How do pole-vaulters do it the first time? Do they have the pole glued to their hands before being shot out of a small cannon to give them a taste of the glamorous new life that awaits them?
We all know that when you take a Ferrari formula one car past 300kph, the galaxy splinters into a zillion little streaks that smear back over your window while Chewbacca in the co-pilot seat makes irate seal noises. But how does one do that the first time? Who takes you by the hand and teaches you to do the
impossible?
The answer to this question, as to so many others, is sports clinics. We’ve all seen them on dusty fields, a scene straight out of Lord of the Flies. So many children, so few straitjackets. Observe one of these apocalyptic marshalling yards and one will understand that “clinic” is an apt description: the dearth of equipment and motivated staff are the sporting equivalent of a caravan in the bundu stocked with one rusty hypodermic needle and role of duct-tape. No one actually dies, but no one is cured.
It seems that once one has been stabilised at the clinic, one is ready to go to sports hospital. These are huge buildings where visitors pay ridiculous amounts to gain entrance and then bleed on the floor, like the FNB Stadium after a vibrant crowd has been too vibrant. And of course there are sports hospices too, where has-been players go to end it all. Sometimes at night, if you listen very carefully, you can hear the iron-lung machines inside Ellis Park.
Allegedly there is method to the madness of sports clinics. As the Sports Ministry handbook says, “Wherever two or more of you are gathered in my name, hitting Slazballs through minibus windows, there you shall find development.” For, you see, development is that silver bullet that will see us wiping out the Aussies at cricket and rugby, wiping out the Yanks at track and field, wiping out the Finns at long-distance ski-trekking and glacier-hurdling. And as the handbook says, if development is with us, who can be against us?
One of the perks of development in the new South Africa is that all children, irrespective of colour or creed, can now spend their free time stubbing their toes on half-bricks in the veld while they shuttle between orange plastic cones. Of course, if any of them plan to play Test cricket in India one day, they must be entirely familiar with half-bricks, stun grenades, Molotov cocktails and small burning motorcycles, all of which generally cascade over the fence and onto deep fine leg at Eden Gardens. But it seems that the rest of the children, dodging their cones, learn more about stoicism and heat stroke than sport.
When you get right down to it, ignoring the hoopla about equality and camaraderie, development is deeply discriminatory in this country. When was the last time you saw a bus full of young development quail shooters heading off with a Venter trailer full of hounds and elderly Scottish beaters? And fly-fishing: why are the banks of our major rivers not packed with thousands of tiny children in rubber pants sponsored by Doom?
The biggest travesty of development is fox-hunting, a sport so badly neglected by the Sports Ministry that it is not even practised in this country. Excuses are made by ministry spokespeople: the foxes have all been stolen, they were stinky anyway, you can’t hit one with an AK once it’s more than 20 yards away, etcetera. South Africa’s handful of dedicated fox-hunters has been patient for years, making do with saddling up their bicycles and tearing off across the Karoo after dassies, but their patience cannot last forever, and when they snap don’t be surprised if we see a dramatic increase in corgi kidnappings.
Perhaps it’s time to view development more holistically, to embrace more than just herds of children. Take, for instance, street racers. These are experts in their sport, men who have dedicated their lives to turning Ford Cortinas into manned missiles and who possess the ancient lore of how to do a proper doughnut without bursting their Bridgestones. That takes time and dedication, and yet the development programme has ignored them.
This is a real pity, as I firmly believe that with a lot of love and effort they could be trained to speak and walk upright, perhaps even to read large-print books with lots of pictures. I have a dream—