Ninety six – South West Strings Badminton

I hate sports for a simple reason: I carry too much sports-related emotional baggage.

When I was at school, two kids were always picked last for any team events. It was either me or the fat kid, and the fat kid was a whole lot better than me. Football, rugby, cricket; you name it, nobody wanted me on their team. What really puzzled me was that other kids seemed to really enjoy sport, whereas I just couldn’t see the point.

‘Why would you enjoy going out and chucking a ball about in a muddy field and risk getting injured?’ I used to ask myself.

To me, sport was a waste of time. I couldn’t throw, I couldn’t run very fast, I couldn’t hit a ball and I couldn’t catch. But, I could get a computer to do stuff, and that was something that sporty kids couldn’t do. The net result was that I became disengaged; I didn’t need sport in my life.

All these thoughts were circulating through my head as I rode towards Tooting Leisure Centre. I had been to Tooting a couple of times before, and most of them had been by accident. It was rush hour and the traffic was heavy. Cars were getting too close to me, and food delivery bikers seemed to have a death wish. Plus, it was raining. I carefully weaved my way through traffic, roughly following the route of the Northern Line. I eventually took a right just before Tooting Broadway tube station, and saw a sign for the leisure centre.

I didn’t want to play badminton. I wanted a night of television. My mood had darkened and I acquired a feeling of dread. I dreaded the sense of feeling like an idiot, and dreaded the undoubted enthusiasm of badminton fanatics.

‘I, erm, am here, with a group. A badminton group…’ The woman at reception looked at me. The silence between us suggested that she needed more information. ‘I think it’s booked under the name of Michael.’

‘Courts two and three. Just go through the double doors, turn right and you’ll find them there’.

I thanked the receptionist, took a deep breath, and set off. I found a group of people milling around. I asked the first person I came to whether this was the ‘Meetup’. It was. He was a German chap called Karl; Michael, it seemed, was stuck in traffic. After a quick change, I returned and chatted a bit more.

‘I… have never done this before. I don’t know how to play’.

‘No worries’, replied Karl. ‘I’ll teach you’.

He went to his bag and picked up a racket and gave it to me. Karl went onto explain the markings on the court, what is meant by ‘in’ and ‘out’, and demonstrated how to serve.

‘It’s all in your wrist, see?’ Karl demonstrated how to move the racket around, as if he was trying to do battle with a swarm of invisible flies.

‘Okay, we’ll just play for fun. We’ll just hit it, okay?’

Karl went to the other side of the net and served; a high shot, which gave me a bit of time to react, so I could position myself. I returned the shuttlecock, but the next one ended up on the floor. I tried again… we had a short rally, and then a longer one.

Hitting the shuttlecock wasn’t as difficult as I had expected it to be. I had expected my long-standing excuse, my extreme short-sightedness to work against me, but I was managing to return Karl’s shots. I don’t know what had happened since my school days. Had it been my occasional trips to the gym? Had my reactions suddenly perked up after lots of scooter riding?

We stopped. I noticed that the top of Karl’s t-shirt was all wet with sweat. I was panting, and starting to break out in a sweat too.

‘You’ve never played before? You’re really talented; it usually takes two or three lessons before you can return like that’.

I couldn’t believe he said that.

‘Here, take this. It’s lighter, see? Let’s play with this so you can feel the difference’. Karl gave me one of his expensive carbon fibre rackets to play with; an expression of trust. We continued to mess about. I could tell the difference. It was lighter, and easier to play with.

More people arrived. There was Tony, Ed, Gavin, and Dave. I joined a pretend doubles match with Gavin, Tony and Dave. Gavin offered me a bit of advice: ‘you’re putting your whole body into a shot; don’t. Badminton is most in your wrist…’ echoing Karl’s earlier point. Gavin’s advice made me realise why I was feeling so knackered and was sweating so much: I was running and jumping, whilst everyone else seemed to be barely moving.

Part way through another pretend match, our host Michael arrived.

‘What’s your name? Have you played much badminton, Chris?’

‘None… I think this is my first time ever.’ I then went onto explain why I had come to Michael’s group.

‘Why are you doing these… one hundred Meetups?’ he asked.

‘Midlife crisis, I guess’, I replied. Michael began to laugh.

‘I’ve had one too! Midlife crisis. Besides, you’re not old enough! How old are you? Look’. Michael showed me his arm. It had a tattoo. It was a series of Chinese characters.

‘What does it say?’

‘I’m from Vietnam, and my wife is from China. It’s a phrase, in simplified Chinese; in Cantonese. It says: don’t waste time. I used to drink and smoke, but now I play Badminton. It’s my life. Let’s play. We’ll talk later’.

Michael gave me some easy shots, and then quickly turned up the heat. One shot went one way, the other shot went the other. Michael started to chuckle.

‘You’ve got to run, Chris! Gets your blood moving!’ After he noticed that I was spending too much time picking up the shuttlecock from the floor, he went back to easier shots.

It was time for my first proper game. Michael and myself versus Tony and Tracey, the only woman in our group. Michael kept score. The game was a blizzard of running, hitting and jumping. There were long shots and close shots; shots where the shuttlecock would be flipped over the net. We won. Or, more specifically, Michael won.

Between games, I chatted to Michael a bit more, and gave him the fee for the night. Michael had been running ‘South West Strings’ for around two years. He runs event in different venues across South West London and had attracted over seven hundred members.

‘We sometimes have over thirty people coming to the events, like the one that we had on Sunday. We don’t just do badminton. Sometimes we go out for meals and see movies too. I hope you’ll come back!’ Michael was a perfect event host: friendly, encouraging and passionate. He was also pretty good at badminton.

After a well needed sit down, it was time for a final match. It was me and Ed versus Dave and my mentor, Karl. By this time in the night, I was sufficiently filled with adrenalin. The pretend matches had filled me with confidence that I could return the shuttlecock. I was also aware that my eyes were working well enough that I could see roughly what was going on. It started gently enough, then Ed started to rush around, thwacking the shuttlecock. I then started to pick up some of the low shots; we were starting to work as a team. We gained points, they gained points; we were evenly matched. Michael’s ‘I’ll get you running’ exercises had done the trick; I moved from the back of the court to the front, reacting to the game.

I had no idea which side won. It didn’t matter. We shook hands. It had been fun. Karl was covered in sweat, and Ed was panting. I needed a lie down and a drink of water. Karl and Michael said I had done pretty well. My feelings of dread and foreboding had been replaced with endorphins and elation. I wondered what had changed. Perhaps it was my willingness to get involved. Perhaps I had also managed to throw away quite a bit of my sporting baggage.