Читать книгу Bushell's Best Bits - Everything You Needed To Know About The World's Craziest Sports - Mike Bushell - Страница 6

‘Hey, morning, how’s your dad?’ It was an odd question at 7.30 am in the shower block of a Dorset campsite. Half my face was covered in shaving foam, and my eyes were still hibernating.

‘He’s…err…fine thanks’. Perhaps the chirpy Cockney standing next to me had joined us at the campfire the night before, but a combination of the dark and cider had blurred my memory.

‘I have heard so much about his time at Chelsea, does he still go?’ came the next question, revealing the true reason for his curiosity. It certainly wasn’t the first time I had been asked about ‘Dad’s’ time at Stamford Bridge. It happened whenever I was mistaken for Chris Hollins, my former colleague at BBC Breakfast. His father John did used to play for Chelsea. However, my dad, also John, has been involved in education throughout his career. He still is.

Now Chris and I are roughly the same size. We both have two ears, two eyes, and our own hair, but that’s about it. Nevertheless, I have lost count of the number of times I have been congratulated for Chris’s ballroom success on Strictly Come Dancing. Despite my insistence that I am more Bambi on ice, I have had drinks bought for me and even been patted on the back at a party by a member of the Strictly casting team.

It also blew a date, when a chap who had met Chris at Ascot the week before was practically aggressive in his insistence that I was Chris Hollins, in front of the lady I had met for dinner. She started to wonder if I was a spy, or a serial liar who had a different identity for every date. I never saw her again.

It is of course flattering to be mistaken for Mr Hollins (not sure he feels quite the same when he gets called Mike…) but this was the first time there had been identity confusion in a shower block.

‘My dad, oh yes, well he’s still in education in Yorkshire, thanks,’ I replied with a smile. I could have predicted the next line, but it makes me giggle every time: ‘Ah yes, of course, sorry mate! You’re the guy who does all those different sports! My wife wakes me up every Saturday and says “come and see what he’s doing this week”. Me and the kids love it. It’s Mike, isn’t it?’

By the way, it’s always comforting to know that other people get up on a Saturday morning and enjoy their breakfast with us on the BBC. So please never hesitate to say hello.

As I wiped the last fluffy cloud from my chin, the man told me how he had tried indoor skydiving with his sons, having seen the feature I had done. He’d also bought himself a mountain bike.

‘We can’t believe what you get up to,’ he continued, ‘but you’re not very good at most of these sports, are you?’

We continued chatting as we gathered our toilet bags and tiptoed into the daylight, as the smell of cattle straw ushered our senses back to the holiday I was having with my daughters on Norden Farm at Corfe Castle. It was a fair question. Others have asked me: ‘Why are you rubbish at some of these sports you feature?’

I answer that beginners don’t normally excel at a sport in their first lesson. It can be a painful and humiliating baptism of fire. My role is the medieval everyman: your average bloke off the sofa. I realised at a young age that I didn’t have the size or balance to make it as a professional sportsman, or at least that’s what I was led to believe. However, that shouldn’t stop anyone from using the immense power of sport to enrich their lives. Lack of ability should never stop anyone from having fun, from playing, from getting involved and enjoying the enormous health and social benefits of whatever activity it may be.

Some people shy away from the pitch or sports hall because they feel ashamed, embarrassed, or out of their comfort zone. I hope this book will break down this barrier, and show that there really is something out there for everyone. If I was good at everything I profiled on a Saturday morning, it would appear horribly arrogant. I am merely the guinea pig lucky enough to represent other beginners, showing what a particular sport is like at first: reporting on how easy or difficult it is: how steep the learning curve may be, and whether there is any pain involved. I usually join other pioneers, often youngsters trying a sport for the first time, to get their perspective, and they would agree that compared to the experts and professionals, we do look complete amateurs.

Another aim of the Saturday morning pieces is to showcase how good the dedicated athletes, who have mastered their art, really are. So who cares if this presenter is not a natural at first? Giving something a go gives you the most liberating feeling of fun and excitement as you push the boundaries of your own personal world, and discover those muscles you never knew you had. Plus come on be honest, how many of you really enjoy seeing me with egg on my face, when taking a battering from a 13-year-old Muay Thai champion in Cornwall.

So, no apologies if some of the sports have challenged me and I have ended up flat on my face. Surely if a middle-aged bloke who likes a pint can get involved, so can you. I promise there is a sport for all.

Before we go on a journey of discovery beyond the world of sport you may know, the other common question I get asked is how I ended up doing what I do. There is no set way into broadcasting, because people come from all walks of life. I have worked with former teachers, policemen, lawyers, and actors who have made the switch. So there is no one answer, but I hope the following will be useful for those harbouring journalistic ambitions.

Are you nosey? That’s the first thing to ask yourself if you want to be a journalist. Are you interested in what others are doing? Do you care? Do you also get an enormous buzz from telling your friends in the playground, on the bus or down the pub all about it? If so, then perhaps there is a dormant reporter in you.

What you like when you were seven years old? The famous quote from St Francis Xavier, ‘Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man’, certainly rings true in my case – not that I had a clue at the time. I was adamant I would be a farmer, if I was turned down by all the top football clubs.

Like many seven-year-olds, I had an imaginary friend – Sammy Mouse. My sister Jane had Cumsiarbar, Alley Dorby and Heffer’s wife, so mine felt rather mundane in comparison, which is probably why the stories I wrote about him were never published. So by the time I was eight, I realised that if I wanted to get anything in print, I would have to do it myself. Many youngsters get a job as a paperboy or girl, delivering the morning news, but I decided to make my own publication to deliver. It was driven by an obsession with telling people things they didn’t know. On FA Cup Final day I would display the latest score on the front window, even though we lived at the end of a cul-de-sac and only a passing cat would ever see it. So it seemed perfectly natural to spend my spare time writing and printing the Daily Owl, with the help of my old mate Derek. He was a duplicator I got for Christmas when I was nine. I have no idea why I called him Derek. She could equally have been a Deirdre.

For those too young to remember, the duplicator was the great uncle of the printers we rely on today. I can tell you that one of my early thrills came from threading in the carbon paper on which I had typed my stories, and then turning the handle to make the copies fly off the press. This was Ashwell though, a village in Hertfordshire, rather than Wapping, and the Daily Owl had a circulation of just eight. Despite this I like to think it had a loyal readership and they were well rewarded, especially if you entered the weekly competition. With only eight readers you stood a great chance of winning. Not that Mum was very impressed when Gary McCormick turned up to collect his prize, which happened to be the Leeds United football shirt I had just got from Father Christmas. However, he had won the competition fair and square and so we had to hand it over.

Like a couple of the national papers, though, the Daily Owl was eventually consigned to history. I still remember how I wept when, aged 11, I was told we were moving away from the cosy Hertfordshire village to Yorkshire. 180 miles away from all I had known, from the girls I hoped to marry, and from friends I had made for life. But Dad had a new job, and so in 1977 we moved north, and fate took me closer to the world of extreme and bizarre sporting challenges.

That desire to report, to tell a story – the driving force behind the Daily Owl – had followed me to Yorkshire. But now it wasn’t just print I was interested in. At the age of 13, I broke into the world of broadcasting – not that anyone else knew it. I took a tape recorder onto the school bus and recorded the teenage banter. I kept it in my bag for a whole day in lessons and even assembly. When the Chemistry teacher thought I was reaching into the bag for a pen, I was really flicking the pause button from off to on. Soon I had a 30-minute montage of sound-bites from a day in the life at Harrogate Granby High School.

My cover was blown when another teacher caught me whispering away into my rucksack. I was doing a piece of voiceover commentary, but he thought I was disrupting class. I was sent to see the headmaster, who listened to the recording as I fidgeted nervously, gazing out of the window and picturing the cane landing on my hand. Thankfully though, there was nothing malicious or offensive on it and so instead of getting a detention, the fly-on-the-wall documentary was played to the whole school. These days there are many opportunities to make radio and television programmes at schools, and you will end up with a far better result if you discuss it with your teachers first!

On other occasions I would follow the sound of a fire engine on my bike, all the while talking into the tape recorder. I didn’t know or question why. It just seemed normal and if you have the same symptoms, a career in journalism is the only cure. It has to be a passion, an interest, and it was the same when I got to King Alfred’s College for my drama and television degree course. I ended up presenting the weekly TV programme Pulse and writing the college newsletter.

Sports-wise, though, through those formative years I was always overlooked. It can’t just have been my size. After all there are plenty of 5’5” sporting heroes and heroines. So I concluded that it was because I am flat-footed, which still means I don’t quite have the touch of a Messi. I am also bow-legged: and have often been accused of impersonating John Wayne. However I was determined to make up for this oddity with sheer determination and belief.

As I settled into life in Yorkshire, I couldn’t get into the football team. Even the five-a-side tournament was beyond me, as I was told that I was too Southern: too soft. This is where the Jack Russell gene in me, which I think I get from my Mum, kicked in. I had threatened to ‘run home’ to Hertfordshire numerous times, but it was still a shock when one day Dad’s patience snapped and he said ‘Go on then, do it, run home’.

So a year later I did. 175 miles in six days. I had great company in Simon Wild, a friend from school who for some bizarre reason had also thought it seemed a good idea to run over six marathons in as many days. Not many other 15-year-olds would have seen the point of it, but Simon was an inspiration: the driving force behind each cold winter training session.

By now the idea had snowballed way beyond a stroppy teenager’s foot stamping. We were running to raise money for the International Year of Disabled People. Simon’s father Malcolm had come on board, planning the route, sorting out a support car and arranging for the mayor of each town to roll out the red carpet. It was a first taste of being on air, as we were interviewed and had our departure covered live on BBC Radio Leeds.

So it was, that after six days of blisters bleeding, of dogs barking and sometimes chasing, of sleepless nights in dodgy B&Bs, of Simon’s father shouting the test match and Open golf results, we got our first taste of sporting champagne. It flowed down our red cheeks at the finish line in Ashwell, and the blurred image of familiar old faces cheering, hangs like an oil painting in my mind, a permanent reminder of what can be achieved. This was the moment I was bitten by the adrenalin rush you get from a sporting challenge. It had shown me that you don’t have to be talented, or blessed with the Pele gene, to get the most out of sport. Our own goals and challenges are not just about winning, or even competing.

I have learned that it’s the adventures you have, that enrich your understanding of this complex, rich tapestry of life that count for as much. Sometimes you have to follow your heart, go with your instincts and take a risk.

For example my early steps in journalism meandered more than the yellow brick road. Having left King Alfred’s College in Winchester with a 2:1 degree, I got a job as a newspaper reporter on the Hampshire Chronicle. My extra-curricular interests at college had proved to be worth their weight in gold, and demonstrated my enthusiasm for the profession. The editor did take me down a peg, though, saying that the only other applicant had been a woman who had sent in a picture of herself topless. I was fully clothed, so the job was mine.

Local newspapers are still seen as the best way into the media by many in the business, because of the training they give you, not just in writing, but in law, local and central government, shorthand writing and the ability to tell a story. If you can get to the bottom of a dog show and make it into interesting copy, you won’t have much trouble reporting on something much meatier higher up the food chain.

The Hampshire Chronicle sent me on a 10-week journalism course in Portsmouth, but I didn’t complete my two-year indentures, because I joined a band with other journalists Marion and Nigel and his friend Dave, and the following summer we set off on a tour of Europe. It was a tour ended prematurely by thieves in Amsterdam and mechanics in Spain, but the Spinal Tap gang would have been proud, and the experience gave me something to talk about as i got a job on a daily paper in Derby.

That New Year I was travelling again, as Nigel persuaded me to spend New Year’s Eve with him, ringing in 1990 on the Berlin Wall. It was just months after it had started coming down, and the atmosphere was uneasy at times as thousands of revellers from both the East and West, all tried to get onto the wall leaving decades of misconceptions and tension on the ground. I wrote about the experience for the Derby paper and it was this, more than anything else that persuaded Steve Panton and Henry Yelf to give me my first job at the BBC just a few months later, on Radio Solent in Southampton.

The early days at the BBC were all-consuming. My enthusiasm is still the same. It’s not like a job, it’s my passion and I didn’t mind staying into the night to edit a radio report. I was there at two in the morning, slowly cutting bits of the reel-to-reel tape with a razor blade and sticking them back together in a different order to tell the story.

I was posted to the Isle of Wight to be the correspondent there, running the office in Newport where I produced my radio and TV reports for BBC South. On the Island, getting the stories was all about mixing with as many people as possible – at the quaint, quirky pubs, at the supermarket, or on the bus. The more people I talked to, the more stories I would hear about. The Isle of Wight had so many tales to tell, and it was here that I had my first introduction to the more bizarre stories that now I love telling. There were the escaped prairie gods tunnelling under farmers’ fields, the shire horse that drank at its local pub, and come to think of it, there was a fox that liked a pint in Ventnor as well. There he was sat on the bar stool, sipping a pint of real ale. I am sure there was a broadsheet newspaper and packet of pork scratchings as well.

What I realised manning that office, day in, day out, was how important the BBC is to people at a local level. I was front of house, their first port of call, and people would come in to talk about all sorts of television and radio matters, or sometimes just to share their problems. There was one elderly gentleman who always announced his arrival with raucous, smoke-grated laughter. Did I want to meet his friends, Barbara and Ken, who couldn’t agree about the 1992 general election? Barbara was a conservative, but Ken was a liberal democrat. It was only later that I discovered they were both snakes. I saw from my little window on the world the company that BBC local tv and radio provide people. They feel it belongs to them.

Having covered news on the Isle of Wight and then in Reading for BBC South, my natural interest in sport was calling, so I joined the BBC’s sport department. This eventually led me to joining the BBC News channel and going to the World Cup in France in 1998 and the Athens Olympics in 2004.

But my passion went beyond just being a spectator and reporting on what was happening. My 180-mile marathon from Harrogate to Ashwell had shown me what an average person could achieve with a bit of training. I thought that if we could push the boundaries of people’s self belief and get more involved, we would bring a whole new audience into the sporting family.

The BBC and in particular Breakfast has given me the creative freedom to explore the world beyond mainstream sport. Since 2006 as well as presenting sport bulletins on BBC Breakfast, the BBC News channel, and BBC World, I have been on a mission to broaden the audience and to entice in viewers who wouldn’t necessarily consider themselves to be sports fans. So each week I profile a different sport or activity which doesn’t normally get much exposure and which sometimes people won’t have even heard of. Or, I might also take a different look at a high-profile sporting event or do a feature showing another side of a well-known sports star. Or sometimes it’s a report on a new initiative by a mainstream sport to get more people involved.

I have lost count of the number of people who have said ‘I didn’t used to watch the sport, I would go and make a cup of tea, but now I wait for your feature to come on’. Imagine the feeling I had when I got a letter from Susan Tilford, received over a year after I did a feature on Horse Trek – orienteering on horseback. She wrote: ‘I was smitten by a thunderbolt! You opened a whole new world to us. It has been fun and exciting, and educational, a tremendous confidence-booster. This is such a wonderful, no-pressure sport, but then at the end of last year, I decided it was high time for me to take on a real challenge, and seriously compete. I’m 64, and my pony is 27. I cannot find words to adequately express my appreciation for doing this feature.’

It makes every ounce of effort worthwhile. I do believe the Saturday features have a very important role. It’s not just getting people more active, joining in and having a go; it’s about getting people playing. The word ‘play’ is sometimes tarred with the notion that you are not taking a sport seriously. Yet all sport begins with play, with the time and space to experiment and make mistakes, to do something just for fun.

There are leading academics who believe that play has been schooled out of children, and that as a result they not interacting with others and stretching their imaginations as they used to. Times have changed. Whether it’s because of more traffic on the roads, the perception that our streets are now not as safe, or due to the rise in computer games and hand consoles, play has been in decline over the last generation.

So on Saturday mornings, I have been trying to get people playing again, trying something new for themselves. Some are more extreme for the adrenalin seekers, but others are simply activities that get people of all ages interacting together. What’s more, if Bushell can do it, then nearly all of us can. The features have opened doors for me and the programme as well, with many top sportsmen and women telling me they like taking part because it brings variety to their training – or because they like seeing a sports reporter suffer! More importantly, though, many of the professionals like giving something back.

It’s been a wonderful seven-year journey, and I am so grateful to the BBC, to the Saturday Breakfast team – including for a long time Julia Barry and Katie McDougall – for running with the idea and helping me broaden the sporting spectrum. I am also grateful to sports news editors, like Nick Dickson and Richard Burgess, and to David Kermode and Alison Ford on Breakfast, for giving me the space, time and freedom to continue this mission: to carry on this campaign to get play, back into the heart of our communities, and our society.

Over the last seven years the number of school sports on offer to students has more than doubled, and beyond the school gates the opportunities to go out there to find the sport for you, have never been greater.

By increasing the number of people participating in sport, we might well find the next Dame Kelly Holmes, but above all else it’s not about making the first team, it’s about enriching your lives with the enormous benefits taking part brings, in physical, mental and social development. So even if it’s worm charming, don’t knock it, because like any activity, it will have changed some people’s lives, and this book is about finding the sport that can do it for you.