This Sporting Life...



I've been away for 10 days...to Croydon. Not a holiday, you understand, but work. Thankfully, I didn't see a lot of Croydon but, from what I did see, the detenation of a thermo-nuclear device in the town centre could only improve it.

My employer was hosting an international event at a near-by world famous sporting venue and I was up there for 10 days in a hotel, all meals paid for, and in return I worked 14 hour days dealing with grumpy athletes. Simples...

Let me stress that the area around this sporting venue (and Croydon in general) is rough and the fun started the night before I arrived when the local yoofs set fire to the bedding and feed we'd got in for the horses. The fire brigade arrived within 6 minutes, but found that every fire hydrant on the site had been decommissioned and they had to run hoses from the road a quarter of a mile away. Took the them over an hour to put it out 'cos straw/hay bales can still be burning inside and they had to keep checking it with thermo-camera-thingies. The little gits stood in the tree line watching the fun. Luckily, no horses or staff had arrived at that point, so it was just an expensive lesson learned and we had 4 days to get better security, improve the fencing and buy in more hay. But the little buggers did try it again later in the week.

This fire hydrant SNAFU was ironic considering the attitude of the local council's health and safety nazis. They had insisted on a total road closure around the venue during the final two days of the competition, with cars escorted at walking pace by a man with a flag. Er...'hello', this is 2009 not 1889. You couldn't make it up, could you? They did eventually ditch the flag idea, but the man walking with the car remained. I must stress that the staff at the centre couldn't have been more helpful or nice, they really did go out of their way for us. But the local council of an extremely deprived area should, I thought, be doing more to bring in events rather than doing their best to put people off. But what do I know...

As I say, nice area, Croydon. There was a stabbing across from my hotel on the second day I was there. I looked out of my bedroom window to see 4 squad cars, a paramedic and an ambulance. Two of the police cars soon went, followed by the paramedic and (empty) ambulance, to be replaced by the scenes of crime lady with her camera and sample-taking box. Very exciting, very 'Taggart'...

My initial job was to meet the athletes and coaches as they arrived and deal with their accommodation and other accreditation formalities. Whilst all the countries were supposed to pay in advance, very few did, so me and our finance administrator ended up dealing with rather a lot of money. Some of this spent a short time in our waist packs and our favourite joke was, "Does this 60,000 euros make my bum look big?!" (well, you think of something funnier after working a 14 hour day!).

Many people I met were lovely. Some weren't. The president of our world governing body (thank Christ he isn't a Brit) come up to my colleague to complain about his swing tag. All the swing tags had on them was first- and surname and country, but this wasn't good enough: "When I go to an event everyone needs to know who I am: so my pass must have my job title on it, also my professional title and, as the governing body is neutral, my nationality must be removed". Not said quite so nicely as that though, leaving my colleague open-mouthed. I thought that a perma-tanned short-arse going round at the centre of a posse of butt-kissers would be fairly easy to spot as El Presidente, but obviously not. Strangely enough my boss over-ruled my suggestion that El Presidente's pass be changed to say, "Self-obsessed auto-eroticist with his head so far up his own backside that he can't see out". It probably wouldn't have fitted on anyway. But perhaps if you're the international head of a sport no-one has ever heard of, you have to do things like that to bolster your ego. Personally, I think it was just a hefty dose of 'short man syndrome'.

Everyone, from the CEO down to the local kids we had as volunteer runners (not to mention many of our own members who were using their annual leave to spend 1 or 2 weeks working unpaid behind the scenes) worked themselves into the ground to make the competition work; and many coaches and athletes told us how much they'd enjoyed the competition and how well-run it was - which made the late nights and the idiots a bit easier to bear!

Anyway, it was fascinating to see a sporting event from the inside and I had some experiences that I never expected to have: like running round a hotel at 11 at night with an arm full of guns, trying to re-patriate them to their owners before they flew out the following morning. I found it so wierd to be in corporate uniform for a week, it makes you anonymous but priviledged at the same time, but it was such a relief to get back into normal clothes again!