Seve Ballesteros at St Andrews 1984

Golf is an odd sport if you don’t play and even odder if you do.

I came from a sporting family, my dad was a talented footballer, he had a trial for Aston Villa back in 1956 and was good at anything that involved a ball and running.

I was never any good at sport when at school, mainly because I had no competitive desire and so when I started to play golf at the age of fifteen I was amazed to find out I was pretty good and so began my obsession with golf.  

To play golf you need a fair amount of controlled physical power and the rest is about playing the course which requires some head skills. I was attracted by the mental challenge that golf presented, a controlled physical burst of energy coupled with course management skills.

I was blessed with a good physic, I was six feet four inches, stick thin with big lungs. If only someone had told me I could run they would never have caught me, sadly no-one pointed out my enormous competitive advantage and so I went largely unnoticed in sport.

All sports have stars that stand out from the rest, in the 1980’s there was no one more charismatic than Seve Ballesteros. When I got to see him play at the Belfry two weeks before the British Open he was out of sorts and playing badly. I still followed him round for 18 holes and had goose bumps watching him play every shot.

Seve’s Open championship victory in 1984 will always be one of sport’s greatest moments. True champions don’t just win, they win in style and that’s exactly what he did at St Andrews when he holed the winning put on the 18 hole.

Seve wasn’t playing in the last group on the final day, he was one hole ahead of defending champion Tom Watson who was going for three wins in a row. The roar which went up when Seve’s ball curled into the cup must have got to Watson who was battling up against the wall on the 17^th Road hole.

Seve Ballesteros wins 1984 Open at St Andrews 

Its 30 years since that dramatic win and it always reminds me of being a dreamy teenager whenever I watch it.

Seve Ballesteros was a class act and my sporting hero. 

Taking religion out of our schools

This week we have seen senior government ministers arguing over allegations of extremism in state schools in Birmingham.

Whatever the differences of opinion between Home secretary Teresa May and Education secretary Michael Gove, it seems to me that the core of the problem is how religious studies are taught in our schools.

When I was a kid growing up in a small Shropshire village in the early 1970’s the choice of religious preferences for education extended to two. You either went to the Church of England school or you went to the Catholic school and no one made much fuss about it and certainly no-one ever bothered to ask what differences there were in the religious education we received.

Much has changed these days, particularly in large city areas where we have many different religions competing for the same time slot in the schools weekly schedule.

So my answer to the problem is simply to take the religious lessons out of the school day.

Rather than the children being taught in school, the lessons would be taught at the local church or religious centre. So for example of Wednesday afternoon at 2.30pm the children would leave the school and make their way to the lesson. After the lesson finishes the children would be picked up by their parents or make their own way home.

Parents would be free to make their own choices about which religion their children were taught.

This seems a very simple answer to what is really a problem of logistics, there are simply not enough hours in the week to satisfy all preferences.

21st Army Group

This week sees the 70^th anniversary of the D day landings.

Operation Overlord the code name for the Normandy Landings commenced on the 6^th June 1944 when nearly 160,000 troops left England and headed for the French coastline.

My grandfather Douglas Roche who is 94 years old and lives in Shropshire was on one of the ships that crossed the channel that day. A few years ago I asked him about his experience and he said to me ‘It was pretty much all over when I got there, blood and bodies everywhere’. He didn’t say too much more about it.

In 2004 he went over for the 60^th anniversary, this time he not up to the trip but I am sure he will be there in spirit.

Here is a photo of my grandad with his army mates, I think he would have been about 23 years old. He is standing 3^rd from the left with hands in his pockets. I am not sure what year this was taken or where it was but he did tell me he was in the Devonshire Regiment.

TAC HQ 21st Army Group with Douglas Roche

If anyone knows anything about the other men in this photo then please get in touch or comment below.