Birth

Take a deep breath in for me,

and wipe the ink from words.

Don’t leave their hearts bloodless,  

they beat in time with yours.

You are their river, the mouth bursts,

fish slap inside your brain.

Their hands guide, you arrive alone,

you are their only womb;

let me, reader, live. 

June 15th 1996, 11:16 a.m.

Smarties or Skittles? The young lad can’t choose.

Tiptoeing on his size five shoes to see if his

Dad is still waiting, he catches a glimpse of

That scarf and the programme’s gleaming cover.

The man looks up to see his son peer over the rows

Of sweets, and says to him with a knowing grin:

“Get me some Skittles will you, mate?”

Outside the shop the crowd is now a stream of red.

The lad is nearly swept away in a rumbling wave,

But the man with the programme grabs his hand

And whispers in his ear: “Keep close.”

They hurry past a transit van parked on yellow lines,

Two figures jump from out the back of it,

Leaving a winding trail of wires behind them.

Bricks, bodies and glass are flung into the air

And pour down upon the pavement.

All sobs of confusion are lost in shock,

And the flow of support has stopped.

The young lad still keeps close to his Dad,

Their hands still clasped together tightly,

But only the eyes of the lad are blinking. 

Meet Tyler Jonhson: Exeter's Record-Breaking Runner

Those of you affiliated with our university’s Athletics Club may well be familiar with the name Tyler Johnson. For those whom that name rings no bells of recognition, however, Tyler, in short, is the quickest man on campus.

The second year Philosophy student broke his previous 200m university record, earning himself an admirable fourth place finish, with a time of 21.62s at the Men’s British Athletics League meet on Sunday 27^th May – an event that attracts the competition of the country’s best athletes.

Perspective on how fast Tyler’s record breaking race was can be gauged via Adam Gamili, for instance, the event’s winner from Blackheath and Bromley Athletics Club, who finished with a time of 20.75s – 0.10s off the required standards for Olympic qualification and 0.22s off the Commonwealth Record.

In regard to the race, Tyler said: “earlier that day (in the 100m) I ran 10.99s into a big headwind of -1.8 meters per second and had a good start so I knew from that run (that I would run well in the 200m). I had lane one and didn’t run the bend as well as I have before but the straight was fine. I knew if I hit the bend harder, then, and got the transition right I could hopefully go 21.5s or perhaps even 21.4s”.

Whilst Tyler, the reigning 100m and 200m Devon County champion, has now established himself as the region’s finest sprinter (Sunday’s 21.62s lifted him to the top of the South West rankings), athletics has not always been the focus of his aspiration. In fact, only after his P.E teacher suggested he should consider sprinting did Tyler begin to do during the daybreak of his teenage years.  

With a time of 14 seconds, his first competitive race in the 100m contrasted somewhat to his current personal best of 10.7. “By the end of the year, though, I had got down to 12.3s in the 100m and 25.2s in the 200m,” Tyler says, “and from then I eventually had to give up football and rugby after running got more serious. A broken collarbone then meant I had to have a metal plate inserted, which meant I had to give up contact sports like rugby at school.”  

When asked whether he could run even faster than 21.62s in the 200m, Tyler responded: “I believe I can. This year I always said after the indoor season that I was looking to run 21.6s, and that at an absolute push I could perhaps run 21.4s. With favorable conditions and a good race I’m hoping sub 21.6s will come on the 10^th June at the Bedford International Games or at Nationals the week later – Bedford is a quick track especially when the conditions are right.”

When questioned, also, about the who stands the best chance of catching Jamaica’s speedster, Usain Bolt, at this year’s Olympics, Tyler replied: “Tyson Gay in the 100m and Yohan Blake in the 200m.” With Blake running 9.82s at the beginning of May, Gay returning to full fitness and Bolt running his slowest ever 100m time recently (10.04s), your predictions, Tyler, may well be proved to be true by the end of this sport-filled summer.   

Published in The Exeter Drop

Windsurfing: a Sport in Danger of Extinction?

Windsurfing: an increasingly popular sport in this part of the country that some of us may have admired from afar on Exmouth’s sandy shore and one we can all expect to see at this summer’s Olympics.  

On the eve of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janerio, however, windsurfing’s popularity may be dwindling due to the International Sailing Federation’s (ISAF) decision to remove the sport from the Olympic programme and replace it with kitesurfing – a verdict that has sparked indignation amidst the windsurfing community.

Upon hearing the ISAF’s ruling, two-time Canadian Olympian, Nikola Girke, for instance, stated that “kitesurfing should be a demonstration sport alongside windsurfing but not in lieu of windsurfing” and described ISAF’s decision as a “terrible mistake”.   

Burgeoning windsurfing athletes such as Exeter University’s two time Youth World Champion and winner of the prestigious Pantaenius Young Sailor of the Year award, Izzy Hamiton, will surely now have to re-think their plans for future sporting success as a result of ISAF’s ruling – a notion the sports scholar is patently aware of when she wrote in her blog: “my dream of going to Rio was so real one day and non existent the next.”  

Izzy is not the only one affected, though, by the omission of windsurfing at the 2016 games. With the Olympics as the sport’s apex of achievement, its entire infrastructure will be inevitably and irreversibly damaged. National funding will be withdrawn; coaches, as a result, will lose their jobs; and the dreams of hundreds of others athletes have, like Izzy, also become hopeless. 

There are also questions regarding the potential risks of kitesurfing – a largely untested sport on the world’s stage. Barbara Kendall, for example, a three-time Olympic medalist in windsurfing and former International Olympic Committee (IOC) member, declared: “kitesurfing really is a sport that should be at the X-Games.”

Moreover, as Ann Bartowski mentions, a 2004 study performed by doctors at the at the University Hospital in Muenster, Germany, attempted to determine kitesurfing’s level of danger by following 235 kite surfers over a season. During these six months, more than half of the kite surfers injured themselves. One of those injuries was fatal and 11 more were severe.

Windsurfing, then, seems to have been usurped by a more precarious version of itself. Could the exhilaration from kitesurfing’s apparent dangerous and inconstant nature have been a contributing factor to ISAF’s decision? Whether the answer to that question is true or not, petitions already exist with the intention of reversing ISAF’s verdict and reinstate windsurfing as an Olympic sport.

What lays in store now for Exeter’s Olympic hopeful, however, Izzy Hamilton? “The confidence I gained winning medals in Junior and Youth World Championships has been lost,” Izzie says; “I am however very excited at the prospect of a new challenge.” 

Just four years after taking up a previously unfamiliar sport, claiming a GB kitesurfing spot for the 2016 Olympics that will truly be a remarkable achievement. Izzy, The Drop wishes you all the best of luck!

Published in The Exeter Drop

Meet Joe Batten: AU President Candidate

Word of Joe Batten’s flash-mob streaked across campus over the weekend: the video has received over 6,000 YouTube views at the time of writing and Joe has become synonymous with the AU President Candidacy as a result. But whilst his name may be familiar to most of you by now, how many of us actually know Joe? Have we heard the specific details of his policies and what he aims to achieve next year should he be elected? The slim chances of an affirmative answer to either of those questions outlines the purpose of this article as an opportunity to familiarise ourselves with Joe before we vote. Choosing between Brett Richmond and Joe Batten as your AU President is a difficult task; both are very strong candidates. But at The Drop we hope that our interviews with both Brett and will help make deciding between the two easier for you. 

BS: Fancy telling the readers of The Drop a bit about yourself, Joe?

JB: Of course! I’m 21, 3^rd year at Exeter, studying Human Bioscience and living at the bottom of Vic Street. Loving it.

BS: And I’m sure many of us know that you are EULC Captain. How have you found that this year?

JB: Yeah it’s been good. I’m Co-Captain with Liv Hardy, which has gone really well. The boys are doing brilliant. They’re undefeated. And the girls are also doing great. They just beat Loughborough, which is amazing! The boys are through to the BUCS Semi-Finals after beating Sheffield Hallam (University) as well so, yeah, it’s all going well.

BS: Do you think the skills you’ve learned this year being EULC Co-Captain are transferrable to those that you would have to use as AU President? 

JB: I would say do. With lacrosse you kind of oversee a twenty-four people strong committee, which has helped my team management. We do quite a lot in terms of coaching in schools and a lot of charity work too, which, to an extent, is what the AU do on a much larger scale so I would say not only are the skills are transferrable but also elements of the work we (EULC) do too.  

BS: Good answer. Moving on, I’ve noticed you mentioning in your campaign video how there’s going to be a new sports park. Could you give a bit more information?

JB: Yeah! Over the summer they’re going to cover up the six outdoor tennis courts. They’ve going to cover them up with a marquee-like structure, which will free up a lot of space in the sports hall.

BS: And you said that means more intramural?

JB: Yes and it also means more training time because you’ve obviously got a lot more courts that won’t be affected by the weather. At the moment they freeze up a lot.

BS: Will using the courts cost more to use, though, as a result?

JB: Well there’s also the (small astro-turf) football pitch. That’s going to be moving to the other side (of the sports park) and then there’s going to be by 2013 a big two-story gym. Upstairs there will be a gym and downstairs will be used for classes, which will be just next to the tennis centre.

BS: So this is a very much exciting time to be AU President?

JB: Yeah, a very exciting time!

BS: And what do you think are the chances of you fulfilling your campaign promises: more treadmills, more yoga, more intramural?

JB: Well I’ve tried to be very realistic with my promises. After being AU Exec. Treasurer this year I have got a good feel of how the AU works and the budgets you have and also where the AU fits in with the sports park managers, high performance, intramural. There’s always a lot of stuff happening and everything cannot be done at once. So what I’ve done with my campaign is take input from other people on campus and use what they want because that’s what the AU President should do. They represent the people and voice his peoples’ opinions. If there is something that the students really wanted, I would really push for it to happen.

BS: I didn’t realise you were AU Exec. Treasurer. I presume you feel that would help you if you became AU President?

JB: Yeah it has because you help with all the one-off events like the varsities and you get involved and see the how things are organised. You are also effectively an AU ambassador in clubs. All five of us get given (sports) clubs that can come to us if they didn’t want to talk to Beth (AU President) directly and just chat to us instead. I been to loads of committee meetings as a result and I already consult with a lot of club captains, which isn’t so different from some aspects of the AU President’s job and I would say I’ve already had an insight into how everything works and how to make things happen.   

BS: Your mention of varsities takes me onto my next question: what varsities for which clubs in particular do you intend to increase?

JB: Well we’ve got the four ones at the moment: football, rugby, hockey and cricket. Obviously those four are fantastic. I really hope we can increase the student participation in the hockey varsity because the talent is just unbelievable. In terms of more varsities for more clubs I think it’s just giving clubs that chance of a varsity experience. I think one great way of doing that is through what we are doing this year in March is a big varsity weekend, which Beth (Hampson) has been working really hard on with the equivalent of the AU President for Team Bath. There will be loads clubs going over and loads of spectators. It’s going to have different events going on at different places so all the people not playing can go and watch other sports and so everyone gets that varsity experience. I would want to build on the back of that, learn from the first year of it happening and try to make it even bigger and get even more clubs involved.

BS: That does indeed sound fantastic. Putting you on the spot slightly, could you sum up your campaign in three words?  

JB: Oh God. (He pauses for a few moments) I would say: fun, honest and determined.

BS: Good stuff. I’ve heard that you’re a bit of a good dancer. Is that the reason why you wanted to do a flash-mob?

JB: (He laughs) I was on the Dance Society Committee last year and I wanted to do a big flash-mob then to secure a sponsorship deal where we would wear a company’s t-shirts during the flash-mob. It was all going ahead but then it fell apart at the last moment but I still kept that desire to do one and I think it’s a great time to do one at uni. because everyone loves that type of thing. So I just thought it was one way of getting people involved and I got EULC and Dance Society to do the flash-mob with me, which was great. Getting both EULC and Dance Society was also a good way of bringing together Guild Societies and the AU clubs. I’m a believer in the AU President being a representative of sport across the university and not just AU clubs. You should be pushing sport across the university. Obviously you concentrate and help push the performance and all the members getting a lot out of being a part of the AU but you also make it open to everyone.

BS: Do you think, then, that there is a distance between the (Students’) Guild and the AU?

JB: Not so much a distance.

BS: But you think it can get closer?

JB: It can get closer. Definitely. I wouldn’t say it’s a huge divide as there people in both camps. I just think that the events could be publicised in different ways so you can go through societies to help publicise events more easily. I’d like a better means of passing information other than constantly having to email club captains to pass information on, for instance.

BS: That’s a fair point. On another note, Joe, we’ve now got a few more personal questions for you. Ready?

JB: Let’s do it.

BS: I’m going straight in to the deep end: where’s the worst place you’ve ever chundered?

JB: My uncle’s wedding.   

BS: Oh yeah? What’s the story behind that? A few too many free glasses of champagne? Free bar perhaps?

JB: A few too many, yeah. A few too many sangria actually in front of a lot of people I’ve never met before in a garden.

BS: That’s brilliant. Next one: have you ever been chucked out of a club?

JB: Chucked out of a club? Not that I remember.

BS: The fact that you don’t remember might be significant.

JB: No I generally just have a good time. I don’t tend to get into too much trouble. I just try to have fun really.

BS: Top attitude to have. Have you ever crashed a party?

JB: Yeah. Probably. We all have! I used to crash quite a lot of student parties when I was at school.

BS: Does that mean as AU President you’ll be crashing fresher parties?

JB: No. (He laughs) I’ll have to leave those days behind as fun as they were.

BS: What’s your bolt like?

JB: My bolt? Bolt: okay. Strawpedos: fairly okay. Fairly good.

BS: Long arm?

JB: Not so much. Definitely not in the winter months. And it depends what we’re doing. Cider black: big no no! I’ve done baked beans too. That was a bad shout.

BS: I can imagine! A monosyllabic answer to these next questions now please. Arse of boobs?

JB: Arse.

BS: Blonde or brunette?

JB: Brunette.

BS: Wednesday or Friday TP?

JB: Always Wednesday!

BS: And finally: The Drop or Exeposé?

JB: Controversial one. I like Exeposé because I like reading it and doing the crosswords but The Drop is very new and exciting. Does the answer have to be monosyllabic?

BS: ‘Both’ is a monosyllabic answer.

JB: Both!

Published in The Exeter Drop

Should ‘King’ Kenny Bow to Bellamy?

The chances of Kenny Dalglish losing it on camera are approximately equal to that of seeing Roberto Mancini accompany Mario Balotelli on his outlandish off-the-field antics.

But the Liverpool manager’s reaction to his team’s performance after their 3 – 1 loss to Bolton at The Reebok Stadium suggests that his temper is currently being tested. 

In his post-match interview he stated, "If that's the level they [Liverpool’s players] expect this football club to play at, they won't be here long,” and described the performance as his “worst” since he returned to manage the five-time European champions. 

Dalglish’s comments, though, were as hypocritical as they were surprising: 8 of the 18 players in Liverpool’s squad for the game against Bolton were players that he had bought.

Dalglish, in total, has spent over £130 million on bringing in young, supposedly talented players with the intention of building a squad that can reach the zenith of English football: winning the Premier League.

But most of Dalglish’s expensive signings, far from justifying their price tags, have seriously underperformed this season. Endless articles, for instance, have been written in regard to ‘The Andy Carroll Conundrum’; whilst Stewart Downing, signed to Liverpool from Aston Villa for £20 million, has been a shadow of the player that was one of the Premier League’s most consistent performers last season.

Luis Suarez, on the other hand, arguably a player now renowned more for the racial abusing of Patrice Evra than his excellence on the ball, has been in a minority of Dalglish’s transfers that have exceeded expectations since he signed from Ajax last January for a reported £22 million. 

The Uruguayan has often left defenders searching behind their shoulders with his sudden change of pace and deft skills. There is no doubt that he has managed to fill Liverpool’s Fernando Torres-shaped hole. 

José Enrique has also been sensational with his rushing runs down the left-flank but it is Craig Bellamy, the player, ironically, that Dalglish paid nothing for, who has arguably been the most valuable this season since he signed from Manchester City in August 2011.

The 32-year-old Welshman is currently Liverpool’s joint-top scorer and has been the instigator of several attacking plays that have ensued in either created chances or goals for the team he supported as a boy.

Knee injuries, which have also forced Bellamy to step down from the Welsh captaincy recently, unfortunately prevent him from playing successive games.

But he is clearly buoyed and flourishing at the fact he feels wanted and more importantly respected at his former club, evident when he says: "This now feels right, this is everything I wanted from the first time I was here."1

His passion and combative style of play were the two characteristics that were lacking in Liverpool’s passive performance against Bolton.

His experience has also brought a patent maturity to his game that ensures he strives to make a positive impact whether he starts the game or not – an attitude that was far from evident in his performances ten years ago.

Could a free transfer really earn more success for Liverpool than the £55 million pair of Carroll and Downing, though?

If that is the case at the end of the season, Liverpool’s transfer tactics of generally buying players for their potential ability will need to be seriously scrutinised.

With Craig Bellamy only really ripening as a complete player past 30 and Andy Carroll still a mere fledgling at the tender age of 23, moreover, Liverpool fans could be in for a long and frustrating wait for Kenny’s big-spending signings to fulfill their potential.   

By Ben Stupples – Co-Sports Editor: The Drop

Published in The Exeter Drop

References

Quote taken from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/nov/26/craig-bellamy-liverpool-manchester-city

Photo courtesy of Reuters & Daily Mail

'A Sad Tale's Best for Winter'

Just beyond the mirth of great Nature’s rebirth,

Bitter winter beckons to confine the shining sun

And stamp out all life young. It tears each leaf

From each limb, letting each fall into the grave

Of all that’s nothing, where the putrid stench

Of decay is as potent as the plague of darkness

That reigns over all like a tempest of tyranny.

But, in the midst of nothing, some life interred

Stirs to inch slowly upwards through benighted

Daylight, shooting through the earth’s melting

Mantle to bring spring forth and rot the root of

Flowering winter. So I do not sit above the grave

Of all, but the great womb of all, where all that’s

Nothing swells Nature like two mingled bloods

So that it may soar beyond our horizon of time

To create, from all that’s nothing, all that’s great.


Published in The Monktonian