Top Gear and Thomas Rhett

This week I saw a marvellous thing at my local recreation ground. Something I’ve not truly appreciated before. On the grass, freshly-painted white lines.

Fresh, I tell you! Grass mown, ground prepared, ready for play. What an exciting prospect. The field’s been there, waiting: great for dog-walkers, runners, or the odd family kickabout... but not fulfilling its proper purpose. But the lines are now in place! Forget “It’s coming home” – It’s coming back.

I’ve never been sporty – the only actual school team I made was the football 4th Eleven, consisting of the only 11 players not in any other team. Unbeaten 1989 season: nil-nil, nil-nil, one all... with an own goal scored by me. I’m not a natural.

I’ve not done team sports for years, but my body is a temple, so I have done ‘couch to 5k’ – though there wasn’t as much ‘couch’ as I was hoping. But I finished the course, ran the full 5k, and I’m now looking for a new app called ‘5k back to couch again’.

For many of us lately, exercise has become an important solo activity: walking, running, cycling, PE with Joe, PE without Joe. But teamwork is perhaps something many of us have craved.

I wonder if our lives lift a little when we’re working together as a team, each doing our bit. In the Bible, Paul talks of many parts forming one body. He says “God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wants them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be then?” Not on the football pitch, that’s for sure.

We all have our strengths, whether on or off the pitch. I know mine were definitely elsewhere. I hope my two kids have inherited my wife’s sporting prowess, not mine. 

My children have started back to actual proper school this week. I’ve found it quite emotional hearing the activity on the games field over the school wall: the passing, scoring, missing, sharing victories, sharing defeats. The privilege of play, I now appreciate anew.

Perhaps near you there are white painted lines, about to be trampled on soon. How marvellous. And it reminds me of a quote from American football coach Michael Singletary: “My favourite part of the game?” he said. “The opportunity to play.”