Chris Morton: Week One

New columnist, Chris!

As the new year begins, many exciting opportunities arise, far beyond the excessive drinking of Fresher’s week, in the shape of sports and societies. I thought I’d share with you a memorable day from my first year at the Boxing club. Arriving fresh and healthy from the steel city of Sheffield to be swamped by Joey Essex and Blahdy-blah lookalikes it wasn’t difficult to keep up my icy solid persona of the alpha male. Boxing therefore was an activity that naturally appealed to me. I dare say it looked fun. The fact training was held on a Sunday morning definitely needs to have slightly more thought put into it the coming year.

So after a Saturday night stumbling around the LCR, finding people, losing people, talking to people you thought you knew only to realise you didn’t, being an arse in short, I woke up to the familiar pestering sound of my alarm in an unfamiliar room. All the rooms in halls look similar but all these photos on the wall were definitely not of me, nor were the teddy bears that sat staring ashamedly at my long hung-over face. It seemed like a perfect time to go boxing. I peeled myself out of the bed, making a quick sneaky exit and getting back to my flat I realised I had no room key. That went part way to explaining the room I stayed in.

Rocky, he ain’t…

Quickly, I got one of my flatmates to lend me some shorts and trainers, and looking like a mismatched zombie I walked slowly to Congregation Hall. It  turned out I was early, which was a good first impression, minus the tired eyes, strange attire and strong smell of vodka and Lambrini(or lambrizzle) pouring out of my every pore. Just looking at all the free space made me feel nauseous. Then came the skipping, the jogging, the bouncing, all of which helped punish my stomach, head and soul for ever drinking Lambrini. We did some sparring where I met a lovely girl, both with equal reach  found it very difficult to hit her anywhere but her chest, which in my hung-over state I found both hilarious and incredibly awkward. Until she began to feel faint  and had to sit down breathing heavily into a paper bag. The coach made sure she was fine then told me to shadow box. So while she was fighting off shortness of breath, I was fighting off imaginary shadows, if the smell of stale Lambrini hadn’t done that already.

Ultimately, I was happy to have survived with my stomach still intact, yet for the next few weeks I never managed to get out of bed, nor wanted to, on a Sunday morning and may have forgotten about the boxing wraps the coach lent me. So when I remembered after a month or so, I felt much too awkward and socially inept to take them back after so long. So I never returned. Yet this year, I am positive I will return, give the coach his wraps, and stand a fighting chance of getting on the boxing team.