The joy of sport

If you believe my father, I was born reading the sports pages of The Birmingham Post. It's probably not true (although given that I was born in the middle of March, with rugby union and football seasons reaching their climax, it might be..) but it's certainly true to say that almost five decades later, there are few sports I don't enjoy watching.
 I generally don't get motorsport, although a neighbour in my home town of Kidderminster did convince me for a few years about the delights of Cradley Heath speedway. However, watching men I can't see going seemingly endlessly round and round the same piece of track at very high speeds, relying largely on the skills of engineering experts rather than their own talents, doesn't do it for me.
 Apart from that, though, pretty much anything involving balls of all shapes and sizes, bats, rackets, sticks, hurleys, pucks, reins, saddles and various assorted shapes and sizes of field (grass or otherwise) will get my rapt attention.
 Take the stack of DVDs and recordings surrounding my television at the moment. American college football; American professional football; the Champions League final; the GAA All-Ireland football final; the Aviva Premiership rugby union final; the Epsom Derby.
 I wouldn't claim an encyclopaedic knowledge of the ins and outs of all these sports, but I think I know enough to enjoy them, to express an opinion and to try to introduce others to their delights. Generally, I find that the things I love about sport in the round translate well to every sport.
 Maybe it's because I was never much good at sport myself. I blame my knees, as well as a nasty collision between my nose and a hockey stick during a mixed-sex match at school (My, that girl could hit a ball....). It was the late Ron Pickering, athletics coach and BBC commentator at the time when the Beeb ruled the sporting airwaves, who told me when he visited our school one day: "Those that can, do; those that can't, teach."
 To which should be added: "Those that can't teach, write about it, talk about it, express views of varying relevance and validity...."
 With a nod in the direction of my other interests, including real ale, as well as an occasional look at my professional life as a magazine editor, that is what this blog will do.