Lockdown Diaries: Catching up on some sports legends

The past five weeks has forced us to find novel ways of combating the frustrations of confinement.

Barring the odd soujourn perhaps to the supermarket or pharmacy to stock up on essentials, we have been housebound due to the ravages of an invisible enemy with the same name as a well-known Mexican beer brand.

I am fortunate to work from home but that too, has its challenges as four adults – myself, my wife and two grown boys – compete for space and bandwidth in a rearranged living room.

How one spends down time is probably just as important as time spent meeting publishing deadlines.

I have never been one to enjoy puzzles, board games and crosswords, my mobile phone has always been a business tool to me, and there is a limit to how long one can binge-watch movies, series or the surfeit of sports reruns.

Call me dippy in this age of instant gratification, but I went on a massive reading bender. I turned to my “Sports Lockdown Library”.

From the story of a Springbok coach hung out to dry by his employers and politicians and ripped to shreds by the media, the fascinating life story of an Australian spin bowling wizard, the trials and tribulations of a Proteas cricket coach, to the life and times of our country’s most famous boxing referee, among others, I have stolen every moment possible to read.

Over the years as a sports journalist, I had accumulated a huge amount of great sporting titles along with memorabilia, magazines and other archival material.

So, I rounded up some titles which I had never had a chance to read.

Since my new-found lockdown reading binge, I have been mentally calculating pages read. I have now read 2 750 pages in four weeks, mostly autobiographies.

The bulk of my choices were rugby-related, more specifically, South African rugby.

A recurring theme just kept cropping up in everyone’s unique story. As author and respected rugby scribe Gavin Rich put it: “Politicians who didn’t ever understand sport, couldn’t see the bigger picture and remained full of demands, but no solutions.”

So, please excuse me while I retire to my recliner to read another few chapters of the latest book – The Poisoned Chalice – The rise and fall of the post-isolation Springbok coaches.

Stay safe!

Trevor Cramer.

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