BIRKENHEAD SCHOOL

0088 Sports

I've never thought myself as being a sporting person, but then neither have I thought of myself as being a swot; though I have flattered myself at times by thinking I was an intellectual!  But looking back on it, I think I probably was one of the more sporty types within the school. 

It started in terms of the house sports teams. Ours traditionally was not a very sporting house, so I was drafted into its rugger team relatively early.  Equally, even though I didn't play hockey for the second term, as most of the others did, I was drafted into the house hockey team. Cricket was anathema to me, so I only ever once represented the house in cricket; and then managed the princely total of 0 not out! As a matter of course, I also used to play in all the other house teams; tennis, for example, and - as I have said elsewhere - fives.  I also performed on the athletics field for the house.  I even managed to be in the relay team that won the school trophy. The reason for my success in this case was quite simply that the other three members of it were the best runners in the school. At the last handover, I started 100 yards ahead of everyone else, and even then only just scraped home to win by a nose!

 My shot put at the Birkenhead Schools sports

In the earlier years, my specialty was the shot putt. I practiced for hours at home, resting the shot on the backs of my fingers so that a last flick would add a few extra inches. My triumph was to represent the school, in the under 15s, at the Birkenhead School sports finals. At this event I did all my best tricks, and set up a reasonable target for the others to follow. The next boy into the circle was about a foot taller than me. Picking the shot up he looked quizzically at it and politely asked me "Do I chuck it over there?" Without any attempt at technique, he threw it a good ten feet beyond my mark; and that was the demoralizing end of my athletics career!

I was also quite good at shooting, and won the school shooting trophy. This was an enormous cup whose size dwarfed every other cup in the school!  I have to say, though, that I won this by reading the rules rather than by any real skill.  I discovered that there was nothing said about having to hold the rifle in the air, so I rested it on my fist which provided a much steadier rest. The master in charge of the RAF, under which this activity came, was very upset at this; but couldn't do anything about it.  As a result I was made school captain of rifle shooting -- though this was rather meaningless, since we only had one match against another school. We were absolutely trounced, since they took it seriously and we obviously didn't!

  The school shooting trophy

Most of my spare time at school was taken up with rugger, in the school teams. I was in the school under-15 team for a while; until I was thrown out for ungentlemanly conduct. In one match I had realised the referee didn't know the rules, and had then proceeded to ‘knock-on’ almost every ball with impunity.  This was not the sort of thing a gentleman was supposed to do!  I later got into the school second team and played a few games with them. I eventually was moved to become captain of the third team. This sounds good, but very few other schools had third teams so we played very little. My undoing came when we played Macclesfield School, which had a third team but a very poor one.  I took pity on them in the second half -- when we are already 50 nil ahead -- and swapped our forwards for our three-quarters.  We still thrashed them 70 nil, but this was again pronounced to be ungentlemanly conduct, by rubbing their noses in it, and I lost my position in the team once again!

When I went to Imperial College I continued to shoot, this time much more seriously. Though I was never that brilliant,  I averaged around 97 to 98 out of 100. As a result I was in Imperial's third team, and was captain of this. I was also captain of shooting within the Royal College of Science (RCS), where the only fixture was the competition with the other two colleges -- the City of Guilds (C&G) and the Royal School of Mines (RSM).

We stood no chance of winning this, since all the C&G team were in the first team of Imperial College itself.  However I was very determined, and got the members of my team down on the rifle range every lunch hour -- and persuaded the RCS union to give me an allowance for all ammunition we could use. After weeks of practice, I managed to get them reach a guaranteed average of  96-97. As we went into the competition C&G was full of confidence, overconfidence really, and hadn't seen the need for practice.  The result was that their performance was quite variable. A couple got the full 100, a ‘ton’ in the lingo, which they were capable of; but the others got only 90s. The result was that – thanks to our consistent performance - we won the Courtman Shield, the prize!  The result was decided, yet again, by my management skills!

The new sport I took up at College was rowing. Imperial had a very fine facility, a good boathouse on the Thames just above the bridge where the Oxford and Cambridge race starts.  It even had a rowing-tank on top, where we learned to row; though this was something of the luxury, since I only ever spent two or three sessions there before going out on the river.

Rowing in an eight is the toughest sport I've ever undertaken. Even in rugby, if I really was flattened, I could rest for a couple of minutes while the rest of the team rushed around.  In an eight, which is balanced on a knife edge, if just one member of the eight doesn't pull his weight then everyone else knows this; and knows who it is!  Every Saturday we used to row the Oxford and Cambridge University boat race route; but there and back again!  Moreover we were often rowing against the tide both ways, where the varsity crews wait until it is in their favour.  It really used to flatten me.  Even so I did the sport for two terms, preparing for the head of the river race. The final insult came, however, when they demanded my six pounds membership fee; a lot of money in those days.  I thought I could just about cope with the pain, but I didn't see why I should pay six pounds for it!

And that was the end of my sporting life. In the rest of my life I never did any sport; which was probably a grave mistake.

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