Ewood Park

Attending a conference today that was also a trip down memory lane....

Nearly four decades ago I played what was effectively my last ever competitive football (soccer) match here, scoring the second goal as Lancashire beat South Yorkshire 4-0 in the Northern Counties Youth Cup. A couple of months later a drunk driver knocked me off my bike, broke my leg and football disappeared.
But.
I would never have made the grade as a professional, whilst fast and skilled I was too small and, truth be told, football was really an ends to a means - a way to be absent from home, to have a social status at school, to not have to play cricket. It never enthralled me, I'd never have put the effort required in, it didn't light a fire in the way of what came next.


Because in the aftermath of that accident, and my subsequent recovery, friends took me on a trip that introduced me to rock climbing and life was changed forever. I'd never liked anything as much as I liked climbing from that first weekend away - I excelled, I understood it, it felt like it understood me. Climbing was the physical manifestation of surviving an abusive childhood, it gave a purpose to those difficult years learning to fly, learning to survive inside the hope of what was to come. The resilience to go and go again, the empowerment of consequence and choice finally in my own control, the progression from here to there, the conquering of so much more than altitude.
Things happen for a reason.

The conference was interesting but not really for us, though I've probably picked up a speaking engagement from it. Add in a free lunch and a wander through the lands of rememberance and it was a thoroughly pleasant day.