Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Your greatest personal sporting achievement

I won the 50m backstroke at my big school swimming gala, and I once scored whilst playing in goal, albeit on a 5-a-side pitch.

More recently, achieving my brown stripe at kickboxing.
 
I pulled in the both the 560 and 640kg teams that won the tug of war at the corps sports.

23 Para Field Ambulance had won it every year for ages, we ripped them out in two ends at both weights.
 
Oh, personal stuff?

My Under 14 cricket team won the county league. I batted the whole season without being out, scoring over 100 runs with no average (because I was never out). As a reward, we got to play the Senior 2nd XI. I was actually a (decent) bowler, felt ill on the day and batted at 7 when we still needed about 70 runs to win. Best 2nd XI fast bowler felt sorry for us and bowled me a couple of dollies. Smacked to the boundary. So he spent the next hour trying to knock my head off. 50 not out and won by one wicket.

I got rewarded with a place in the Senior first XI. Spent another season accumulating lots of runs (I was 15). And then got forced into another sport I was good at. One which won't be popular here because it is associated with the middle class*. Lawn bowls. Whole family history of it, particularly my dad. Became the youngest player ever to represent my county at the time (16 - this is now beaten).

Won lots of trophies. Dad died and I went to university, discovered girls and drugs. Stopped playing.

Moved to Wales. 25 year break. Won lots more trophies and had a trial for Wales. Ill health, plus the fact, against popular belief, bowls is a young man's game. All major competition winners are under 40. So now I've retired again.

*My dad set up a whole new club in order to not have to play for the "Conservative Club". Built the green and everything. Died 2 years later.
 
And if I'd done any of that in London, I'd have got proper trials for cricket. My gf is a Londoner. She knows loads of famous people, just because London. Many, many people, kids, just get ignored in the provinces.
 
Captaining the school hockey team.

And beating the boys in a swimming race. There was an inter-house swimming competition at school. I was the only girl entered to do... 100m breast stroke or whatever it was. So instead of me swimming up and down the pool by myself, they said I should swim at the same time as the boys. (I needed to swim it for the house points.) I trounced them. :D
 
I wrote this on the other thread but I represented GB Tag Rugby in a three test series against Australia in 2013. Last flush of sporting ability, and for two years I was good. We lost the series heavily.

When I was a teenager my parish GAA football team got to a county junior final. We lost by 1-3.

now I’m older I’d be happy just to be able and get up and run but I lack motivation at the moment.
 
Probably the fact we got organized to compete in the Head of tha Charles, in Boston, a couple of times. We were nowhere near winning. On this occasion I was in the bow seat. It was a memorable trip as I had dinner with Mation
 

Attachments

  • curlew 8.jpg
    curlew 8.jpg
    173.6 KB · Views: 6
Oh yeah, I was captain of my school orienteering team. I wasn’t exactly a quick runner but more than made up for it by being very good at the navigation part.

To this day I can still look at a reasonably large section of a map and essentially memorise it entirely. By doing this I saved time in not having to check position or directions etc. I just ran the route in my head.
 
Won the pub darts tournament twice.

Before pinball machines went digital, I once "clocked" the pub pinball machine - scored more points than the display could show.

(held every athletics record, except high jump, at junior school. Won the 100m and long jump at an athletics event for about 20 schools aged 13. We were only allowed to enter two individual events.)
 
hmm

i'm not really the athletic type.

think my last action in competitive sport was in a summer 5 a side football league (can't remember now whether it was organised through lewisham parks department or ILEA) which was either my last summer holiday when i was at primary school (1980) or the summer holiday between primary and secondary school (1981) - i only played one game because there had been a balls-up over arranging a postponement because 4 of the regular team were on a school holiday.

we lost but not by a huge margin, which was something of an achievement...
 
I once played for my village cricket team against a full strength Glamorgan team, including 4 England test players. I was only 12th man, but got to field for 20 overs, but my main role, at the request of his dad, was baby sitting a 4year old kid called Tom Maynard, who went on to play for Surrey and tragically died after being hit by a tube train!
 
If we're including things like pinball, I was extremely good at it and on more than one occasion was able to go round the clock twice. I was known for being the best in the cafe in which we played. I regularly would get fifteen free games. This was the most the machine would go to.

When I lived in Scarborough I was invited to play pool for Yorkshire. I'm absolutely dreadful now. In fact I'm so bad it's embarrassing.
 
I absolutely loathed PE in high school. Hated it, thought all sport was torture etc. After I left school I got into bikes. I'm nearly 44 now with three teenage kids, and here's my Strava stats. I find it pretty pleasing although I'd like to be able to ride more than I do. Free time prevents it.

Screenshot_20210809-221418~3.png
Screenshot_20210809-221638~2.png
 
Heh I have never been any good at sports.
But like DotCommunist I do really enjoy pool and due to my mispent youth and skintness I had a good incentive to stay on the table - to not have to pay for more pool and win drinks. I ended up on a pool team. I really enjoyed thrashing cocky dickheads very much. So that's my achievement- making men cry.
 
It makes me a bit ashamed to think how much I could run as a kid. At ten and eleven I used to run over a mile to school, home for lunch and back again and home at school's end. As an older kid year I ran four miles before breakfast every day. At 12 I cycled 16 miles each way to do an hour's athletics training on a school night. I could run 100m in 15 seconds and it was my worst track event. 800m was 2.20-ish at 12. I could run forever, that feeling of getting into a perfect cadence where your feet almost didn't feel like they were hitting the floor.
 
When I was ten (late 70s) I went to Hatfield Poly cricket lessons with Boycott. Could bat a bit but he was teaching me spin bowling & the look on his face when I bowled the cunt out ten minutes later. :thumbs: He really got the hump.

Downhill from there. Well I was pretty sporty for a few years. Football & Rugby in the winter & cricket in the summer but in the back of my mind I knew I had already reached my sporting peak & turned to drink & drugs instead.
 
I won the school wrestling completion, beating my mate Roy, who was a big lad then the same year I came 4th in the cross country, so was entered into the Surrey
trials I was 122 out of 125 runners. I was offered a trial at Aldershot FC but no one really believed in me so no ride to Aldershot.
 
Somehow managed a 1 hour 42 minute time in the Windsor Half Marathon after not training beyond a few halfhearted jogs around the village in the 2 weeks prior.

Was overweight and smoking at the time.

Wish I'd actually taken it seriously and kept running afterwards to see what I could do, but just couldn't be bothered :facepalm:
 
Back
Top Bottom