Nostalgia

Worked from home today with the intention of getting my head down to clear all the last remaining issues for a new release of my software. It seems to be taking forever to finish this off and I'm fed up with it. Come 5.30pm, working pretty much straight through, I was ready for a break so I joined No.2 son to watch the end of the 50 over game between England and New Zealand. The match was well poised so I thought I'd just relax and blob for a bit before heading out to Addingham on the bike to help DH with the Beamsley Beacon Fell Race - which I would ideally have been running tonight but for this injury.

Not long after we started watching there was an incident where the bowler (Sidebottom) effectively took the batsman out just after he had set off for a quick single, resulting in him (Elliott) having no chance to make his ground as the ball was lobbed to Pieterson at the stumps to complete the run out. Collingwood, as captain, should clearly have withdrawn the appeal and have the batsman reinstated, and the umpires seemed to give him the chance to do just that, but he failed to do so. I have a passion for competitive sport, but I like to think that I don't lose sight of the fact that it is the spirit of the competition that is the truly important thing, not the matter of winning at any cost. I frustrate No.1 son by not taking any great pleasure out of one-sided matches, whether it be England or his own team. Ignoring any possible wider context, in a one-off game, I've always said to him that I'd rather see his team lose narrowly in the last over than perform a demolition job on the opposition. If a game is too easy for one side, it almost becomes pointless as a contest. It's not much fun for anybody really. The drama of great sport comes out of having two closely matched people or teams. The greatest drama is when the balance keeps tilting one way and then the other. The best drama of all is when there is a last minute twist in the plot. And that is what I witnessed today. I found myself being drawn into the drama more and more, to the point where I it was impossible to leave my seat. I just couldn't miss seeing how this was going to unfold - despite my commitment to help with the race. Cricket can do this to me. It can become the most important thing in the world, indeed, almost the only thing in the world at that time.

Well, the match did indeed swing one way and then the other ... until finally it went down to the very last ball, with any result still possible. The tie was the favourite result in my eyes, but, in a split-second moment of choice, going for the outright win rather than settling to share the spoils, England gifted the game to New Zealand in a final second plot twist. I guess I would have preferred to see a tie, but I'm glad England didn't win. It wasn't so much that New Zealand deserved their win, but that England deserved to lose. At least Collingwood had the guts to apologise afterwards and admit that he had made the wrong decision. Better late than never.

All this is really by way of explanation for why I didn't appear at Addingham until after the race had started tonight. It's always been a low-key event and I knew David would cope, but I felt a little more guilty when he told me that there were almost 100 runners out on the fell. We usually struggle to get half that number. My favourite little local race was beginning to get popular. I was sent out to marshal on the road before the footbridge crossing, and I have to admit that it was with mixed feelings that I witnessed the runners come through. It was such a beautiful evening, after a rather miserable day, and it was a great sight to see so many people out, most of whom I knew. But I would dearly have loved to have been running myself. On the other hand, I also knew that I wouldn't have been competitive, and this was always a race in which I competed hard. The steady, even climb and fast descent always suited me (not to mention the small field!), and I had a wonderful run of 2nd, 1st, 2nd from 1993 to 1995. I'm very proud of having my name on the trophy alongside some of the local greats (even the legendary Tommy Sedgwick) and I will take any opportunity to tell people!!

So, after seeing everyone through, on the way back to the pub to do the presentation (which always seems to fall to me), I was feeling more than a little nostalgic for those Halcyon days which are never going to be enjoyed in quite the same way again, thinking about the leaders racing it out for the top places and actually finding it hard to believe that that was once me. Having kind of reinvented myself as a cyclist, it seems like a different lifetime.