Here’s an interesting fact about me. Though I have spent the
last 20-25 years playing Rugby, I did in fact play Soccer up until I was 14. I suspect
this was largely down to the quite significantly smaller chance of my 12 year
old body ending up at the bottom of a pile of other 12 year old bodies at least as
far as my parents were concerned.
My career goal count was 2 (plus an own goal that nearly
burst through the net such was the power and authority with which I delivered it
into my Teams gaping goal mouth). It would be lyrically tempting to describe my
career as starting at the front and sliding gently backwards, but to be honest
I never came near being placed in the forward line (save one or two instances
when some kid targeting pathogen had effectively wiped out all other options).
I think I started in the halves, moved rapidly to the backs, into the goal and
finally off the field entirely.
Just to be clear – soccer, particularly kids soccer, in the
70’s, in Australia, was not a place that valued the skill and subtlety of a good
defender. If you were keeping goal it was because they were trying to keep you
out of the way while the cool kids got on with scoring all the glory.
And sadly soccer, a game that I still quite like and respect,
really quite effectively removed all of the advantages granted to me by the
body I was given by God (and I say God because how either me or my brother for
that matter came out of my parents distinctly mid-sized person genes is
something of a quandary).
I am quite a large man. Not tall. Large. Slightly less large
of late but that is definitely a work in progress. Even at my lightest, I still
had big thighs and a neck that is described as ‘short’ or ‘strong lookin’ by
the tactful and ‘missing entirely’ by most.
In short – I have the body of a prop. And not one of these
modern day ‘mobile’ props that are actually failed flankers trying to move up a
few grades that do just fine until they come up against a real prop from the Veldt
or some South Pacific Island who relocates their spine to the general vicinity of
their rectum and makes them look silly on national TV. I have the body of an
actual prop.
Which is why I was able to play the position for 25 years
without ending up in a spinal unit or permanently hunched over trying to get
the feeling back into my fingers.
While being a prop is a fine and honorable calling, there
are some things that are just not compatible with it. Slim cut just about anything
for example. Fashionable hairstyles. White boots (and it is increasingly
difficult these days to find a pair that is not). Bacardi Breezers. Skivvies
(for any reason other than a deeply ironic piss take of a certain Eastern
Suburbs Suburban Rugby Club). And road bikes.
Yes road bikes. Everything about them is skinny. Their tires, wheels, frames, handlebars. Even the clothes worn by those who ride
them. Skinny and weak. Ride one of those things up a gutter (particularly with
my ever increasing weight perched on top of it) – pinchflat. Hit too many of
the bumps that are such a feature of Sydney’s chronically de-prioritised road
network – cracked frame, busted spoke or suddenly wobbly wheel.
But then. In the early 90’s. There came a type of bike that
epitomised all that might be ‘Front Row’ in the bicycle world.
Welcome to my world – The Mountain Bike....
Next: The, um, Mountain Bike...I already said that....crap.
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