anthony galvin

An update to a post I made this time last year adding Froome to the list of British cyclists who have worn yellow at Le Tour. As I mentioned when I posted about this before, nationalism and sport are tricky areas, especially when we start talking about British sports people. Of the people on the list only 3 were born in the UK (by birth Millar, Wiggins and Froome are Maltese, Belgian and Kenyan respectively), which throws into relief what British might mean in this context. 

From my perspective I’d hope to cheer anyone who rides with panache in the pro peloton, but as a British cyclist myself I take some pride in the performances of people representing British cycling. So to these six I say Chapeau.

Mountains of the mind.

We’ve been back in Buckinghamshire for a couple of weeks, but the Isle of Mull - the mountains, beaches and views are still travelling with me.

Sun set from Treshnish. Looking out over Eigg, Rum and Skye.

Belief. 

A cold afternoon, warmed by the tension of watching my team. My team - a strange phrase. They’re clearly not just mine - on this occasion I’m sharing them with the 700 other people who’ve decided to travel to the less than glamorous Abbey Stadium in Cambridge and pay £15 to sit in the away end (another 2000 or so locals are spread around the rest of the patchwork ground). 

I’m always in the away end, that’s how I started watching them, with my dad at small grounds in the late 80’s and early 90’s. When football wasn’t an all pervasive fashion item that politicians and Hollywood a-listers were required to ‘like’. Not that this game is touched by much glamour. The Blue Square Premier League is a long way from the banal MOTD platitudes and millionaire showboating. 

I don’t go and watch my team very often. For lots of reasons: money, family, geography, time. But one of the main reasons is that I don’t enjoy it. I can watch and enjoy most sport (except motor sport) and I enjoy watching football. But watching my team play is a long way from being a pleasurable experience.

It’s the tension, the stress.

The stress of getting to a ground in a town you don’t know. Arriving, taking a glance at the programme and with the dawning realisation that there isn’t a single player on the team who was playing for the club last time I watched a game. That strange superstition of not sitting down until the referee blows his whistle (I have no idea where that comes from). As the game progresses it gets worse. A knot in the stomach, voice growing hoarse, willing a good result. Those nearly moments - an almost great pass or the ball striking the bar. The collective frustration that pours out of the stands when a basic error is made.

Suddenly the end of the game approaches, nervous glances at my watch. The board held up for a few minutes of added time. Which drains away like the belief in fading light. Perhaps one last change and then the final whistle.

No win today. No end to the run of games without seeing them win. My team. Next time they’ll win. Next time I’ll enjoy it. 

Monochrome. 

Heavy skies, grey and laden with snow. Snow that falls slowly, dampening sounds and flattening perspective. A tramp across the fields, heavy work, snow crunching underfoot - the percussive sounds of winter.

The world seems asleep, but no less beautiful for it. In the fields beyond the pub at the end of the village (where the windmill used to be), there’s little sign of life - just some abandoned old pieces of farm machinery, a couple of very territorial robins and footprints leading out across the fields. 

Cold roads.

And suddenly winter is here, frost across the fields. Puddles frozen.