Wrinkles, bad knees, making noises when you stand up and thinking 8.30pm is a perfectly acceptable bed time aren’t the only bad things about getting older, having the joy and fun sucked out of what is meant to be a fun game by a bunch of old bats with band-aids over their revolting acrylic fingernails are another.
Want to meet new people? Join a sports team, they say. I’m all for being a good sport, but some people and rules make games like netball, hockey and any other activity running around in groups all dressed in the same outfit largely unpleasant – as if wearing the same outfit as someone better looking than you isn’t bad enough.
Can you tell my re-entry to team sports as an adult did not go well?
Deciding to join a netball team at 27 was not a wise decision to start with. Athleticism was never really a word used to describe me. Clumsy, klutzy and slower-than-an-Adelaide-Street-bus-at-peak-hour were perhaps slightly more accurate. Did I also mention that the last time I played netball Vanilla Ice was the shiz and Hypercolour was haute couture? So maybe I had forgotten some rules in the space of 16 years.
Despite explaining to my team that I it had been more than half my lifetime since I played and that I had all the sporting grace and coordination of Elaine Benes on the dance floor, they were mainly friends or people I already knew and were very kind and accepting of my lack of sporting prowess. I then had the pleasure of meeting Anna*, who was a friend of an acquaintance on the team. There were a couple of us who either had not played at all or had not played since the last millennium, which Anna did not take kindly to. She was in fact overheard saying, “I was in A Grade netball in high school…” “Can’t expect me to play with a bunch of amateurs…” and “well, at least they’re not fat.”
First of all, Anna – you’re 25 and school was a long time ago, get over your A Grade glory. Secondly, it’s Boondall’s C Grade women’s netball, it’s the lowest grade possible, who did you think you’d be playing with other than a bunch of amateurs? And finally thanks for the vote of confidence, Liz Ellis, but I soon learned that being a boombah didn’t actually hamper sporting ability.
The fabulous Sharon Strezlecki from Kath & Kim
The team we first faced off against collectively made Sharon Strezlecki from Kath & Kim look like Elle McPherson. There is a breed of woman in her mid forties onwards, who smokes regularly, thinks chiko rolls are enough to cover your daily intake of vegetables and almost exclusively hang out at either tuckshops, netball courts or urban fringe RSL clubs. This was our opposition. Don’t let the rotund exterior fool you. Beneath the heaving mass of permed hair, nicotine stained fingers and love handles that could more accurately be described as shelves, beats the heart of a ruthless athlete. Instead of a slow lumber up and down the court, we were confronted with streaks of pleated netball skirt and hot pink bibs. The fact that half time heralded a long awaited ciggie break did not dampen the speed and surprising lung capacity of these unlikely netball goddesses.
In game two I learned that netball is in fact a contact sport, despite being lied to repeatedly. Being on the receiving end of a rather generously proportioned tush push that wound up with me lying on my back like a dead cockroach and being kicked in the shin more than once left me in no doubt that netball is actually nastier than sports with large sticks or bats – at least they involved shin pads and mouth guards.
In game four I learned that not only was Anna a complete beeotch, but an over theatrical banshee that may end up getting a job on Home and Away or an Italian soccer team thanks to her less-than-refined dramatics. The fact that my very limited ability hadn’t even improved to mediocre levels obviously irked our self-declared Captain Anna. I had unfortunately been assigned a position I had never played before and had no idea where I was meant to be on the court. The charming umpire wench didn’t think it was necessary to explain to me why I kept getting pulled up for doing something wrong – so I had no clue as to what foul I was making. Until Anna shrieked across the court and stormed over, ‘Claire you effing (it wasn’t the word effing, but I’m a lady) moron. You effing stand there, not there. Do you understand?!’ During this she grabbed me by the shoulders, shook them and planted my feet on the other side of the line. I was so enraged by her carry on that I couldn’t even respond. I did what she asked, but silently willed her a minor injury – a broken nail perhaps? Hazzah! Not five minutes later, Anna received a swift shove from one of our opponents and a sprained ankle to boot. Suck it and spare me the wailing, ankle-clutching and rolling around on polished floorboards. While everyone fussed over her, I made (probably very unconvincing) appropriate, sympathetic noises. Enjoy your ride home in the wahmbulance, you horrible cow.
In game five I learned that karma certainly does exist because I sprained my own ankle, probably for delighting in the misfortune of Miss Congeniality, Anna, just a little too much.
After seven games, swelling on my ankle that took three weeks to subside, being yelled at by a team mate, pushed over by superannuated Mean Girls and suffocated by fedoobedahs (you may know them as bingo wings), my return to netball came to a close. Now I exercise in air-conditioned gymnasia watching Karl Stefanovic saying something inappropriate or half-naked women gyrating around rappers wearing more jewellery than Elizabeth Taylor ever owned in her life. No, it still isn’t pleasant, but now if I fall over it’s my own fault and the only fedoobedahs I have to worry about are my own.
How have your forays into team sport during adulthood gone?
*Anna is obviously not her real name, but Anna is much easier to say than ‘short, bitter woman who left her glory days behind when she left high school’.
It's Claire as mud 