Sports & Leisure Forum“The Meaning of Sport”

It has been a quiet year for the Sports & Leisure Forum given that we started the year in lockdown and only latterly hosted physically attended events. We still managed to hold a keenly contested University Challenge which this year threw up some competitive matches and the final was no di erent. Fitzwilliam/ Corpus prevailed in the first 20 minutes to establish a healthy 45 point lead with 10 minutes to go. However Robinson/ Pembroke had saved all their mental reserves for the last 10 minutes and won most of the “starters for 10” giving them the opportunity to prevail over the former champions with a final score of 255 points to 220 points. Our congratulations to the Champions from Robinson/Pembroke captained by David Mortimer and whose team were Keith Bailey, James Taylor and Andrew Fox (Pembroke) and commiserations to the losing finalists from Fitzwilliam/ Corpus captained by our Immediate Past President Ian Marcus and whose team were Emma Fletcher, Paul MunroFaure and Richard Morton (Corpus).

I otherwise thought it best to devote this year’s contribution to our magazine by considering the importance or not of Sport (and to a degree Leisure) in our lives. Were there to be a debate I would side very much for the motion that sport contributes massively to our health, well-being and mental aptitude. The two sports I pursued as an undergraduate of Caius College were rugby and tennis. I played for the Caius second XV, which was not appropriately named as we rarely managed to field 15 players. I was lucky in my last year at the University to have a car, so we used to take that long drive from West Road to Grange Road and I asked my fellow teammates to record the scores in my car’s visitors book which I have sadly lost so I cannot tell you how well we fared. Playing tennis in Cambridge is of course a dream, being played on the best surface of grass and I whiled away many summer afternoons playing tennis with fellow undergraduates with my wooden Maxply racket.

To me the best sports are those that involve striking a ball of some sort in the company of others. Those that know me well know I have a passion for golf and tennis and to me both of those sports bring out the best in humankind. As a youngster my memories of disappointment on the field of sport teach a very valuable lesson to the disappointments one encounters in later life, whether it be in the examination room, applying for employment, or gaining success in a chosen career. There is great fun to be had in playing sports with friends, and many friendships are born on and o the sports field. The ability to fit into a team and make a team greater than the sum of its individuals is a lesson for life.

Sadly I never aspired to nor achieved a Cambridge Blue and so the greatest sporting achievements I have witnessed in the last 60 years have been as a spectator, watching Bobby Moore lift the World Cup at Wembley, and Martin Johnson doing the same in rugby union in Sydney, the competitive Ryder cups between Europe and the USA when I could only marvel at the astonishing skills on display, and then three more recent World Cup victories for England in the men’s and women’s cricket at

Lord’s, and then the women winning the Euro crown this summer again at Wembley. All fabulous, and I’m sure you as a reader have plenty of your own experiences to savour.

Of course the entertainment of sport is one to be experienced either live, from the comfort of your armchair, or reading about the past weekend sport in your Monday morning newspaper. I have read the Times newspaper all of my life and their great sporting journalists include Simon Barnes, Matthew Syed and Brough Scott. All three of them have excelled in describing wonderful sporting moments but also debate and discuss the mental attitude of the participants, their will to win, their grace in losing and the enjoyment they bring to the sports fan. I was very saddened to hear of the passing of Eddie Butler this month. Whilst I didn’t know him he was a contemporary at the University, and of course we all got to know of him both as an international player and subsequently as a wonderful TV commentator.

So that takes me to the best moment of this year’s University Challenge. See if you can answer this starter for 10:

“Which is the only muscle in the human body that is connected at one end only”?

To which the contestant’s answer was Buzz – Durden “Murray Edwards College” – “cxxk”

You the reader know of course that the correct answer is tongue. How would Jeremy Paxman have coped with that?

I realise I have not covered the subject of Leisure, I’ll save that for next year perhaps on the theme of my rock ‘n’ roll collection.

We do hope as many of you as possible will enjoy the events that the sports and leisure forum hope to host this coming year.