were staying at a big site with lots of entertainment - in fact it was a Pontins at one point I believe. Table Tennis was something I was quite good at. I helped organised the league we had at the local youth club and played a lot. This trophy was won very much on merit in a big knockout tournament that went on all afternoon, sadly I couldn't quite raise my game to win the final, even so, I still proudly display my runner-up medal, 29 years later.
 |
| Fantasy Football, 1995 |
But Fantasy Footy with its stat based systems is the absolutely perfect game for someone like me with my mathematical brain and I have been very successful at it, winning many times. I've also made a fair bit of money out of it. Some years ago a bookmaker I used to bet with ran a competition which wasn't fantasy football as such, more to do with predicting scores, but I spotted a way to win this game purely by exploiting the scoring system with the likely outcomes of the matches to win out of several thousand people. It was simple case of playing the perecentages over 38 weeks to come out on top. I won the first prize of £1500 for winning that game (it was free to enter) plus a £200 free bet on the Champions League final which I stuck on Barcelona to kick Man Utd's arse which they duly did, adding another £375 to the pot. That paid for our holiday in Lanzarote that year. And it was all down to the beauty of maths and stats, I barely watched a match.
I've won various other leagues in Bicester, at Nielsen, all of which have been quite lucrative when everyone is sticking a tenner in the pot and it is winner takes all. It's all good! Anyway the trophy above is from a league I organised back in the nineties and also won. Well, when I say "I" won that isn't strictly true. To make up the numbers (we needed 20 people) I submitted a second team to be managed by my cat, Susie, under the name "Tuna Felix Eating Tigers". .Susie swept all before her, so technically it was her trophy, but since she is now dead (or is she?) I have inherited the trophy.
 |
| Karting, circa 2001. |
I've covered my karting exploits in detail in my book, Fortysomething Father. This is the only trophy I have and it is for 3rd place in a big race we had at a now defunct karting track over in Oxford, in which about 12 of us participated. I actually led this race for a long way, having got pole position in qualifying but only finished third due to the fact that everyone's favourite metalhead maniac Adam "Satan" Wilkins was on the track and decided to ram me up the arse and launch me into a wall of tyres when I was lapping him so I had to wait what seemed like an eternity for the marshalls to come and rescue me. After the race Satan's explanation for his actions was that he did it "for a laugh".
 |
| Golf, 2002 |
Amazingly however there were people in my division who were even worse. My main opponents on this day in my division were Pete Thornton, the ex landlord of the Hobgoblin, he walked off after about two holes claiming a bout of flu, Eggy (not exactly a natural golfer) and American Rob who could actually hit the ball quite far but had never really got the hang of putting. He could get within a few feet of the hole and then whack it so hard with the putter it would end up thirty yards back down the fairway. So with a round score of about 138 and a dismal 7 Stableford points, I cruised to this famous victory.
 |
| Aunt Sally, 2009 |
I've also got a doubles winner trophy which I won with my old pal Michael Cooke several years ago and various other team trophies for winning divisions and also the year we gloriously triumphed against Launton Sports in the cup final when we were massive underdogs.
So that's my trophy collection. However there are lots of other sports I have participated in over the years, which I have not won trophies in (mostly due to being crap) so I think I may sum up my performances in some of those next time.
If you have enjoyed reading this blog, please take a look at my books on Amazon (Paperback & Kindle), where you can read lots more of the same! Click here.
Jason xx
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