How Michael feels about sport

Write a reflective essay, I said to my class of not-very-academic 16-year-0lds, about something you're interested in. I want to feel your enthusiasm. Your personality should shine through. Try to make the reader see the fascination too. So if you're keen on sport, for instance..... [etc etc]

This is what I got.


How I feel about sport

When I was young, I loved playing football and watching it. My favourite football team was Manchester United. Whenever I watched them play I got really happy. I used to play football with my friends too. I wasn’t that good though.

I was a goalkeeper most times although I’ve been a defender, midfielder and striker. I was really rubbish as a midfielder. I let in goals when I was a goalkeeper. I really wanted to improve my goalkeeping because people got angry if I let a goal in. I did improve but I was still not good.

I hated midfielding because I didn’t have any skills and I wasn’t a fast runner. The ball always got taken off me. I wanted to improve my midfielding as well but couldn’t because I was just rubbish at it. I actually couldn’t stand being a midfielder.

Being a striker was a bit easier. I scored some goals. Defending was fine for me as well. I did really good defending. It was just that sometimes I didn’t do good defending if I had to play against really good footballers. I hated that but still tried and tried.

Whenever I got tired, I didn’t really make an effort, though. If I did, it wasn’t much of an effort. I would just stand back as a defender or a goalkeeper. I got really tired running. Sometimes I did work really hard to play good football but I was probably the worst in my team.

I’ve stopped playing because I can’t be bothered any more. I didn’t play for three months and then I played for a week and then that was it. I haven’t played since then. It’s now been nine months since I played. I don’t want to play it any more because I was simply rubbish and I can’t play football anyway. I hate it now. I just like watching it on tv but I don’t watch it that much now anyway because I get bored. Cricket is much better than football, watching it and playing it, because I’m better at it.

I hate playing tennis and volleyball because I’m rubbish at them. I quite like basketball. It’s an all right sport to play. I hated hockey really really much. I couldn’t play hockey at all. I was really bad at it. I only played hockey three times in my life. I never played after that because I couldn’t play it. I never played tennis because I didn’t want to play it. I just didn’t like table tennis. I thought it was boring. Snooker was fine but I was really bad at it. And I was scared playing rugby.

Yup, makes you want to get out there and play, doesn't it?

(Mind you, that's how I feel about most sports too.)

No, no! Not for cats!