These are harrowing times for TPCKAM. Not only is she having to put up with my Bob Dylan addiction, but we’re also in the middle of the cricket world cup. The tournament already seems to have been going on for eons, yet just as normal competitions would be settling down to a bit of a knock-out phase and a headlong rush to the final, this tournament now slows down and extends into a long drawn-out period of almost a month, which will eliminate only half the teams left in the competition. By the time they get to the final, it’ll just about be time for next season’s football to start, the wildebeest will be heading south for the winter and Tony Blair will no longer be Prime Minister.
Ok, that last one was wishful thinking.
The kids, particularly Two of Two, have got the bug. Outside at all hours, cricket bat in hand, smacking tennis balls into the neighbour’s garden. (Since we’re not forward in ringing their doorbell, and they’re obviously waiting for the balmy days of summer to visit their back garden, there are now approximately three hundred of our tennis balls covering their lawn.) Two of Two is facing up to the kind of tough decision that faces most six year-olds at one time or another. Whether to be a professional footballer or professional cricketer when he grows up. It’s a tough call. I’ll do what I can do help him in this, although he’s starting to see through me. He had this conversation with his mother yesterday.
TPCKAM: When we’re rich your dad’s going to get…
Two of Two: A golf course in the back garden. I know… And a cricket net… And a full size football goal. Two of them.
(Long pause)
Two of Two (wistfully): It’s never going to happen. He needs to get a proper job. Like a footballer or a baseball player.
He was almost sounding mature until the line about the footballer or baseball player.
Saturday morning football continues, trapped indoors for one more week, despite the fully-fledged arrival of spring. The parents gather to watch in silence, the kids charge on the hoof for an hour. Thirty minutes of ball skills, followed by thirty minutes of stampeding around the hall, a herd of feral monsters, moving in packs, the ball a poor victim, the wounded antelope to the swooping vulture-fest that is the horde of first year warrior-beasts.
There is already ample evidence of the influence of watching the professionals at work. The dramatic fall and clutching of the leg; the quick look up and then return to the game when the referee is not forthcoming with the foul and their opponent’s yellow card; the headlong, exuberant rush back down the field after scoring a goal, airplane arms outstretched. The goal celebrations always end comically as they come face to face with equally ebullient teammates and realise that the next step in the process is to hug someone who isn’t your mum or dad. At this point the mimicry breaks down and some mysterious forcefield allows them to leap at each other without ever actually touching.
Not all the parents are silent. There is one mum, Mum X*, who constantly shouts at her poor son, Bumblestiltskin*, even when the ball’s out of play and he has no possible way to immediately influence proceedings. The poor kid must have a nightmare every week. Nobody else’s mum shouts at them. Clearly TPCKAM has shouting-at-her-son-while-he’s-playing-football tendencies, but I usually manage to keep her in check. Pity poor Bumblestiltskin though. ‘Come on, Bumblestiltskin!’ ‘Get stuck in, Bumblestiltskin!’ ‘Get up, Bumblestiltskin!’ On and on she goes, while the rest of the parents look embarrassed and drink their cappuccinos.
(*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.)
Meanwhile TPCKAM’s torment persists. Her life is one long sporting Hell. On Saturday she had to watch the wee man play football in the morning, a bit of Australia-South Africa in the afternoon, before switching to Scotland’s last breath triumph against Georgia. At some point in the evening, when I was switching between the England-Kenya cricket, Australian cricket, and the Israel-England footie, I looked up to see her standing in the doorway, head twitching uncontrollably, hair to the four corners, and clutching a double barrelled shotgun. ‘It’s you or the tv, I don’t care,’ she muttered darkly. Meekly I handed her the remote. That night the television showed only programmes of a gastronomic nature.
My strict policy of selective sport watching in order to not create fuss when really important stuff comes on, has gradually fallen by the wayside as the never-ending sporting seasons mount up. It now lies in tatters, splattered at the feet of the on-going cricket and football fest. It’s probably very common. You start out with good intentions, and before you know it you’re watching Dagenham & Redbridge versus Oxford United.
Men and woman. Sport. It’s just never going to work.
It’s interesting to watch two children grow up, a boy and a girl, and their intrinsic levels of sporting interest. Sure, One of Two was cheering with the rest of us when we scored the late winner against Georgia, but you could tell that it was just to be part of the crowd, doing what everyone else was doing. She didn’t care, not really.
Two of Two, however, was off round the room, aeroplane arms outstretched, bumping into furniture, a triumphant goal celebration. And, for him, a triumphant goal celebration which at last brought ultimate satisfaction, as he had his mum and dad to hug at the end of it.
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