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Your greatest personal sporting achievement

E

Elpenor

Haytor’s gonna hate
Well, what is it?

The only sports I’ve really taken part in are rugby and running. While I wasn’t very good at either, I was always enthusiastic and it was important to me.

Rugby I’ve not played since I was at school but at the time I was rather proud to play for the school first XV when still in year 11 (the first in my year to), to play and score in a county cup semi final, and to play for a reasonably good local club for a few years.

In terms of running, I did a few meetings for the school, won a few sports day events and came second in a district championship.

However as an adult, I got really into my running. I’m quite proud of my sub 20 minute 5k, and my 1:29 half marathon. Probably the toughest thing I’ve done psychologically was 3 marathons in 3 days in 3 countries and a 12 hour track race when I ran 108k.

But the race I’m most proud of is an 18 mile road relay leg done at 2am during the Round Norfolk Relay (which takes place over about 24 hours). I ran solo, fast and hard over an undulating route in the dark for just over 2 hours at a speed not far off my half marathon pace. I made up 3 places when we overtook other teams. Throughout the run I was absolutely in tune with myself, I guess it was runners high. There was no medal, no crossing the finish line.

So what I regard is my best sporting achievement is quite hard to put in context but I know that it’s the best I’ve ever run.

Anyway, what’s yours?
 
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Scoring all 4 goals as St Davids beat St Georges at primary school , I was 10, probably the peak of my football career.

Breaking the school record on a short-ish run (about 800m ) I beat the usual winner, Michael Annette in a sprint finish , the rest of the field were nowhere.

I was a decent cross country runner , a member of the team that triumphed in the Bristol Schools Cross Country league in 1978 . We got on the front page of a Bristol sports paper for that , The Green Un?

My athletic career petered out then, girls, cider, smoking dope, and doing mushrooms took up too much time.
 
The next one. I've won lots of amateur football cups and leagues, including some Veteran's competitions, as I'm 47 now. I want to win the Amateur Football Combination's North Seventh Division this year, with a team comprising some old fellas like me and school kids just starting out in adult football.
 
For someone who's always loved football, I was never really that good at it. I think captaining the school B team and scoring two goals in a 6-1 win over White Rock school was probably the highlight of my childhood career, not even tainted by the fact that White Rock were rubbish.

As an adult, a goal I scored when I used to play semi-serious kickabouts still sticks in my head. Managed to chest-control a high bouncing ball as it came in, as it dropped used my knee to take it past the onrushing defender, and then volleyed it from an acute angle just outside the box to the inside post. I was in my late 30s by then and still have no idea how I did it.

Love cycling but have never been competitive about it. Was very satisfied to complete the Coast to Coast ride from Ilfracombe to Plymouth a few years ago, though.
 
wayward bob said:
completing couch to 5k.

school pe cemented in my brain that sport wasn't for me and i was genuinely amazed that i was physically able to run at all.
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Given my current level of fitness, completing couch to 5k would probably become my new greatest achievement. Need to wait till I can walk pain free though
 
Won the Hertfordshire novice adult foil medal,

Won an assigned area task day at a regional gliding competition- I was sitting in the back and my main job was to supply the lead pilot with sausage rolls, but on the way home on a shit day I spotted three thermals in succession one that just had a bird in it. Because of that we smashed the rest of the field. Everyone else scraped in or landed out but we crossed the line at cloud base despite doing what was supposed to be a 20 mile high speed final glide…
 
Chilli.s said:
Undefeated at the Obstacle Race U11.
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I LOVED the Obstacle Race at Primary School sports days. That was my event. I can't claim to be undefeated, but I was good. Real good.

Then I went to senior school and found that the Obstacle Race ceased to be an event. It was all boring shit like running and jumping and throwing that I was no good at. I was gutted. That as much as anything else killed my interest in athletic activity. I stopped trying. When the hard kids who always seemed to be team captains were choosing teams I was always one of the last three to be picked, along with the fat kid and the asthmatic kid. They'd argue over who was going to have Steve and John and me, as they sure as shit didn't want us on their team. When we were forced to play cricket in the summer they invented a new position - deep, deep field - for the three of us, as far from the action as possible where we could chat and piss about without troubling the game.

Who knows, if the Obstacle Race was given it's due recognition, its place as the king of sports, maybe I'd have persevered, excelled. We could've faced off against each other at international level, been bitter rivals, been mentioned in the same breath as Cram or Henman or Daley. But no, the powers that be turn their noses up at this mother of all athletic events and we'll never know what could've been.
 
(Adulthood) 78 break at Snooker. Missed the last black concentrating on position for the yellow, all other balls on their spots - could have been a century, but we'll chuffed with a 78.

(Age 19) A 14 match season undefeated in the inter-college 8 ball pool tournament at university. Including one match against the university's Roses team captain, widely acknowledged as the best player in the league by an absolute mile - simple way to beat someone so obviously brilliant is to not give him a shot, potted off the break and cleared up.

(Childhood) 2 goals scored in youth football. One a full blown "Rooney vs Man City/Pele in Escape to Victory" bicycle kick; the other picked the ball up on the edge of our area, head down full sprint past 3 or 4 players, step over and dumped the last defender on his arse, round the goalkeeper and walked into an empty net. Both the kind of goals that make me wish cameraphones were everywhere when I was a kid.
 
Amongst many, I was especially proud of being the Player/Manager/Director of Football of Harlesden Hammers when they won the SWP's Skegness Easter Rally 6 a side competition in 1985 . A team forged upon the football theory and tactics of Boris Arkadyev whose tactics at Dynamo Moscow were described by one English football journalist Frank Butler, “it was a Chinese puzzle to try to follow the players…they simply wandered here and there at will, but the most remarkable feature of it all, they never got in each other’s way.” Essentially a forerunner of Bielsa , Arkadyev's tactics allowed players' movements to not be fixed by a rigidity of a fixed formation or position but to be so fluid as to pop up in virtually any position or place on the pitch.

The Harlesden Hammers players took this one step further, players popping up not only in unexpected places on the pitch but also off the pitch and sometimes not popping up until after the game had kicked off or in the case of one after the game had finished.

Despite some difficulties in the early rounds when a small technical infringement of fielding a completely different team was alleged by some centrist hack, the Hammers strode through to the semi final in glorious style and were drawn to meet a Swedish team who unfortunately looked as though they knew how to play football and typically Nordic didn't seem to drink much alcohol.

Late afternoon the day before the scheduled final at mid day , Chris Bamberry announced coaches had been booked to travel to RAF Molesworth to join a demonstration against USAF bombers using that airbase .Our revolutionary comrades from Sweden bravely answered the call, as indeed we all did but some us had the sense not to get on the coaches and to tell Bambery that we would follow in cars as to create more space on the coaches. Which we did but turned back to the camp after pretending to stop for petrol. Once back at the camp we spoke to the bar staff about the prized barrel of beer for the winners of the competition and quickly deduced that they hadn't been told that the final had been 'cancelled'. The next day we turned up at the allotted time in our kit and claimed the beer , remarkably all the team turned up at the right time in the right place.

As Karl Marx once said 'Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.'

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I was a terrible cricketer so the one and only time I scored a 50 sticks with me. I was 12 years old. The opponent had one pacey bowler that I generally blocked . If I'd tried an an actual shot, I'd have lost my stumps. So I took a few edges leading to a few runs and the occasional 4. Generally I wanted to just survive through their overs.

The other bowlers were easier and I managed I few shots.

It took more than ten overs but I finally got my 50.
 
I used to be good at shooting, but never took part in competitions. Other than that I used to race karts, do a bit of rally and single seaters. Not very successfully I’m afraid. The more I think about it the less I think I did well.
 
beesonthewhatnow said:
Probably my first 100 mile ride. 12 months previously I didn’t own a bike and was fairly unfit. I’m now close to being able to do a reasonably hilly one in under 5 hours, which is the next target.

Also, taking part in the world bog snorkelling championships.
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Next stop Audax rides?
 
Though I won an Under-13 district cross country event, once ran 6 miles in three quarters of an hour and annihilated the field with a stunning last 200 metres in my Year 8 1500 final on sportsday, football was always my favourite.

Gods, I was a great player at 10/11! I'd already had a ball at my feet constantly for 3 or 4 years by that age.

In Year 5 there was a tradition for a team to get together and take on the Year 6s who were basically the school team. Because there weren't any teams until Year 6, us Y5s hadn't played together - but I'd had 2 years playing in a team for the cubs so knew a bit about what I was doing. First few minutes of the game the ball was cleared to me following a corner. I was on the left wing. Skinned their right winger, steamed down the touchline and cut inside the right back. Dropped my shoulder, sending classy centre back Thomas Bickerton to the shop for a pint of milk and a KitKat, then faced my neighbour and big, lanky bloke Simon Dowse in their goal. Shaped to curl it to his left but instead hammered it low to his right. He never moved. We ended up losing 6-1 but it was a great goal.

A year later I captained our cubs team in the Lincolnshire cubs six a side tourney, an all day affair. Big pressure on us - most of us were moving up to Scouts before the next year so it was our last chance to win it, and the year before a team of older lads playing for us had won it in THEIR last year of cubs. We blew through the group and two knockout rounds before finding ourselves in the semi final. A very close game, two well-matched teams. Last minute we got a free kick and I insisted I take it. Chipped it over the wall and in, didn't see it go in but Jonathan Clemmett jumped into my arms as we knew that was the winner. Lost on pens in the final after a dour 0-0. I missed mine.

If there's anything I regret it's not having continued playing football. Even now I reckon I could curl a football from 25 yards into either corner of a goal with either foot. I just can't run :D
 
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Spandex said:
I LOVED the Obstacle Race at Primary School sports days. That was my event. I can't claim to be undefeated, but I was good. Real good.

Then I went to senior school and found that the Obstacle Race ceased to be an event. It was all boring shit like running and jumping and throwing that I was no good at. I was gutted. That as much as anything else killed my interest in athletic activity. I stopped trying. When the hard kids who always seemed to be team captains were choosing teams I was always one of the last three to be picked, along with the fat kid and the asthmatic kid. They'd argue over who was going to have Steve and John and me, as they sure as shit didn't want us on their team. When we were forced to play cricket in the summer they invented a new position - deep, deep field - for the three of us, as far from the action as possible where we could chat and piss about without troubling the game.

Who knows, if the Obstacle Race was given it's due recognition, its place as the king of sports, maybe I'd have persevered, excelled. We could've faced off against each other at international level, been bitter rivals, been mentioned in the same breath as Cram or Henman or Daley. But no, the powers that be turn their noses up at this mother of all athletic events and we'll never know what could've been.
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This mirrors my experience and feelings so well. And it sounds like you would have been a formidable opponent had we faced each other on the track for the Olympic selection.
 
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