King monkey

It was school sports day on the local playing fields this week, the running lanes having been marked out in white paint days beforehand. My daughter doesn’t go to school for a couple of years yet, but it was still good knowing that school sports day had come around. The end of the school year, the beginning of the long summer. I’ve fond memories of school sports days in Hopeman. And the one bad memory.

My single biggest sporting disappointment involved the sack race. The year I climbed into my tattie sack and took off, establishing an unassailable lead, leaving my rivals for dust and, in my excitement, running over the finish line, forgetting I was supposed to be jumping. I was promptly disqualified by Mr MacIver, our headmaster. The crushing disappointment, the humiliation. I’d brought shame on my family. I hid my embarrassment by crawling into my sack and waiting there for half-an-hour until I thought it safe to come out.

I redeemed myself in the monkey race. I was a natural at it. The monkey race involved scampering down the track on all fours, much like a monkey in fact, if monkeys had school sports days. My friend Mingus and I vied to be king of the monkey race. It was no coincidence that we were the smallest boys in the class. We were born to the monkey race, crouching down and scrambling like monkeys, our arms and legs a blur.

We were like the Seb Coe and Steve Ovett of Hopeman athletics, except that we were best friends as well as monkey race rivals. If the monkey race was an Olympic event, I’m pretty sure Mingus and I would have struck gold at Barcelona in 92 – Mingus in the 100m monkey race (he had an explosive start) and me in the 200, before we joined forces to help Great Britain to gold in the 400m relay monkey race. Just like a tennis player is better on grass or clay, so it was with the monkey race. I was better on the Hopeman pitch on school sports day. When we took to the gym hall it was a different story and Mingus would reign supreme.

I wasn’t so hot in other school sports day events. In the tattie and spoon race I spent more time bending down to pick my tattie up than running with it. I was clumsy in the three legged race. Too hasty in the wheelbarrow race, as the barrow, and not enough strength when someone else was the barrow. I was no good at the high jump. That was Kev’s event. He was astonishing. He took it straight on, hurdling the bar in his own unique way. And I barely made the pit in the long jump. Running I was okay at, though I was far better monkeying around on all fours.

The prizes on school sports day were coloured ribbons. I’ve still got mine, frayed and faded though they are almost three decades later. Hopeman school sports days were magical, filled with sunshine and excitement. I look forward to school sports days with my children. I’m only sending them to a school where the monkey race is a recognised sporting discipline. And hopefully there’ll be a dads’ monkey race on school sports day too.