PLENTY of reasons to be cheerful this week with the return of Military 1st Fitness sessions on The Stray in Harrogate.
All official rules were observed with the two instructors taking just five people per session, all of whom were positioned two metres apart.
Which is more than can be said for most people socialising on the Stray on the hottest days of the year.
As sweat poured down my face and I gritted my teeth in the plank position (I said plank), – I had carefully placed my arms on the grass to avoid the discarded nitrous oxide canisters – I gazed out across the grassy expanse of public land that wraps around the spa town like a verdant hug (good God, that was a nice line, I should be a writer).
Like wildebeest gathered at a waterhole, scores of teenagers cavorted in big groups, like it was the last day of term.
The cherry blossom on the trees that criss-cross the Stray may have been and gone, but it was nice to breathe in and get a whiff of that other familiar smell that wafts across Harrogate during the summer months.
Cannabis.
I know you thought I was going to say Werther’s Originals or camphor, but Harrogate has resembled Glastonbury over the last few days.
Well the Glastonbury Festival of yore, not the one now full of middle-aged people in cargo shorts trying to recapture something that they probably never had in the first place.
And just for the record, I’ve never been to ‘Glasto’ and certainly have no desire to go.
And I definitely won’t be listening or watching the BBC’s over-enthusiastic coverage celebrating its 50th anniversary this weekend.
Of course, it is all archive performances and memories, because the real festival has been canned due to the pandemic, but it still means Zoe Ball, who gets excited introducing the traffic news on the Radio 2 Breakfast Show, is likely to self-combust with ardour at the prospect.
Where was I?
Oh, I know, being my usual articulate and entertaining self.
Although you might call it dull, boring and miserable.
Well don’t take a vote on it.
Please yourselves, as Frankie Howerd used to say.
Anyway, back to the Stray in Harrogate.
OK, it’s not Bournemouth beach, or a street party in Brixton, but it has been pretty lively.
With litter bins sealed and toilets closed, you can imagine what people leave behind.
They make the effort to lug disposable barbecues, cases of beer and carrier bags of food into parks and gardens but some just don’t seem to then think that they have a responsibility to take all their rubbish away.
I understand that three months of lockdown has made all of us a bit stir crazy, but that shouldn’t mean that we all lose our heads as soon as the sun comes out.
What is going to happen when pubs and bars can open again next Saturday?
I won’t be joining the tumult to get a pint down the pub.
I’ll be socially distancing in my garden, in a cloud of Cohiba smoke sipping a negroni.
Cheers!
Parky’s video clip of the week
ONE of the booming sectors for film-makers in recent years has been the sports documentary.
Of course, that is not surprising given that sport is theatre and provides incredible stories of tragedy, comedy, passion, success and failure.
There have been standout documentaries about a wide range of sports – horse racing, rugby, boxing, motor racing, climbing, even bodybuilding – and the darker side of sport such as doping.
The Last Dance, about Michael Jordan’s time with the Chicago Bulls, has been a huge hit for Netflix and engaged an audience of not just ardent sports fans, but those of us who knew very little about basketball and the giants who play it and the characters who surround it.
Perhaps surprisingly, even though football is the world’s most popular sport, there aren’t that many really good documentaries about it that have won critical acclaim.
There have been series charting the fortunes of a football team – Manchester City, Sunderland and Leeds United have all been featured in fly-on-the-wall films.
All have won praise but they haven’t managed to successfully cross the divide and engage viewers who aren’t already football fans.
I watched a sports documentary on Sky this week called Next Goal Wins.
It told a story I was unaware of and featured a cast of real-life characters I had never heard of.
But it was utterly compelling.
If I tell you what it is about then you’ll think I’m mad.
Perhaps it is because of my journalistic background that I love a good story.
But not just the story, it is also crucially about the way it is told.
And Next Goal Wins, by British film-makers Mike Brett and Steve Jamison, tells it beautifully.
I won’t tell you the whole story, but it is a British-made documentary about the fortunes of the football team of American Samoa.
Well, fortunes is the wrong word, given that they have been officially ranked as the world’s worst international team by FIFA.
The whipping boys of world football, the team from this tiny island in the Pacific suffered the heaviest defeat ever recorded in an international match when they lost 31-0 to Australia when attempting to qualify for the 2002 World Cup.
In an interview, goalkeeper Nicky Salapu admits he still has nightmares about the match and can’t remember how many goals he let in because he lost count.
The team has got to the point where they just want to score a goal, never mind get a win or even a draw.
In one scene, we go into a team meeting to see a very serious sports psychologist attempting to motivate the players.
He starts to tell them a story about a blind man who is asked how he scaled Mount Everest.
“You all may know somebody who is blind – they can’t see,” he explains helpfully.
“Mount Everest – it’s the biggest mountain in North America,” he adds.
His words clearly motivate the team as American Samoa only concede 26 goals in their next tournament and don’t score any.
All this tees up perfectly the arrival of a new coach.
Dutch-born Thomas Rongen, a blunt, silver-haired veteran who has been around the US soccer scene for the last 40 years.
He wants to change things.
He does that by introducing Jaiyah Saelua as the first transgender player to play in a World Cup qualifying match.
And he also brings Nicky Salapu out of retirement giving him a chance to exorcise the demons that still haunt him from that record defeat to Australia.
Together this varied and incredibly likeable group set off on the road to trying to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
It makes for wonderful TV and I wasn’t surprised to learn that the documentary is now being made into a Hollywood film of the same name starring Michael Fassbender as Rongen as well as Elisabeth Moss and Armie Hammer.
Although they’ll have to go some to match the spirit, humour and feel-good factor of Next Goal Wins.
I READ a story this week about Leeds-based business Roxy Leisure appointing a new chairman who has previously worked in executive roles at bar and pub chains including JD Wetherspoon and Revolution.
Mark McQuater will chair the company, which operates nine sites under the Roxy Ball Room, Roxy Arcade, and Roxy Lanes banners across Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Nottingham, offering pool, ping pong, arcade games, beer pong, bowling, karaoke, shuffleboard and mini-golf.
The new chairman said he was delighted to join the company which he said was “a leading business in the competitive socialising market”.
I have to say I’ve never heard of “competitive socialising” before, but it’s got to be better than social distancing.
And I’ve never played beer pong.
I don’t even know how you would win the game.
But I can imagine it only takes a few pints of Old Speckled Hen to get a result.
Have a great weekend