Do we really need balls?

Of the sporting variety, naturally. Having finished with the (English) footie, we are now into Wimbledon, and then the Olympics, which although not all about balls is sure to feature quite a few. What would sporty people do if balls had never been invented? Run about and jump over things, no doubt. Ever higher and faster.

Once upon a time, someone ( who?) made a small round thing and either threw it or kicked it to someone else. Why?

I do not like balls. If I see one coming at me, there's a part of my brain that says: Missile! Avoid and/or duck. Both, if possible. I cannot catch a ball or hit one ( many have hit me). I do not enjoy watching other people throwing and hitting and kicking. Is there something wrong with me? Does one have to enjoy balls and ball games to be fully human? And am I alone in being totally bewildered by the rules of cricket, rugby scrums and the offside rule?

Last of all, is there anyone else out there who can live without balls? If so, please let me know. I think I'm in for a rather lonely summer...

B is for Ball Games

I have never been any good at ball games. As a child, I simply didn't see the point of a ball. If you couldn't stroke it, eat it, read it, ride it or climb it, it was of no interest to me.

The other problem was that my brain interpreted a ball coming towards me as a missile. Not friend, but foe. Run or duck, it told me, but do NOT go near it. This fear was hard to overcome.

And then there was the sheer discomfort. Freezing days on the hockey pitch, my (then unprotected) shins an easy target for that wickedly hard ball, Miss Brown, in her cosy royal blue track suit, yelling at me from the sidelines, my thighs purple with the cold. And all this followed by the humiliation of being the only flat-chested girl in the communal showers afterwards. Tennis was almost as bad, if warmer and less dangerous, and as for rounders, I don't think I once managed to hit that tiny ball with that silly little stick.

So, in my teens, I was relegated, with two equally incompetent friends, to the far end of the playing fields, to throw the discus. Of what possible use that was ever to be in future life I have no idea. Health and safety would have had a ball (ha) as we could easily have killed each other (accidentally, of course; we were best friends). In the event, we lay in the grass and talked about boys and made daisy chains. We made a lot of daisy chains. No-one ever came to see how we were doing.

But at least I have never been asked to play the Mayan Ball Game. Apparently, the winners are heaped with accolades, but the miserable losers are put to death.

Perhaps I should have counted this small blessing, and tried harder at the discus.