In the comments I will post a brief video from Stephen Hendry, showing his technique for hitting a snooker ball so it goes into the pocket. It’s so simple, it’s brilliant – and I’m keen to give it a go when I next get an opportunity.
With football, keeping your knee over the ball when you shoot will mean the ball should go in the direction you intend it to go without it screaming over the bar.
With golf, the tips of your toes should align with the direction of where you want the ball to go – when you do manage to hit the ball, that is.
With cricket, a right handed batsman should grip the bat very tightly with the left hand to keep it straight – and you adjust the grip of your right hand in accordance with where you want to ball to go. Again, assuming you actually hit it.
I’m not at all proficient at any of these sports – but the football and golf ones have spared my blushes a bit because they do seem to work. The trouble with the cricket one is that I am generally a terrible batsman, but at least I could stay in for a while and score a few runs, which was sometimes useful.
Finally, I have absolutely no desire to punch anyone ever, but a boxer once told me about the right stance to adopt. He was a tiny bloke but very fit, obviously. He added that if he was up against anyone, of any size, who didn’t know how to stand properly, he said he could have them down on the ground very quickly – just by clever use of body weight. I think the Police have this kind of training when dealing with drunks.
Anyway – interesting, isn’t it? Any other tips from your own glittering sporting endeavours?
Gah! The link doesn’t seem to work. Anyway, what he said was this.
Point your right foot in the direction of the pocket you’re aiming for and let your left foot stand wherever you’re comfortable. As long as you hit the cue ball in the middle, it’s going to go in the pocket.
A similar tactic is used when playing bowls: you point your toes towards the line/path that you want the wood (the bowl) to follow. Now, if I could just master the grip and apply the necessary amount of strength for every shot, I’d be a champion…
During the summer of 1980, just after we’d all taken our O levels (remember those, eh readers?) one of my mates was lucky enough to have a snooker table bought by his Dad. It went into their loft which then became a magnet for about a dozen lads playing each other daily for the duration of the holidays.
My highest break ever? Good question which I’m pleased you’ve asked.
12.
Beat my highest ever break by 4.
Possibly a rites of passage thing … O level time, a friend had a 6ft x 3ft Snooker table. The summer holidays of 1986 were consumed by a snooker league (which I finished bottom of).
All was not lost though, I did discover booze and fags.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned before how I went to Porthmadog on holiday as a teenager and was soundly thrashed three frames to nil by a 17-year-old Aled Jones (who was waiting to turn 18 and his money to arrive).
I once made 30. Think I made about 4 while Aled cleared the table…
He looks like a snooker player.
We didn’t bother with a league. I was the crappest by miles though obviously. My time at the table was taken up with advice given by the others. ‘Hit it just there’ with lots of helpful pointing.
I would attempt to do just that but at the final moment I’d go all Jack Douglas, spasm, and hit the cue ball at such an odd angle the physical laws of the universe were briefly suspended.
31 is mine, achieved more than 40 years ago. Met Cliff Thorburn last week
I just look straight through the ball to the pocket. There’s a “ line” that comes out from the pocket to the external side of the ball. I then aim for spot on the outside of the ball. Of course hitting that spot is the challenge.
Doesn’t work for Darts, good hand to eye coordination is needed to chuck your arrows.
There are basics though, mainly not leaning too far forward and keeping everything apart from your throwing arm as still as possible. That and not facing the board directly while throwing the darts from behind your shoulder like javelins.
Not forgetting a pint of beer in your other hand to act as a counterbalance.
Always found with darts that my playing improved by the pint, up to the middle of the third pint, after which it began to decline towards shit.
That was my experience too.
Correct
Golf – the tips of your toes should align with the direction you want the ball to go in?
I don’t get it. Aren’t you stood at a right angle to that direction, ie if you’re swinging north your feet are facing east?
Mind, don’t be too surprised by my confusion over sporting matters. I was well into my teens when I suddenly realised that in football ‘injury time’ was time added on due to stoppages. And not a period given over to players allowing them to kick the shit out of each other with impunity.
As I understood it…
if you lay your mashie on the ground, handle pointing toward the whole. Then have your toes touching the hickory shaft, with the hole on your left (assuming dominant right hand)…et voila! “the tips of your toes should align with the direction of where you want the ball to go”!
But I haven’t got a hole on my left side.
Curses! Foiled again…
See what you mean. To put it another way, if you draw an imaginary line between your two big toes, that line should point towards the hole/fairway.
So perpendicular then.
Junior has the mot juste…
Doesn’t that mean upright? Like a lamppost is perpendicular?
Well, it could…in theory…but if your toes were pointing upward it might interfere with your swing.
erratum – right angle
Further research says that while popular usage is that perpendicular means a 90degree angle with one side upright, technically they can be flat perhaps not even flat so long as the lines make a 90 degree angle. So I retract my erratum.
Let the cheese do the work, lad…
Aha! Yes, I’m with you now.
Apologies for the thickery.
I read a book once. Green, it was.
When playing crown green bowls, overarm is generally frowned upon.
One of my local football teams in Step 6 had an ex-Premier League player (over 200 appearances) in their side a few years ago.
I know it sounds daft/obvious, but he simply knew ‘how’ to kick a football.
When he did, it had a satisfying ‘clop’ sound reminiscent of a cricket ball on a bat.
It makes a massive difference doesn’t it? Having that skill makes accuracy and distance much more consistent.
Another bit of football advice…just before the ball is passed to you, have a very quick look up and assess your options. Again, sounds obvious, but it’ll make you look like you have a really good awareness of where team mates actually are and buys you a split second advantage. Many years ago it made this (admittedly fast but extremely ordinary) winger look almost competent on the park pitches of south-west London!
You could fit what I know about football skills on a very small piece of paper, but to me as a casual viewer of the game, this awareness of your teammates and your options is the secret behind what makes a brilliant team rather than just a good team.
Take Brazil in the 70s or Germany in the 80s/90s, for example (I tend to watch World Cups and internationals with far more interest than club football, so feel free to point out that the Accrington Stanley team of 1969 would beat both of my examples). Their players just seemed to know exactly where and when to pass, with their teammate being in exactly the right place to receive the ball, shoot, score, etc. This made for wonderfully smooth and apparently effortless football, and inevitably lots of victories.
I must say that the footage of Harry Kane at Bayern this season has been astonishing at times – his long range passing is as impressive as many of the goals.
70s Brazil and the old pre-unification West Germany sides are terrific examples of that. Brazil had the flair and the Germans had theirs drilled in, but the same thing occurred. You could also possibly argue that Brazil made a lot of extra space/time for themselves in how they did it.
My mate used to go to watch Man Utd and said Teddy Sherringham never stopped scanning the players around him. Like a chess master he thought 5 moves ahead and knew what they were going to do before they did.
I went to Townsville to watch South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and Argentina play a rugby union double header.
Tom Banks, the under rated Australia full back, never stopped working. He was constantly on the move so the attack could never a get a fixed read. He was moving players round like they were chess pieces.
I’m so glad I saw that live because when I rewatched the tv, it was completely ignored.
I once saw Lineker in his prime play at Plough Lane, Wimbledon. It was a very dull game – possibly goalless – but he ran and ran and ran at every possible opportunity to get into a space where a scoring chance might just appear. The ball rarely came his way and most of us would have given up in frustration by half time, but not him. He was like a dog getting excited every time its owner stood up, thinking that now was the time for walkies.
The best I ever witnessed was Kenny Dalglish. He barely looked at the ball but controlled it instantly and knew where everybody was and where they were running. On top of that, he had the skill to reach them with a killer pass, especially Ian Rush, who seemed to have a telepathic connection with him.
(I’m a Blue, by the way)
When rolling a Stilton cheese, gently tickle it with your fingertips to keep it in motion.
The cheeses are fairly top-heavy so any hard shove will see it leave the ground (disallowed), flop over, or veer off at an angle (or even spinning on the spot).
Have I ever mentioned before that I’m 1996 Stilton Cheese Rolling world champion? {yes, you have: Edith}
As Jack Hargreaves used to say with a playful wink at the end of every episode of Out of Town, “Let the cheese do the work, lad”.
Keep your eye on the ball, most important advice for many games
Tennis:
Your feet should be in a line when you hit the ball facing up the court. Rafa Nadal could have his feet parallel to the baseline but the margin of error in this stance is way smaller than with the feet in line.
Backhand: imagine your chest is facing a wall running along the Lhs of the court (for a right-handed player).
The contact point of ball and racquet should be in front of you.
We all want to admire where our shot goes, then think about the next shot. The more you can start your recovery half-step as your shot is travelling, the better placed you’ll be for the return.
The simplest in-game tactic is that for 95% of the players (me included) the backhand is way weaker, so the more that you can keep the ball in the opponent’s backhand side the more problems you’ll create.
What’s a good tip for serving? I throw the ball slightly in front of me and try to get it just as it’s coming down again.
What’s a good tip for serving?
Don’t stick your thumb in the soup while carrying the dish to the table.
Two soups?
If you’re playing tennis with Boris Becker in his prime, he slightly sticks his tongue out of the corner of his mouth in the direction of where his serve is going.
Only Andre Agassi noticed this and as a result was able to beat him. Becker himself didn’t know he was doing it until Agassi revealed it to him many years later.
I played squash for decades. Get to the “T” back centre of court when opponent is hitting the ball.
The best “tips”, I’d have for golf are two that work for me. As a right handed golfer, if I want to draw a drive because there’s trouble down the right of the fairway, I aim fractionally to the right of the fairway and simply grip tighter with my left hand. It works surprisingly well for me. I was a decent golfer before I had kids.
The other regards putting particularly long putts where you’re trying to get the distance right. On the basis that the muscle memory is there, the aim is to not think too much about how hard to hit it and empty the mind. I use a musical track playing in my head. The knack seems to be finding a track for which you have no strong visual image and, for me, a strong slow groove. I use Come in Out of the Rain by Parliament. Generally the louder it seems in my head, the better the putt.
Free your mind and your putt will follow …
That’s what I’ll call my instructional DVD @junior-wells I used to use “Get up for the Down Stroke” but the rhythm was less suitable and then I saw a video of them playing it and that rendered it useless.