Chasing Rainbows

Ben Dobson

Description

" A very funny book...I laughed out loud. And very relatable too. As this book captures perfectly, sport can be a strange and frustrating mistress" Stuart Broad MBEHave you ever wondered if you have your sport / life balance out of kilter? Have you forgotten that in life's rich tapestry your team's last minute, VAR assisted defeat at Burnley really matters not a jot and letting this ruin your, and your family's, weekend is a rather charmless and pointless thing to do? Are you concerned that for something which is supposed to be life-enhancing entertainment following sport seems to deliver rather a lot of frustration and disappointment? Or did its disappearance in the maelstrom of a global pandemic have you reassessing and yearning for its return? Chasing Rainbows is a reflection on a life dominated by sport. Revisiting some of the most exciting and, more frequently, soul-destroying moments in English sport in the last half century, it seeks to make sense of the dichotomy that although being an English sports fan can occasionally enhance a life's enjoyment, it primarily delivers nothing but pain, frustration and disappointment, leaving the unaffected baffled as to why we let something we can't control dominate our life's experience. It is a personal story of pathological obsession, but is perhaps yours too? It isfor all those who recognise this condition and have had their mood ruined for a day, a week, a month or a year, to a totally inappropriate extent, by their addiction to their teams or their heroes and by some perceived sporting 'disaster'. Chasing Rainbows is a humorous attempt to assess the role sport should, and does, play in our lives.

Sujets

• Memoir

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 17 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781803138701
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2022 Ben Dobson

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

Matador
Unit E2 Airfield Business Park,
Harrison Road, Market Harborough,
Leicestershire. LE16 7UL
Tel: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]
Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador
Twitter: @matadorbooks

ISBN 9781803138701

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd



For Dad, who introduced me to all this.
I loved sharing it with you and I almost forgive you…


Contents
FOREWORD
PREFACE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
INTRODUCTION

PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR

APPENDIX


FOREWORD
Stuart Broad, MBE
Sports fans reading this book should not feel odd about having idiosyncratic feelings around matches. Why? Because I can tell you that players experience them too and it’s completely normal! Let’s face it, when it comes to game day, we all act irrationally and behave in manners we feel will have a positive influence on the result. Even though deep down, we must know they won’t.
Superstitions and habits run deep. Take my former England and Nottinghamshire teammate Graeme Swann as an example. He used to wear the same cycling shorts every time he bowled – unless he bowled badly of course, then he’d change them. Not only that, though; if he’d had a bad day, the next he would try a different route to the ground. Somehow, you see, it was the fault of his underwear and the traffic if things had gone awry.
In contrast, I’ve always tried to be relaxed as a player and not let too much affect me. I’m someone whose mentality is very strong in competitive mode. My mind is full of positive thoughts towards winning– bowling good deliveries, the momentum I can bring to the game, how I can change the course of a contest – I never think about losing moments until they actually happen. But the minute I go and watch Nottingham Forest, I’m a different kettle of fish. When I go to games, I wear red socks. Really? Is that going to have any bearing on the result? Of course not. But I cannot stop myself thinking it will. If Forest are playing on telly, and winning, I won’t go and make a cup of tea because I fear the opposition will score if I move from the living room. Is that not nonsense? The game is happening in Reading, and I’m sat on a sofa more than a hundred miles away.
My stepdad Nick Joyce – wearer of the letter D in his heyday and the second most selected second row at Leicester Tigers behind Martin Johnson – goes a stage further. He remains so passionate about the fortunes of the club and yet refuses to go and watch their home fixtures because he’s got it into his head that when he goes, they lose.
My friend Ben Dobson is cut from similar cloth. Someone who selects two mutually exclusive events and attributes some illogical significance between them. Ben was at The Oval – the first game he’d seen me play live, I believe – when I took five Australian wickets to alter the course of the final 2009 Ashes Test and also witnessed my first Test hundred against Pakistan first-hand. It led to him developing a theory that I play better when he is there. Naturally, I have suspected this has simply been a ploy to persuade me to provide hospitality tickets yet, as stupid as it sounds, I can’t help thinking that along the way, he’s brought me some luck.
I first met Ben when he was a support member of the British & Irish Lions tour of 2009. Around that time, the England cricket team were also kitted out by adidas. We hit it off and our friendship developed through our shared love for a variety of sports, or should I say a love of our teams winning, because as we all know – and as is illustrated in the following pages – it’s hard to love sport when they lose. Although he has never played top level sport and is just a fan, Ben has always recognised the support that’s needed at the top level. He is empathetic about the pressures of playing for England and has always been supportive. That has undoubtedly been developed through his own business roles. Some of my favourite memories are watching the England rugby team alongside Ben.
He’s probably the most nervous watcher I’ve come across too, to be honest. I have seen some in my time, don’t get me wrong: Alastair Cook bouncing a tennis ball when we were nine wickets down in Cardiff, with Jimmy Anderson and Monty Panesar trying to save the 2009 Ashes match, or Jos Buttler – who I was sat next to at Headingley in 2019 when his best mate Jack Leach was batting, trying to get Ben Stokes back on strike to beat Australia and keep us in with a chance of regaining the urn – fidgeting.
I’ve watched live sport in some pretty tense environments, but Ben would have to top anyone I could name for foreseeing potential disaster. He tends to go quiet for long periods, and that is when his brain’s working overtime, figuring out things like who might be scoring first or next, why his team should definitely win today but mainly what could make them lose. Pre-match, he discusses every possible outcome as if he is Mystic Meg. He will just come out with stuff like: ‘what if Ben Youngs can only last an hour and someone else has to play for the last twenty minutes? Then what?’. Well, I don’t know, do I?
We are all guilty of predicting the ifs and buts of certain paths a match can take: what if they delay the new ball? What if they take two wickets in the final half hour? What if…
The biggest ‘what if’ when we have been in each other’s company actually came during England’s 2015 Rugby World Cup game against Wales at Twickenham. Behind late on, England kicked for touch when awarded a penalty. Of course, in hindsight, if they had taken the kick for goal, to tie the game, the future may well have told a different story. Then again, it might not. We always want to have our cake and eat it as fans, do we not?
When it comes to our sports teams, nobody knows better the trials and tribulations they bring us or conveys their passion for their teams like Ben. He lives and breathes their fortunes. Poor guy.

Nottingham, June 2021


PREFACE
There are a lot of books about sport. I know this because I think I’ve read most of them. Many are written by, or about, those who did : the people who had the talent, those who made it and told the rest of us what it was like. But there are far more of us who couldn’t and didn’t. We watched, we followed and, let’s be honest, we pretended on the beaches, fields and playgrounds of our youth, and sometimes just in our own heads, that we were them. Some of us still do. And the truth for us is that our lives became every bit as defined by sport as did those of the people good enough to play it. They have no monopoly on the reality that sport can dominate a life. In retirement, they then sell us back their stories. So, for the rest of us, here’s mine. And perhaps yours too.
I have tried to convince myself on many occasions that I’m past all this now, that in reflective middle age I can develop a healthier relationship with sport. But I have no illusions anymore. I’m an obsessive follower of sport, and specifically English sport, and for fifty-odd years, I’ve attempted to use this as a shield against the realities of life. That English sport has only occasionally offered its devotees anything other than pain, frustration and heartbreak means I now accept this was never going to be a very effective tactic. This book is for all those who recognise this condition and have ever had their mood ruined for a day, a week, a month or a year, to a totally inappropriate extent, by their addiction to their teams or their heroes and by some perceived sporting ‘disaster’.


AUTHOR’S NOTE
Thankful…
I’ve just finished reading a book by my friend, former professional cricketer and successful businessman, David Nash. I’m glad I did as it helped me find the perspective I was searching for in writing my own story. There were parallels between us that struck me immediately. In his book, Nashy reveals that the effervescent personality and the general bonhomie and ‘life and soul’ he offers to those around him mask deeper insecurities. He also suggests, rather too modestly, that his only real skills are in interacting with others in a successful way. People tell me I too am capable of holding a room on occasions and delivering the odd one-liner to keep the party going, and if that’s true, I’m both surprised and delighted, but I also hide a few anxieties and can relate to my mate’s experience completely. We’ve both had an ‘anxiety’ connected to sport. This, however, is where similarity becomes divergence. Sport became his reality and his day job, and the pressures it exerted upon him were real and serious, true mental health issues which he rightly cares about deeply and which drive his empathetic character and passion for supporting others. Although I’ve also made my living from sport, in truth, what follows is not really about that, or the sort of on-pitch performance in which David was involved, but about following sport and the very much less serious ‘pain’ this has sometimes inflicted. Suddenly, it concerned me that nobody reading what follows shoul