Take football for instance. Coaching a professional team isn't just about tactics. Person management, psychology and many other factors come into play and just because somebody can't do something themselves doesn't mean they can't influence the person who can.
Sometimes out of necessity a sportsperson has to be coached by somebody of a lesser standard otherwise world champions wouldn't be able to have a coach.
When I lived in Cromer on the North Norfolk coast back in the 1970s I played tennis three or four times a week. One of my friends was a qualified Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) coach. He taught children and adults how to play the game but I had no trouble beating him.
It doesn't mean that he was a bad coach because he brought fun into what he did which made youngsters want to play. He could communicate his love of the game and he knew how to hit the ball.
It never ceases to amaze me how quickly you can improve somebody when it comes to sport with just a few basic hints and instructions. I always take tennis as an example for that's the game I pride myself that I'm fairly decent at. I first took up a racket at the age of about seven and was playing regularly with mates from then. As the years passed I represented Norwich School both at junior and senior level and was picked for elite Norfolk coaching which took part on Saturday afternoons.
So I like to think that I was properly coached and today know how to hit a tennis ball, how to serve correctly and where to position myself on a court. It's the one game I feel that I'm in control of, although power goes as you get older and you have to resort to subtlety.
I watch others play and cringe because they are doing the basics totally wrong and don't appear to be able to work out why that volley from a yard inside the baseline keeps going into the net and why they keep double faulting with their serve.
"Don't they watch professionals play and work out what they themselves are doing wrong" I want to scream at times. When did you last see a professional tennis player hit a volley somewhere between the service line and baseline? The answer to that is never. In tennis you either play at the net or behind the baseline. This to me is so basic but still I watch as people try to play an exceedingly difficult shot while they could have played an easy one if they had any positional skill.
Of course while this works for me at tennis, it doesn't work for any other sport. I have never improved at table tennis no matter how hard I try. I never got any better at squash and don't mention golf. I have had so many golf lessons over the years and still can't hit the ball properly. I'm sure in all these I must be doing something basic wrong.
But back to my initial question. If you are in the world's top 10 of course you have to have a coach who is not as good as you. But what that coach brings to your table is his enthusiasm, his professionalism and his experience.
So that's why occasionally there might be a person in the football crowd who fancies that he or she could do better than the manager. Who's to say that they aren't right. Most of course would crash and burn if put in charge of a team but there might just be a one off there without any qualifications who could run a successful team.
This all came about thanks to a chap called Liam Manning. Liam is head coach of MK Dons who play football in League One. That's the third tier of English football for those who don't know the game. I had no idea until I looked it up yesterday who Liam Manning was.
We have friends at Milton Keynes so have spent some time there over many years. Also former Norwich player and general good chap Russell Martin was manager there until recently. Russell left to take over at Swansea and I took no notice of who had taken over at MK Dons. I always keep an eye on their results but they have massively underachieved in the past.
This season, however, they started winning. On Tuesday night they won again and are up to second in the table with a very good chance of gaining promotion to the Championship (tier two). This is at the same time as my team Norwich look nailed on to get relegated to the same division. So Norwich could well be playing MK Dons in the league next season.
So I thought to myself why are MK Dons doing so well and who is in charge of them now? Turns out it's Liam Manning whom I had never heard of. So I looked him up and he doesn't have a great pedigree as a player. He actually comes from Norwich and, being 36 years of age, is probably a contemporary of my sons who may well know him.
It looks like Liam spent his entire playing career in non league football, mainly around Norfolk and Suffolk. So technically he shouldn't be good enough to coach professional players at a much higher level than he has played at. But he quite obviously is good enough as is shown by the fact that he seems to have transformed a mediocre side into a winning one.
And that's because being a good coach isn't about being able to play a sport at the highest level. It's about much more.
On a similar subject there was a very interesting interview on Breakfast television yesterday with Sir Bradley Wiggins on the pressures of fame and the affect it had on him. This included his continual search for perfection and how the expectation bar was always being raised.
Now at the age of 42, Sir Brad is a very different person to the cheeky chappy and Mod who won all those cycling gold medals. Bradley said that he felt he always had to conform to the stereotype he had become. People expected him to be loud and cheeky and so that's how he behaved.
It all ended with him retiring from cycling, withdrawing from public life for a time and realising that he was no longer that cheeky chappy. He found in the end that the pressures heaped upon him to always deliver gold, to always be number one, was quite relentless and not sustainable.
On a very low level I can appreciate that. I mentioned before that for a couple of years I was in Norfolk tennis squads and had elite training. We were all told that there was no reason why any of us couldn't eventually play at Wimbledon which was quite obviously a nonsense. I was never anywhere near good enough to play at Wimbledon. The result of this expectation and falsehood, along with all the coaching, meant that playing tennis became mechanical rather than a joy. When I left school I didn't pick up a racket for two or three years until I re-found a love of the game at Cromer as I have already mentioned. There I had no pressure to compete against the best, no stress. I just played for the love of it and still got regularly tonked by my flatmate who was a very good player indeed.
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I thought it about time that I gave you an update on my walking challenge in aid of the East Anglian Air Ambulance. I am 64% towards my target of raising £500 and will be having another big push later in the year around my significant birthday (when I become a teenager at last). I am confident of exceeding the £500 target.
To date I have walked just over 441 up to yesterday. This is an average of over 4.5 miles a day and means that I am on target to complete 1,650 miles which is comfortably in excess of my 1,500 target. I have undertaken a walk every day this year bar one when we had the storms and I just couldn't face going out. I have worn out numerous pairs of socks (really must buy some stronger ones - I have a strange large toe which curves upwards and means that the toes of my socks quickly get holes).
Which reminds me. I have a pair of comfortable old jeans that sadly have been worn and washed so many times that they have developed a hole in the right knee which probably makes them fashionable. Grandson Elliot has a pair of jeans with a large hole at the knee. This is a designer hole showing what a trendy lad he is. I keep telling him that grandma will darn them for him but he just gives me a disdainful look. Perhaps my toe holed socks will become trendy and a fashion statement!
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My tribute piece to Duncan Pigg is on the Eastern Daily Press website at:
https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-village-stalwart-was-choirmaster-cricketer-and-councillor-8807194
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Yesterday was the latest monthly old farts lunch. Only five of us there - some were on holiday, some sick and some probably just got lost.
It was quite a serious time. Richard H talked for at least half an hour on one of his favourite subjects "Brown Linoleum". Apparently, according to Richard, there are trillions of different shades of brown available for linoleum.
A serious debate ensued before we discussed a book that one member has been avidly reading in bed. Its title was "Tractors in the Nile Valley 1946 to 1949 volume one."
It was a difficult subject to discuss as he hasn't seen volume two yet or its companion volume "The relationship between Nile Valley tractors and the Great Pyramid." I think this is a discussion that is likely to continue next time we meet.