06 Aug |
Summer of Sport? |
Why is it always called the summer of sport? Especially now, when sport is almost year-round. Gone are the days when the FA Cup Final in May marked the end of the soccer season. Until it restarted in September as a winter game.
Is it perhaps because the UK’s traditional summer sports were more about socialising than athletic sporting prowess? The Epsom Derby kicked off the summer season on the first Saturday in June. Everyone poured out of London to gather on the Surrey downs, regardless of class, to eat drink and spectate.
Summer sport was clearly spectating and catering. And the catering was probably more important, hence Wimbledon strawberries and Henley Pimms, not tennis and rowing. And the best-known phrase about England’s summer sport- cricket teas!
2024’s Summer of Sport
Arguably this year’s summer of sport began with the Giro D’Italia throughout May. Professional cycling continues through the Tour de France in July and the Vuelta D’Espana in August; finishing with the Tour of Britain in September. June and July had the Euros. August is Paris and the Olympics. The Paralympics follows in August and September. By now we’ve all become armchair experts on the minutiae of the many different sports, that we have never done or barely dabbled in.
Why is it that sports events bring people together? It is a bizarre fact that for over a thousand years the Ancient Greeks would stop fighting and come together every 4 years to compete in their Olympics. There is something about the spectacle of the event and our need to support.
This is probably why today so much is raised from sponsoring individual fundraising connected with sport. It’s also why sports clubs see a flood of new participants, who are motivated to take part after the big events. People know that they will never be the elite, but want to give it a go.
AC Services Sporting Request
Like the professionals in mid-September, AC Services Helen will be attempting her own sporting challenge. Not for her the fastest time or longest distance, nor even in an organised event; but because she wishes to give back. She will be cycling 167 miles from the Brunel Museum in London to Bristol Temple Meads Station along the Great Western Way. This 4-day mixture of roads, canals, and cycle tracks, is just right for the scenic cyclist rather than the speedster.
Like many social sportspeople, her journey started many years ago. After the premature death of her mother through heart problems, Helen took up social cycling to increase her own fitness. The two recent deaths of Rational colleagues prompted her to want to do more by raising money for the British Heart Foundation.
If you can help, please go to her justgiving page
Or to find out more about simple things to do for a healthier heart check out this BHF leaflet.
After all what links elite and individual sport is motivation; doing to the best of your ability; and supporting whatever the season! And September must be the last month of any summer of sport.