Out of your sporting depth

[Tin basher]

Ever entered a competition only to find that it places you way out of your sporting depth, were you find the opposition are operating at an ability level you never even in your wildest dreams have attained?

This weekend in Prestatyn was the Welsh darts open. It's run by the BDO, the ones on the BBC in January not the PDC Phil Taylor, Van Gerwin Sky Sports etc. So it's a lower standard than the guys you see regularly on telly but still full of home international players, county players, overseas teams from Holland, Belgium and Denmark. 8 of us entered of which 6 play county Div 3 level. For me and my mate the doubles started at 18.00 Friday, despite a bye in the first round interest had ended by 18.30 we had made it to the last 256 pairs. Men's singles started at 09.00 Sunday by 10.30 it was all over. In the footy champions league you get the so called round of 16, I was eliminated in the men's singles at the round of 1024 stage. Out of my depth by such a very large margin.

 

[vim_fuego]

Falklands squash championship...drew the RAFG champ in round one and didn't take a point off him...the tw@t.

 

[commsordeath]

Got called up to the rugby first team whilst at Brize, played against Stow on the Wold, on the wing against former GB 400m sprinter Derek Redmond. F*** me he was quick, managed to catch him a couple of times and smashed him into touch, but my moment of glory - intercepted a pass from scrum half to him (which the Ref said I was offside, never !!). In my head I would of made the 30m run in, chances are I would of made not even half of that

 

[propersplitbrainme]

Qualified for the Forres Academy school cross country team and ended up at the county championships, only to find we were up against Gordonstoun's finest who towered over us like giants.
Utterly humiliated, they'd sped up the first 30 degree slope after the start and were off into the distance before we got to the bottom. They were changed and at the finish line offering patronising words of encouragement as we staggered over seemingly hours later.

 

[Witty_Banter]

Got talked into entering a 'just for fun' contest by the senior instructor at my Karate club. As a lowly purple-belt I would only be paired with other purple-belts, he said. Is all just a bit of fun, he said.

Made it 2 rounds in, only to be paired off with another guy who was a bit older than me, and good size bigger / fitter. Turned out he was also the local Tae-Kwon-Do instructor, a 3rd Dan black belt, who was doing a bit of cross-discipline training to 'broaden his horizons'...


Needless to say I had my a$$ handed to me within the first 20 seconds.

 

[Joe_90]

Volunteered to join the school athletics team and take part in the high jump. We'd been doing scissor kicks over the bar and as one of the taller guys in the class I was clearing a decent height. Turned up to the regional competition to discover every other high jumper had been taught the Fosberry flop (how the professionals do it). I think my teacher actually had a word to have them lower the bar for my first jump so I cleared at least one. I remember my best being almost a full metre worse than the next guy to be knocked out.

 

[sufferin succotash]

Athletics

Athletics

Was at Oakhangar years ago and me and a couple of mates off shift got roped in to 'helping out' the athletics team at the RAF indoor Champs at the NIA in Birmingham.

We were basically there to fill in the events the team had no entrants in 'even if you come last you will get us a point towards the team score' scenario. My mate NM volunteered to do the shot putt. He goes off to have a warm up (runninmg round the track for some reason?) and the rest of us were watching the RAF Champion and UK No.1 shot-putter Mark Proctor warming up. Indoor shot-putt has soft mats out to gauge where the shot has landed and they had had to remove some of the closest mats to the starting point as the impressive Proctor was firing these things over the end of where they had the mats previously. The competition starts and they announce each contestant, cue cheering from our lot when NM gets up. Unfortunately as they had had to remove some of the nearest mats to compensate for Proctors immense chucking ability the mats that would have been ready to take NM's attempt were not there anymore. NM took his stance power forward and released the shot as far as he could to be met with a loud crash as the shot bounced off the wooden flooring and roll gently to rest against the first mat. For the rest of the competition some poor bloke had to keep moving mats in between contestants. Our guy's mats were about 2 metres from the start!

 

[Barch]

Leeming 77 or 78 we applied on behalf of one of the Linies to enter the RAF boxing championship even though he had never boxed before.

IIRC he came 2nd in the heavy weights. We never took the p!55 out of his accent ever again.