I’ve always been a bit of a late bloomer when it comes to sport.  Case in point; I took up rugby at the age of 33.  

That’s not entirely accurate; I did play at primary school, but saying I played is probably taking things a bit far.  

Rugby for me at primary school involved handing over my marmite-jar thick glasses to the coach and then running around on a paddock while blurry blobs fuzzed around, and occasionally, into me.

I think many of the guys I played rugby with later in life would say that the advent of contact lenses did little to develop my game, and that age and inexperience didn’t help.  

I recall the first team announcement when I was put at lock and a few murmurings of surprise (given I’m 5’10”).  The coach addressed this by saying “look, he’s too small for the front row, too slow to be a loosie and too stupid to be a back”.  

No-one disagreed, including me.  But, unlike when I was at primary school, I absolutely loved being part of the rugby team, and on the odd occasion even getting to play.  

I have always found pursuing fitness without an end-purpose harder than when it has a sport associated with it, and training for rugby was awesome for that.  

I also made great friends and created great memories, although the great memories were almost exclusively off the paddock.  

I was rubbish at the game itself to be fair, but very devoted rubbish for the 5 years I played.  And the best bit of playing rugby was that it led me indirectly to meeting my wife Linda.

Speaking of which, she and I took up boxing together in our mid-40’s.  

Again, most would think this was a bit late in the piece, but we both absolutely loved the challenge, the physicality and the motivation that knowing a lazy week would result in a very sore Tuesday and Thursday night brought.

So; we now get close to the point of the story, and that’s that we have found a new passion, and that passion is squash.  

We both played a bit when we were a lot younger, but a chance event led us to having a hit together and we immediately found that we were well matched (meaning we are both equally hopeless) and that we really enjoyed playing together.  

We have found the Alex Club to have been incredibly easy to join and very helpful to new players.  For instance, there are racquets there to borrow rather than forking out for a new one.  

Here’s a random question; why the hell are squash racquets so expensive?!?

Anyway, we are loving it, and finally, here I am at the point of the story.  Do something new, or do something you haven’t done for ages, but have a think about doing something you are not doing now, because the benefits are just massive.  Even if I do have folks at work asking me on Monday’s why I am limping so badly.