Reflections

Anyone who knows me well also knows how competitive I am. I can't let my children win at football easily (they have to work very hard, I have to suppress my natural instincts - pathetic really) and I doubt there has ever been a curling game that I have been relaxed about not winning. Just the way I am. So losing a game for the Championship, losing the chance to go to Champery, Switzerland for the European Championships cuts deep. It is the same for Jamie, skip of our team - chips off the same block. Michael and Henry will also be hurting right now - probably equally. We have played hard, we have trained hard - for goodness sake, I gave up beer - there is no doubting our commitment but there is also no disputing we came up short against another very good team.

It is tempting at moments like this to focus on what went wrong and there are rights and wrongs in that. Absoultely wrong if it personalises it - play as a team, win or lose has to be the right maxim in a team sport. And I am proud to have been part of my team and WE lost, not any individual. At the same time you need to try and hold on to what went wrong - even if it is as simple as not playing all the shots we were called to play - so we can work on it in the future. Without that there is no improvement.

The rest of the team are in the jacuzzi back at the hotel. I am at the airport listening to a baleful Neil Young at the Starbucks hoping I can get back on an earlier flight so as to see more of the family. We will all need time to reflect on whether we are together as a team for the future with all the training and playing commitment that involves. For me, at my advanced age, the doors of the last chance saloon are swinging (until I reach seniors age at least) and for all of us balancing career and family against the fitness training, the weekends away and all the other bits and pieces that being serious at a sport (even a seriously minority sport like curling in England) involve is a tough and often unpopular choice.

And the standard in England is now high. I don't think a team without dedication can achieve the standard required. This is as it should be in an enjoyable Olympic sport where most of the other teams in Europe enjoy financial support from the state. The shame is that curling is not more widespread in England and there are not more facilities. Fentons Rink in Kent is excellent and is the source of much new curling blood (thankfully not literally!) of English heritage and shortly Sheffield should be up and running. There are outposts in the North of England playing over the border in Scotland but this remains a very minority sport. If you are reading this and don't play - watch it in the Olympics in a couple of weeks. GB has very good medal chances male and female. Then come to Kent or Sheffield or Scotland and give it a try. Try curling: it is fun.

Thanks to James Hustler for his sensible, pragmatic but accurate umpiring through-out the competition. Even more minority than English curling players are English curling umpires. James offers a model of dedication to the sport - not easy standing watching games for 3 hours in a cold ice rink. James, thank you.

Enough. Next weekend is the Rusty Nail International a competition based on the ethos of heavy but social drinking rather than ambition - I will be there to win it on and off the ice. Watch this space...