14 5 august 2019T
he CriCket World Cup, the Men’s Final
at Wimbledon, the British Grand Prix all
took place on one day. While many were torn
between at least two of these, i was not among
them. Sports—or games, as they were known then—
were compulsory at school but this was before games for
women were taken seriously. Games were a blackspot on
the timetable, more for the discomfort afterwards than
during. First cold, then sweaty; that peculiarly British
absence of proper shower facilities; then getting changed
back into uniform. the horror of the clothing was a major
complication too. the uniform was bad enough: brown
gabardine skirt, white blouse, brown and yellow tie,
brown cardigan, brown gabardine coat and a velour hat
with a hat band and elastic under the chin and sensible
shoes. i haven’t worn brown for 40 years and have no
intention of ever doing so again. But games involved even
worse sartorial crimes.
Swimming was my favourite sport and i swam every
day in a glorious lido in the summer holidays. having my
season ticket stamped every day was a badge of honour.
School swimming was a hideous prospect. the brown
swimsuit was just a piece of elasticated cloth with medals
sewn on and looked like a surgical garment. Shared
changing rooms had wet floors whose water always seeped
into the uniform, socks often dropped in the puddles,
making it unbearably miserable in winter.
For other games we wore a yellow shirt and a divided
skirt, a garment that i hope is now extinct, being box-
pleated shorts that were made to look like a skirt. hockey
was just about bearable but running around the pitch
in winter was awful but better once we were allowed
tracksuits. i played tennis most days in the summer at
home and, at least at school, we were spared the white
miniskirt and frilly knickers required by my club. Netball
and rounders were just fun and it still amuses me to see
their elevation as basketball and baseball.
Sports were strictly gender-divided like the rest of our
worlds. My brother played rugby and a little cricket; many
others played football. For weekend matches girls made
sandwiches and cakes and when your boyfriend was on
the rugby team, you took the oranges at half time to the
vast amusement of the rest of the team.
My grandfather hunted, my uncle shot, and my father
and all of them fished. the idea of killing animals was out
of the question for me and after getting bitten and kicked,
and then falling off a horse, i gave up riding. Animals and
sports are my all-time low.
i was fated to marry a sport fanatic. Good at all sports,
he tried hard not to beat me but it was still no fun playing
together. My golf peaked when i got a birdie at Frinton
Golf Club. Neither of us could ever work out how i did it
and i reverted to my usual embarrassingly bad playing. My
motto now is not to engage in any activity that requires a
change of clothes.
After many injuries i was glad when Mr d retired from
playing football. once Saturday evenings ended at 10.
to the theme tune of ‘Match of the day’ and in summer to
‘t est Match Special’, but now they seem to have merged
into other online activities.
there is no escape from sports for me. hindi films are
producing so many sport movies. Gone are Jeetendra and
leena Chandavarkar playing badminton in skin-tight
non-sport gear, each shot making a popping noise to ruin
a cracking song (‘Dhal gaya din’), or villagers taking on
Brits at cricket (Lagaan in 2001), the match lasting longer
than a western film. the sport biopic has now become
almost a sub-genre in itself, from hockey (Chak De! IndiaBy Rachel Dwyer
The Sporting Spirit
Why sport heroes make ideal subjects for film biopic
THE RACHEL PAPERS