James Ballantyne

Tag: football

  • Healing through Hobbies and Interests

    ‘Tell us about any Hobbies and Interests that you have’

    This used to be one of the common questions in job interviews, the kind of thing to add in the later section of the ‘Record of Achievement’ burgundy coloured leather folder from school , but as I was out yesterday, walking, bird watching, enjoying nature, I was thinking about how this has become a ‘hobby’ and ‘interest’ and how long I might do this for.

    Why might I be thinking like this?

    I guess I started to reflect on the amount of hobbies and Interests I have had in my life – and my relationship with them.

    I sometimes think that I have gone from one hobby or interest to another quite alot in my life, and then i wonder whether thats the same for others, do other men just have one or two hobbies, and then stick with them for their whole lives?

    Some hobbies I have needed to have because they helped me to exercise and stay healthy – they also kept me out of traumatic houses for a long period of time – So – Road Cycling – which I thought I would do forever, until I met English roads, which hold no joy after cycling in Scotland for the first 4 years.. but I still have a bike – ridden once in the last year… part of this too was pushing myself, climbing hills, longer distances, physical exertion, faster, longer rides, recording them on map my ride, then strava…

    Gardening and growing food – Yay! the hobby that I though I would do for a very long time that cost alot of money…..the joy of homegrown carrots, chillies, herbs, potatoes, onions, radish, onions etc, and the despair of picking off late night slugs….but then I ended up not being in that house any more, after spending money on raised beds and equipment… but also that was another hobby that provided therapy and purpose in the midst of an awful relationship.

    What else have I done?

    Football matches? yes – and Ive supported one team since I was 8 or 9, but though I have been to a few matches, the thrill of the live game is often emotionally counteracted by some of the fear I feel with large crowds and alcohol, especially if I have to also protect my son when we used to go together. It can feel like thousands of people taking out their anger on 11 other people. Enjoyable in winning times, but not always.

    Food and Breadmaking – This is partly because I had to, do the cooking, but also I blame GBBO for this, I started bread making as Paul Hollywood and GBBO began to get more well known. I got obsessed for a few years…. I have enjoyed cooking, and I do think making food is an act of love and im glad I still enjoy cooking food in my current situation – but it was something devalued and belittled/not appreciated during previous traumatic relationships. So, bread making a hobby, cooking an essential that I enjoy for its creativity.

    Playing Tennis, Running (until I get injured), DIY (essential in buying cheap homes to do up) , Reading, Writing (like this) , Trains have been less of a hobby now, than as a child, then there were the 4 video game years, in which I spent far too long playing Xbox – mostly Fifa 07 or motor racing games. Then theres Social media, twitter, facebook – is that a hobby or something more all consuming?

    What about you?

    Do you have 1 or 2 set hobbies that you stick to, or seems to flit around doing lots of different things?

    I wonder also, how much trauma and things like ADHD have an effect/impact on this. I can certainly tell when I ‘needed’ hobbies and interests from an emotional/mental health point of view – but probably didn’t realise this at the time, or want to admit it, also I can trace some of the changes of these things as times when I was criticised by emotionally abusive people for doing them, often they didn’t like the ‘mess’, ‘the cost’ ‘the time’ that these things took, and generally making me feel bad for doing them, or having to fight to even do them, despite their criticism.

    What about Hobbies and you? Do you have them? Have you just one or two? and what is that you get out of them… someone once said to me, in terms of the things that you choose to do, do things that worship you, or that you get back. Some hobbies give back more than others, I think of how I feel when I reach a milestone cycling and how this compares to the magical moments of nature, or the satisfaction of creating something… some create environments where it becomes difficult to leave them, like football, some are more essential, some are to ‘keep busy’, and not stopping. I wonder also how many of our hobbies and interests are to take us away from the difficult things, and have our mind consumed by something else, which is absolutely fine, but again – what might it be that we’re avoiding?

    Often, the people that criticise you for having hobbies, are also the people who dont have them. Part of the criticism is that they’re jealous that you might be happy, or enjoying yourself without them. Part of it too is that they cannot reveal being happy. People make themselves very elusive without hobbies and interests, and impossible to please. And don’t get me started on the people who’s hobby is shopping… (I have a 23 part series on that person, see above) .

    Part of this blog is thinking about loud, about Hobbies and interests in our life. Things change as we get older, of course they do, they change because of circumstance, cost and time – Birdwatching and nature emerged for me during the first lockdown – yet it was something that has childhood memories too, or my grandparents. Its a hobby and interest that has therapeutic qualities, as Joe Harkness explores in his book, bird therapy, about watching, about focussing on the present, about being connected to nature, but other hobbies do that too, dont they, like running, cycling etc

    So, what about Hobbies for you? How have they helped? How might they heal? How have they changed?

    Why do you do them? What do you get out of them? How have they been contentious in relationships?

    How long will I enjoy the slow walks, birdwatching, photography and nature? Who knows…

  • On Gareth and the Hug we all need

    On Gareth and the Hug we all need

    I feel like there needs to be a broader conversation about men and processing emotions in day to day life, after incidents of violence and racism, and not just during special events like #mentalhealth awareness weeks. If football/alcohol cause the emotions to explode..

    Then those emotions are lying dormant, waiting to come out. Yet, those emotions are themselves from other things, and the bottle/cork that contains them is kept tight, then its waiting to happen…and its a big release when it does

    Its easier in the media to keep the blame game up and project anger continually , on the players that missed, the people who raged afterwards, the racists, so there maintains a cycle of perpetual anger, and yet also a realising that sport means so much…why?

    So I ask, whats the cork, or bottle made of? what it the pain or trauma thats keeping the emotions under wrap (until alcohol loosens the cork) Someone to blame is one thing, it projects from inside that we made not more than it was, we ‘needed’ England to win…

    and that need reveals. When Southgate held Sako, what, as a man did you feel? Grief, Hurt, Envy? Southgate held Sako in a way many of us as men have rarely encountered. Being heard, valued and seen as emotional beings, who are real.

    Gave him a cuddle’ was the way in which the commentator said it… what about held, felt, grieved, allowed emotions to happen, made it safe to do so, even on a public stage.

    Southgate showed an emotional maturity, empathy and warmth, that as a man, and a man in a leadership role, and on the public stage, is utterly incredible and inspiring. Yes its leadership, but its also character. It may be projecting but what Men might need more, is not …

    the victory of the sport, but to be held, heard and validated, in the midst of their disappopintment, expectations and especially on the public sphere. Southgate showed how it is done.

    Where might we turn to, as men, to process emotions more healthily? If we know Sport is the ‘release’ then maybe its time to look inside the bottle at whats fizzing around, to deal with it.

    There are some links and resources on this website: as well as articles on trauma and emotions.. one of the first things though is to start to get close to the things that have caused the pain, to find safe place, to slow down. All easy to say ..

    Because:

    I couldn’t run away and pretend to survive forever. I though I was ok, but really wasn’t. I needed football, so I get it, I really do

    I needed football, I admit it, in my previous blog here

    I thought therapy was for weak people

    I thought I didnt need it

    I didnt want to face the monsters

    I didnt think ‘my childhood’ was the problem

    I hid emotions in the bottle, closed them off completely.

    And in work I did exactly the same. Expectations of being responsible and leading, were aspects of the cork in the bottle.

    We won’t find love, and healing in the space of the media. We’ll find pointers of it in places like @matthaig1 and others. Men (though its not just men) we have waking up to wake up to the cuddles we actually need, before taking out more destruction on others.

    All I can say is, Gareth Southgate, thank you for showing that this is possible. Thank you for holding Sako, and in doing so holding all of us.

    Not just because of a pandemic, but because we are all human and it is what we all need.

  • Why I’m enjoying Euro 2020: Its because I don’t need it

    Why I’m enjoying Euro 2020: Its because I don’t need it

    I realised something the other day, Im quite enjoying the football at Euro 2020 (in 2021, but you know, Covid etc) , and its not just having the crowds back in, or just from yesterdays two thrilling games of 14 goals with France, Switzerland , Spain and Croatia. But its something else. I cant even watch much of it, with no TV or license, and im not listening to Radio 5 either.

    I realised that I’m not needing the football this year.

    There have been two fairly constant aspect of my life since I was a young teenager, Faith has been one of them, and football has been another. (Some would argue that food has too, but maybe thats for another story)

    I needed football. Football took me on emotional roller coasters

    It shaped my yearly calendar, the end of the season was also summer, then a tournament.

    It gave me an outlet.

    It also gave me a space to hide away.

    I could literally shut out everything and everyone else to focus on football.

    I still can.

    But it gave me an escape.

    I needed it for its drama, and I needed the journey of a summer tournament of the existential hope of an England tournament victory to keep me going.

    So when they got knocked out, usually by penalties, usually by Germany, it wasnt just the end of hope. It was the return, for a few months of real life. I needed football. Its role in my life was 90 minutes each evening on my teenage bed listening to Radio 5, the soothing noise of people commentating.

    It was painful when England lost, when my team (Man Utd lost), because something in me needed them to be a source of joy, of hope, of belief.

    I needed it as a distraction, a drug, a hope, to be a fan, and yet ive tried to give it up in the past, but sometimes it was a safe place, a distraction. Time away from somewhere unsafe and toxic and Radio 5 in the earphones walking the dog, or driving the car. The filling of my head of a different noise to drown out the pain.

    What I discovered, through a breakdown, a complete life rebuild from scratch and in the recovering and understanding of trauma was that I could just have carried on on that cycle of adding further activity to the mind and life, and not deal with the actual need. What I needed was less of the other, and more attention to me. I can enjoy football more, now, because I dont need it.

    As I said in my first piece on this blog, I get the obsession, I get the need. I get the use of football for men to talk about which is safe. And I know there are some good people in football who are talking about football and mental health, depression and dealing with significant life problems, like Mark Goldbridge for one, and on his United Stand there are always many people who thank him for talking about Mental Health, and being real about emotions.

    I still like football. But if you feel like you need it, as an escape, a distraction from things in your life that you aren’t choosing to deal with, then, even after basking in an England win over Germany this evening, maybe listen to that voice, that inner voice inside that gnawing away at you, as it gnawed away at me. If its masking a pain, then maybe its time to say out loud what that pain is, acknowledge it, whether its abuse, neglect, shame, guilt, drink or drug problems, maybe its time to stop and listen, and begin life, that includes football, and includes a you that is healthier. Football isnt a therapist, unlike a therapist, or a dog might be.