‘What team do you support?’
Five words guaranteed to paralyse — or strike the fear of god — into me. The dreaded question. The inevitable question. And one I could never answer.
I hate football. I’ve always hated football. Not the sport per se — I see the skill, the athleticism, the teamwork. But in north east Lancashire, in the seventies and eighties, it gave licence to break-time bullies and playground psychos. Every lunchtime — or what was then known as ‘playtime’ — someone, somewhere was being pinned against a wall and asked what team they supported. The wrong answer meant a beating — or a boot up the backside. And, if ever I was asked, every answer I gave was wrong.
My dad didn’t follow football. Nor did his dad before him. I come from a long line of football avoiders. I’m sure I could trace my reluctance to follow football back to some serf somewhere — being pelted by villagers wielding sheep bladder balls. Like St Sebastian — but, instead of being tied to a post having arrows shot at him, he was in stocks having balls kicked at him. And most likely made to sit there in his pants — because he’d forgotten his PE kit. And, of course, it would be February — sleeting sideways — and the balls would be cold, hard, and wet.
So I avoided football. At every opportunity. I didn’t play football at school. I didn’t play football at home. I didn’t play football in my sleep. And I didn’t talk about football — ever.
At primary school I hid when teams were being picked. If I was picked, I’d run around the pitch energetically — in exactly the opposite direction to the ball. Sometimes I feigned illness and my mum wrote a sick note.
Secondary school was worse. All boys and very football-focused. Three teams per year — a first, a second and a third eleven. Even if I’d tried I wouldn’t have made the tenth eleven. By the second year I’d learnt to forge my mum’s signature — for increasingly elaborate sick notes.
‘Dear Mr Pickup, Simon can't play football today as he has developed an allergy to hard spherical objects being kicked, dribbled, or otherwise projected, anywhere near him.’
My football hero was Billy Casper from the film Kes — where he’s bored in goal and hangs from the crossbar like a scrawny gymnast. Except I didn’t have a kestrel to go home to after a day of dangling from goalposts.
After six weeks in the sixth form — and an altercation where I was ’severely rusticated’ for wearing non-regulation trousers — I left school and went to FE college — in Accrington. The upsides: no uniform, girls, free periods, better teachers. The one downside: my dad taught there. And I couldn’t skive games. There was no escape — I had to go. It was only one afternoon a week though — and there were options. How bad could it be? As it turned out, only the very keen, super-sporty actually went to games. All twelve of them. And me.
Mr Monk, the games teacher, suggested ‘indoor five-a-side’ — which sounded harmless enough. And it was January, after all. I lasted twenty minutes. Nineteen minutes of running away from the ball — difficult on a small indoor pitch — and one minute of lying flat in front of goal, after the ball was kicked full in my face from two yards — by one of the first eleven.
‘Well stopped, that man,’ shouted Mr Monk.
Then I saw stars — for a full minute. I wasn’t stretchered out. There was no stretcher. So I crawled. That was it for indoor five-a-side. Indoor five-a-side no more.
My remaining option was cross-country running. It wasn’t football, so I took it — though no one else had in two years. I’d be on my own. It wasn’t going to be a walk in the park.
For the first four weeks, however, it was exactly that. Not the park precisely, but I’d jog across playing fields, down a ginnel behind a terrace, and amble over the by-pass. Then up a zig-zag path to the foot of the fell above Accrington — called The Coppice.
A fell, for the uninitiated, is a northern hill — bleak, exposed, and always steeper than it looks. Often with obstacles like scree slopes and cattle grids.
On bad weather days I’d bring a bobble hat. A cagoul. Always my roll-ups.
From The Coppice looking down on the town. Rows of red brick and tile, parks and mill chimneys. The canal cutting through — the railway, the viaduct. Cars and trucks like toys. I was a god. After two roll-ups — a god with a chest infection. On rare clear days Blackpool Tower pierced the horizon. I walked back to college sucking Trebor mints.
First back to the changing room too. Another bonus. Mr Monk asked how long it took me. I didn’t know. I’d walked most of it. So I made up a time.
‘Twenty-two minutes.’
‘Not bad, lad,’ he said. ‘Let’s try for under twenty.’
The next few runs were well over twenty — but that’s not what I told Mr Monk. I made up ever-decreasing times. And he was impressed. So much so that in March he entered me in the County Cross-Country Trials. I didn’t stand a chance. But I couldn’t tell him that. Or my dad.
The day of the race I decided to try. Twenty minutes in, on the moors above Blackburn, I was last. Fifty yards behind my one and only rival. Thankfully no spectators. As I passed a barn, sheep drinking from a rusty bath, he took a nasty fall. Tried to stand but limped. That was my chance. To not come last. And I took it.
Mr Monk put my penultimate position down to nerves. All I needed was more race practice, he said. So, two weeks later, he entered me in the Hameldon Fell Race — open to all serious runners. And me.
There were three fells above Accrington — each one steeper and higher than the one before. The Coppice, Moleside and Hameldon. I’d staggered up one. How much harder could two more be?
All of Accrington came out to see the fell race. From the town hall, up the steep, terraced Avenue Parade, across Peel Park to The Coppice — and beyond. I was given a number to safety pin to my vest and joined the jostling throng at the start line.
The first mile was a doddle — running in a tight pack, crowds cheering. Then winding up The Coppice in company — when I'd always had it to myself. Once over The Coppice the pack thinned out, and Moleside End loomed. Beyond that, Great Slack and Snipe Rake and up onto Hameldon.
Right round a cattle grid — rather than risk falling in. Crooked crows hung from barbed wire — a farmer’s trophy. I couldn’t hear runners. Just my breath — and the squelch of feet in brown bog water. I reached the last brow of the last fell — low cloud closing in. A sheep skull with a fringe of wet grass — a comical green wig.
My breath slowed as the ground levelled. A distant trig point. I could see runners rounding it through the drizzle. Not far now. I couldn’t feel my legs. Mud caked to my shins. I turned the trig and faced — not a panoramic view — but a wall of cloud. Runners melting into it.
I stopped, hands on hips, breathing hard. A wiry figure sprinted towards me. His energy late twenties — but his wrinkles mid-sixties. His eyes too blue. He grinned as he passed — and slapped my back.
“Don’t worry lad, it’s all downhill from now on.”
I could barely stand. My legs wobbled.
I never ran another fell race — but I still run a mile from a football.