I'm prepared to accept that there may be one or two misguided individuals out there who find physical exercise rewarding and even, (they would have us believe), pleasurable but is it really possible to be competitive in the true sense of the word if you have limitations such as not being able to see where the hell you're going?

Take ball games for example. In my school days I was involved for many and varied reasons, few of them plausible, at one time or another in various teams for football, cricket, and that most uniquely pointless of painful and humiliating games goalball. It must have been a sighty with a well developed sense of humour and particularly powerful persuasive abilities who convinced half a dozen blindies that to throw yourself full length in to the path of a fast moving medicine ball launched with killer instinct by a member of the opposition was not only an indicator of your sporting prowess but was also great fun.

Now where was I?

This is cricket, Well almost. It's cricket except that the ball has to bounce at least twice before you can hit it or catch it, you only have to run if you can see, the ball is about ten times larger than usual, oh yes and if you get out LBW or by accidentally knocking down your own stumps you get a second chance because well in true school yard style "give him a second chance cos he's shite" sorry blind not shite.

It's no better in football either, if you can see a bit you're only allowed to score goals from a ridiculous distance, kicking the crap out of opposition players isn't against the rules if you pretend you didn't know they were there, the ball is twice the size of one of those enormous beach balls and the pitch is only 3 inches square. Or something like that anyway.

Now don't get me wrong, I have no problems with people enjoying themselves by running round in circles on a big field for an hour under the illusion that they are chasing a ball and then retiring to the pub for the afternoon but deluding yourself that this is sport and that you are a finely tuned athlete, oh please!

Did you know they actually have international competitions in some of these so-called sports? That's right proper companies pay silly money for some blind blagger to travel half way across the world to be given a second chance because he's shite - sorry, I mean blind.

I will grudgingly admit that maybe there are some sports where it is realistic for a blind person to be seriously competitive in their chosen passtime. Swimming: perhaps, providing you can swim in a straight line, and not kill yourself by propelling yourself full tilt in to the wall at the opposite end of the pool as Damon told us in the July show he is prone to do. swimming is about how quickly and how efficiently you perform the movements which propel you through the water so providing you keep heading in the right direction it shouldn't matter all that much whether you can or can't see. Not at least until it comes to turning round and heading back, or knowing how you're doing in relation to other competitors but basically yes I can see how VI swimming can be a competitive sport.

So what about track and field then? Providing you have a basic level of awareness as to where you're meant to throw something or which way you're supposed to be running shouldn't the same hold true? You'd think so but there's this problem of how much or how little people can see. I've known people who have travelled, at considerable expense to anyone but themselves, to glamorous international sporting events and returned home proud owners of a gold medal simply because they happened to be the only person competing in a given sub-category of their particular so-called sport. So what if you're the fastest indoor B2 21 to 30 year old 50 metre runner in Europe? If you're the only indoor B2 21 to 30 year old 50 metre runner in Europe then it isn't really much of an achievement now is it.

Just to prove my point how many mainstream sportsmen do you know who have been the outright champion in their given sport for getting on twenty years. Not many huhh? So how come Simon Jackson has been British blind Judo champion for as long as anyone can remember could it just be that he's the only blind Britain who does Judo do we think? Oh granted lots of blindies have probably tried their hand at Judo but has anyone reading this actually stuck with it for more than a few months?

Which brings me on to another pet hate of mine: Badge collectors. Only in the blind community do you find so many people who make a lifelong commitment to trying everything once. Scaling tall buildings, leaping moving trains, parting oceans, pulling trucks, cutting beautiful assistants in half, producing white rabbits from hats - blindies have done it all. What is it about a lack of site that gives people the compulsion to try anything different, difficult, extreme, dangerous or exciting. Granted there will always be a fraction of the population who are thrill seekers but among blindies it seems that 1: it's a higher proportion and 2 that very few ever actually stick with one thing but rather try something, get a badge or a certificate and then move on to the next challenge. But anyway, I might write more about that another time. Back to the issue at odds here.

If you want to take part in a physical recreation by all means do so but don't kid yourself that because your part of a team, or because you're playing against someone else that it's sport.

It's my opinion that the primary reason that visually impaired people, and especially those with no real useful sight get involved in these kinds of pastimes is for the social value. Meeting up once a month or so with other blinkies is the only chance we get to mix with our own type, where we don't have to talk about our dogs, tell taxi drivers how we ended up like this, or suffer the ignorance of every single person around us. At these meets blind is the norm and it is this which draws people together not the desire to run faster or further than each other.