Lying awake with my cracked rib last night, trying to stay still to avoid the pain any movement causes, I thought of the sports injuries of my childhood. Two stand out, the first gained in a game of rugby. I was then, and still am, something of a beanpole, nicknamed Lanky in my first summer job as a van boy at Baldry's Soft Drinks. Though tall, I had little weight or power, so the scrum was not the place for me, but then I was not fast, so was not much use as a three-quarter. I was usually put into the scrum as a prop. One games afternoon, at the time of the first wave of skinheads, another boy came onto the pitch wearing his Doc Martens. As was the custom in those days, he had screwed steel plates underneath the toe to increase the injuries he could cause if he kicked someone. Unusually in a school that paid obsessive attention to detail in uniform and kit, the master in charge of the game did not question this boy's choice of footwear more suited to a Saturday afternoon fight at the Abbey stadium, where Cambridge United played. When the scrum collapsed, his boot made contact, I think accidentally, with my head, and caused a cut which bled spectacularly. I was taken to Addenbrooke's and stitched, and given an impressive bandage.
I thought some good might come of this a day later, when I went to a youth club I used to frequent. The girl I was in love that week also attended and, I reasoned, the bandage would induce in her either feelings of pity for my suffering or admiration at my heroism. She would surely cast her clothes aside and surrender to me on the ping-pong table. In fact she was quite unimpressed. In later life she became a doctor: I wonder if she was practising avoiding emotional involvement with patients.
The second injury took place in a game of hockey. Hockey is staggeringly violent, far more so than anything else. One of the most violent people I have known in my life was a keen player, I think because it allowed him to carry a stick in public. My father used to tell me of doctors versus nurses games he played in when a junior doctor, in which old scores would be settled. But my injury was relatively: I was struck on he forearm by a ball travelling at some speed. Once more I found myself in A&E, where a periossial haematoma was diagnosed and the arm strapped.
Recent Comments