I love sport. I always have. Since childhood, I’ve competed at soccer, running, baseball, tennis and pickleball. I’ve also played a lot golf, though not competitively. I’m no longer allowed to do my twice weekly, intense circuit sessions in the gym, but do still work out at home on the treadmill and bike every day.

(Told you I love sport!)

So when the Olympics comes around, I’m in heaven. I sort of leave this world for a couple of weeks and immerse myself in all the sports on offer.

Obviously, with athletics being my ‘best’ sport, I watch everything from the track and field. But I enjoy just as much watching sports that aren’t normally screened into our homes. Handball, for instance. That’s a wonderful sport – so fast.

Netball, I love. And gymnastics – what these talented athletes do just melts my brain!

Cycling too, both road and track.

But this isn’t making for very interesting reading, is it? Me banging on, creating a simple list of sports.

So what I thought I’d do, is tag on Chapter #34 from my latest book, ‘A Space Hopper Killed My Hamster … amusing tales of growing up in the ’60s & ’70s.’ It’s a three-minute, light-hearted read from here – and it is relevant to the Olympics.

I Could’ve Been a Contender.

Why does ‘Team GB’ often fail to fulfil its potential when it comes to The Olympic Games? I’ll tell you why. (Uh oh … rant, incoming!)

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The Paris Olympic Games of 2024 offered competitors the chance of winning medals in thirty-two sports, though let’s not get too bogged down in debating whether Breaking (break dancing) should be considered a sport. This is an increase of nine events from The Games of the ’70s, with the re-admission of golf and tennis in recent times somewhat diluting the traditional Corinthian spirit by allowing the participation of many mega rich, full-time, sportsmen and women.

Nowadays there is far more emphasis on the professionalism of the competitors.

Fifty-plus years ago, in the days before money became such an open and obvious part of The Olympics, there was, theoretically at least, hope for all of us seeking sporting immortality. One significant hurdle (sorry) lay in our path and prevented our dreams becoming reality. Certainly, in this part of the world.

You see, I grew up in the West of Scotland, around Glasgow. We love our sport in this city … but when I say ‘sport’ that historically meant just football. As a youngster, I played. I watched. I dreamed.

I had a couple of friends who played basketball and a couple of big nutters I knew didn’t mind having their ears turned ‘cauliflower’ and noses flattened through playing rugby. But that wasn’t an Olympic recognised sport in ’72 and ’76.

I was considered a bit eccentric when, at the age of thirteen, in addition to playing football, I also took up athletics (running.) Some girls I was friendly with also took to the track and cross-country, two of them going on to achieve international honours.

But that was it: football, basketball, athletics.

Of the twenty-three sports competed for at The Olympic Games during The Seventies, my friends and I had access to THREE!

Where was the Equestrian centre for us to try out at Dressage, for instance?

Rowing? Sailing? Canoeing?  We’d had it drummed into us all our young lives that if we so much as set foot anywhere near the local canal, we’d be grounded, and pocket-money would be withheld for a month.

Handball? What the **** was handball?

Granted, living in Glasgow, access to Fencing and Shooting, in an unofficial capacity, may have been possible … but you take my point.

At Munich in 1972, Great Britain & Northern Ireland placed twelfth overall, winning 18 medals (4 Gold, 5 Silver and 9 Bronze.) In Montreal, four years later, we dropped to thirteenth in the medal table, scoring only 13 in total (3 Gold, 5 Silver and 5 Bronze.)

When you consider the Soviet Union claimed 125 and 99 medals in the respective Games, closely followed by East Germany and USA, it’s not great, is it? It’s true, USSR and the Eastern bloc countries adopted an odd interpretation of the word ’amateur,’ but that’s not necessarily the reason we performed so poorly in comparison.

No, it’s as I alluded to earlier – a lack of training facilities. That, and the sports being considered ‘minority interests’ by the powers that were.

To become the best at any sport, we now appreciate a sportsperson must start young. Back in ’72 and ’76 we simply didn’t have the opportunity to become good at the Olympic-recognised sports.

But we were good at Shove Ha’penny; at Marbles; at Skipping; at Chinese Ropes, and Hopscotch. We were brilliant at British Bulldogs (why is Kabaddi not an Olympic sport?) Dodge Ball and even Hide & Seek.

I can only think the Olympic Association missed a trick there.

Oh, how I’d have loved the opportunity to compete for a gold medal in Ring! Bang! Scoosh!

I could have been a contender, you know.

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