Was/is anyone good at team sports?

I had no interest whatsoever in teamsports as a kid.. and I still find the whole thing more than a little bit tedious..

I went to support the local football team for a couple of seasons but that was much more about the singing than the sport..

All that said.. me and my mates always did very well in team bong smoking competitions..

I used to play quite a bit of cricket and play a lot of Ultimate Frisbee now (yes it is a sport and it requires a lot of fitness too, at least outdoors does anyway). Then again I never ride solo and enjoy the company of others so I guess I enjoy the social side of team sports as well as the sport itself.

Just to prove that it is a sport that involves running around:

I still play in a sports team every week.

If you count my local pubs Darts team that is…….

Proper knackering it is, lots of walking from the Oche to the board and back, not to mention all the trips to the bar.

It’s not easy keeping up with this high level of physical exertion at my age now but i struggle onwards for the team…..

I’ve only ever played team sports at school as far as I can remember. I’m young enough that we were playing the boring versions of all the sports, so whilst I’d probably have been OK at proper rugby, I was shocking at tig 😆

My fave was rugby, but the ‘social’ side of it was basically what put me off…

was a pro waterpolo player in my early to mid 20s. Was a monumentally crap lifestyle of hard training in near poverty with the ‘payoff’ being potential olympic participation. Which i missed out on unfortunately!

I miss it though, i enjoy individual competitive sports too (and got to a decent level in swimming) but it is just not the same sort of feeling you get when being part of a team. If i won something as an individual i often felt a bit embarrassed (i dont know why!) but winning with a team you just wanted to go and celebrate with your mates and i didnt feel self conscious about it like i did on my own.

Hated them all since (possibly because of?) school.

Recently discovered rugby and am wondering why no-one introduced me to this game before…

The team sports I liked at school were basketball, cricket and rugby, but disliked football as I could not get the hang of kicking the ball at all. Despite hours of practice at home, it would not go where I wanted it to go.

I was poor at catching cricket balls but OK at bowling and could hook-up a ball with the bat but not much control where it ended up!

In basketball I was relegated to score-keeper. I was only any good at rugger when playing other dweebs who were even more timid than me.

In truth I’m un-athletic, mentally slow and un-coordinated and fairly poor at all sports, including cycling!

It’s kinda why I have a problem with the complete focus on “winner” mentality of modern sports. It completely discourages healthy activity in a majority of people who can never be a winners. And so we are a nation of fatties that watches sport rather than does it.

More relevant to the subject, I find I try much harder with team sports because I have an obligation to my team to do as well as I can. On my own I can slack and persuade myself to be ok with it (or should that be ? )

totally agree with this

It’s kinda why I have a problem with the complete focus on “winner” mentality of modern sports.

Dunno what you are talking about. Every workplace I’ve been in has loads of people playing footie/cricket/squash etc etc at lunchtimes for the sheer hell of it, knowing full well they are not going to beat anyone except possibly their opposition on the day.

Lots of enjoyment being had all round.

Never really did sports as a kid, our school rugby team were awesome and I was the little weedy kid (I grew up in wigan so we didn’t have a football team at school). Got to uni and picked up volleyball and ultimate frisbee (as above). Was never much cop at ultimate, although I did help found Bad Habits for anyone involved – where did you play, Chvckd? Much more succesful at volleyball despite being a relative shortarse at 5’9″, played National league (only div 3 admittedly) for a few years, played London Div 1 (won the league one year!) when I lived in That London (slightly higher standard than NVL Div3 as there are lots of foreigners in Lonon who play local leagure only). Don’t play ultimate anymore ue to time constraints but still go to volleyball training in That Manchester, bot bothering with playing the league though – just training for fitness and suppleness and having a laugh with the rest of the team

I wasn’t bad at cricket and football. Played for the county at football when I was younger (up to 13 or 14 I think), and played at University including captaining the side in my final year. It was football that got me into this actually – I used to run a fair bit too and then one day some thug centre forward left a foot in on me and wrecked my knee. After that I found I couldn’t run any distance any more and the physio suggested a bike instead – the rest, etc….. has cost me a bloody fortune.

I must be the only bloke I know who has never scored a goal in football.

No that’s me too. In competitive games I’ve only ever played in goal or wanted to play in goal. I took two penalties in my career, one went miles over and the other hit the bar. I did once on a wet and windy day clear the other goalie with a drop kick that would have gone in, but our greedy striker ran on and made sure for me. Bastard.

At cricket I was OK, prob not the same level although as a wicketkeeper I was told by a county coach that at club level at least I had great hand technique (! – at catching obviously) but my reflexes and footwork weren’t to the same level. I’ve played against and with a few pro’s and ex-pro’s over the years, probably favourite moment was hitting ex-England quickie Ed Giddins for four at the county ground at Tunbridge Wells 2nd ball of the game (in defence it was the day after he retired from the first class game through long term injury, he was very hungover, not warmed up, and cleaned me up 3 overs later with one I never saw)

Personally I loved team sports and will always remember those days fondly. Actually the very best moment of team sport for me illustrates the team before self ethic. It was the day we secured the league title in the TV Cricket Lge, our skipper and best player all season was 95n.o with two balls to go and I told him wherever he hit it I was running two for him. I was run out attempting a suicidal second but it got him back on strike on 96, with a ball to go which he duly hit for 4 to get his hundred and I was never more pleased.

The only sport I was fairly good at was the ladies table football, I know there are only 2 of us in a team, but we managed to thrash most opponents. That is until the Yanks came over, then we were truely beaten and walked all over. Blimey they were loud too.
Good times.

I’ve never been overly fond of team sports. I was moderately good at rugby because I was heavy and fast which meant I was difficult to take down, but mostly I don’t like them because I have to rely on some other buggers. 😕

Looking back, its been Badminton, Martial Arts, Gym/Circuit training, Mtb’ing and hill walking.

I like my own company too much sometimes. 😳

sport at school consisted of football, cricket, rugby and any other fast-moving-ball sports, which as a glasses wearer who was ordered to remove glasses for PE was a bit pointless.

everyone used to attempt to take the piss and I used to point out the above, and that if they were doing other sports the performance would be different.

They never believed me, until at the age of 15 we had a school trip to calshot. we went on the track there and I completely kicked their arses in the timed 1 lap sprints and the 5 lap pursuits.

If you count cross-country running as a team sport, then yes 🙂

We need some kind of team mtb event then, clearly. Other than 24hr enduro style!

I recently discovered that I really don’t like playing team sports. I’ve been playing rugby for a few years now but realised that I didn’t actually care whether we won or lost but was really happy if I put in some big tackles or had some good solo runs. Still love watching it though.

These days I just go mountain biking, rock climbing, and snowboarding where I only have to push myself when I feel like it rather than when the team is only three points down in the last 5 minutes.

In school I played a lot of football but that was because I didn’t realise there were any other sports. As soon as I discovered karate I lost all interest in football.

Football = very average
Rugby = abysmal (being from Wales, being crap at Rugby is considered some sort of retardedness)

Cricket = Yes, I was good at Cricket at school level, could open the batting at 11am and still be there at 3pm chucking out time 🙂 Still like a game now