Having already shared with you how i got started playing hockey, perhaps some of you reading this would like to share how you got started playing your team sport. While i greatly admire all sport ( i love playing squash, cycling and swimming), because my book is about team sports, and because hockey has been such a big influence on my life, i’ve decided that this blog will only be about team sports and players……just so all of you individual sports players know. As a little incentive to ……..get the ball rolling, so to speak, if we get over twenty people sharing their thoughts over the next week or so, then whoever’s thoughts i like the most will be rewarded with a signed copy of my book. The only condition being is that they must be somewhere i can post the book to (i.e. not in the middle of the amazon jungle, the centre of a desert, or somewhere in the Siberian wilderness).

So before i let you share all of your experiences……a little add on to my introduction. In January 2011, i started work at a school as a teaching assistant. The school in question has a different name, looks after a different age of children, has some different buildings, but it is based on the exact same site as the school mentioned in my introduction. Everyday i go in to the school hall, the same one i sat in as a child, and not a week goes by without me gazing down in to that same playground that’s still surrounded by that broken chain link fence. The memories come flooding back time and again, sending shivers up my spine (or if you’ve read my book…..tail), all in a good way and, well, this is the hard bit to define, and some of you will clearly think i’m mad, but there’s a sense of ………….magic, that’s the only word i can think of that describes it. Perhaps it’s fate (not something i’m sure i really believe in) that i find myself in a job i love, in a place that means so much to me. Anyhow, enough from me, over to you…………..