I'm Tony. Life is good. Life has more variety than I ever dreamt of, because of a special weekend that changed my life for ever. Like all these things it started in a bar! Late on a Tuesday evening. Attached to sports club.
Some guys on the next table boasting -- civil servants were the best sportsmen! Okay, they had just won the local five-aside soccer league. Fifth division. Really!?! Eight of them celebrating. Soccer is for wimps -- we knew, we guys who worked in the local university research library. We'd just been practising in the cricket nets, ready for a match on the Sunday. There were only seven of us -- four had to go home to their wives.
We told them what we thought of "uncivil serpents." They weren't that keen on nerds! It was the beginning of a great friendly rivalry. Truth was they were a great bunch of guys, and a great laugh -- but the rivalry was serious. After that evening in the bar, we arranged to play them at five-aside -- and got beat. They won the beer and bragging rights that evening. But they were no match for us at darts. Or table tennis. They were better at basketball. We won the golf tournament.
It started in our early twenties, and over the next three years we played each other at every conceivable sport and game we could imagine, some of them several times. And always ended up with the losers buying the beer in the bar. We even developed our own facebook page, and developed a surprising amount of followers, including family, friends, colleagues at work...
But we should perhaps have learnt a lesson. Yes, we won the golf, and darts, and table tennis. But they won the soccer, the seven aside rugby, the 10k race around the local park. We won the cricket -- just. But they won the basketball and tennis. The signs were all there in the sports they were winning...
Then the big idea -- not quite sure who had the big idea. Why not make a weekend of it? Have a great tournament weekend? Someone found a hotel with a sports complex, and access to the local sports centre. We could have a whole weekend of competing at different sports and games, and interlace it all with sun-bathing, laughter and beer. It sounded a great idea, and we all signed up. We convinced wives and girlfriends we would have a serious sporting weekend, we were set!
Typical of civil servants -- they made a list and organised the events, timing, and passed it on to us. We read down the list one at a time: soccer, swimming tennis, running... Each had a description of how the competition would work. Then the last one -- wrestling. Wrestling? They had put some notes. Each team would select one person to wrestle, and the fight would be to one fall. The sports centre had agreed to set out an area covered with soft mats for the fight. How come I was so stupid: I couldn't think of an excuse for not doing it! Everyone else had trotted out an excuse! Some of them were pretty weak - "hurt my knee once fighting with my brother;" "I'm a pacifist...;" "My wife's a pacifist!" "My grandmother was a pacifist!" There were eight of us, and seven apparently perfect excuses...and I couldn't think of one!
In the end I decided that it was friendly, it was going to be a wrestle, but no-one would get hurt. I conned myself -- I had a good wrestle with my girlfriend that night, and subdued her after a struggle -- I think it was my crotch hold which did it...and she had a fall, and a submission as my cock plunged into her... it was a knockout.
The weekend was really good fun. We did play all sorts of sports and games. I was buoyant after winning the chess match. And coming second in the ten kilometre run. And I did a lot of cheering of our other guys. And the beer wasn't bad in the bar, and the food good. I knew I had to be ready -- the wrestling match was the last event on Sunday afternoon. I had a lie in on the Sunday morning -- the attraction of watching the volleyball match wasn't high. I had a light lunch. There was only the wrestling, and suddenly realised my team didn't have a lot of confidence in me. Anyway -- even if I won, we had already lost the weekend. And they didn't think I was going to win! Not surprised, I suppose -- at Sunday lunch I found I was against Tom -- Tom Hankinson. Tom was a great guy, friendly, warm. He was also captain of his Rugby club. And I had won the chess. I suppose it wasn't a surprise most of my team simply found excuses to leave -- excuses even more pathetic than the excuses that had landed me wrestling Tom Hankinson. Only Charlie who I got a lift with decided to stay -- and he said he'd wait in the bar...
Well, even if there wasn't a lot of team honour around, I had my honour.
At 3pm I appeared in the sports hall, in just my swimming trunks. Already there, similarly attired, was Tom Hankinson. Truth is, I'm pretty fit, but Tom was a bit taller, a bit more muscular, a bit more tough. Also there, sat on chairs were the rest of his team. Also there was the barman from the hotel, who had foolishly offered the referee at 11.30pm the previous evening.
It was agreed. We'd keep going until there was a fall. We'd all seen WWF wrestling and knew what a fall was! Whenever it looked like one of us needed a rest Dave the barman would call a pause to let us get our breath back. Don't think he expected to lose a lot of work time on what he expected to be a short fight! He probably hoped he wouldn't have to get an ambulance for me...
Actually, I did better than some expected. I had watched a lot of WWF wrestling. And when a teenage had done Judo for a few years. And while he looked a muscled hulk, I was a bit more nimble. We began to wrestle. I grabbed his arm and threw him! Then held him down in a headlock. Then grabbed his arm in a wrist lock while he was still on the ground. Then we rolled off the mats, and Dave the barman told us to stop and get back on the mats.
