It has taken me till the age of 39 to realise that I need goals to stay happy. That’s probably unhealthy and wrong and extrinsic and I should try and change it. But I would rather just find another goal and stay happy.

It’s 2005. For the last three years, I’ve been coaching sports in a Primary School in Elephant and Castle, London. Last year, we had discovered SportsHall Athletics. We got our application in late for Area Championships; a competition between 16 Primary Schools in Elephant & Castle, where the winning team progressed onto the Borough Championship, against the best teams in Southwark. I picked eleven of the fastest children from Year 6, (the top year in Primary) and one kid from Year 5; a small boy named Michael who was showing promise…

We have done badly in the field events (10th by my secret calculations) and there is no hiding it. The kids know what is going on. We had practised really hard, we had all improved, but this competition is on a different level, the other teams out-stripped us. I was trying to gee everyone up, keep them positive, but the atmosphere is gloomy, heads are dropping…

Michael and Robbie

They were in Year 3 when I joined, and now they were Year 6. They had grown into the fastest two kids in the school. And they couldn’t have been more different…

I can’t say the new school year started magnificently. It wasn’t like some Hollywood montage, but things did start to turn around. The nightmare Year 6 class had gone, and the staff room was moved, so the teachers no longer had to hear me scream. I learnt things the hard way, and figured out, slowly, how to control the class and give them a fun time. And that those two things were inextricably linked…