Wisdom of the Ages: Reclaiming Sports Psychology

Now here on the blog we are at an age when certain things get them going. A difficult age, in training for being grumpy old men, railing against the mad and the bad world we live in – and in our sights this week ….Sports Psychology.

For those who have been around long enough to remember a time when cricket gloves had green spikes the last thirty years have seen great changes. These have reached down to touch the game on the Village Green.

For those of a certain generation there is an instinctive pull toward the sepia tinted good old days – but many changes have been for the better: Junior coaching and participation, the rise of the Women’s game, funding and grants, the opportunities provided by social media and perhaps the best of the lot - the increasing use of end of season beer festivals for fund-raising.

The influence of the game, good and bad, at the top percolates down: pre-match drills, sponsored kit (sometimes with a player’s name on it) and people trying things they have seen on the TV – a dilscoop or a switch hit – a slow bouncer or a sliding stop - there’s little doubt that the standard of ground fielding has improved, even at village level.

But for all its ability to imitate the game at higher levels the Villager holds out against one thing - the rise of sports psychology. In many ways the Villager pushes back against the golden rules of this increasingly prominent discipline. The Villager remains decidedly old school in the ‘between the ears’ department and quite rightly so.

It’s not that the Villager doesn’t recognise that it’s a thinking man’s game –the Villager has this particular t-shirt - in fact he is part of the movement that pretty much invented sports psychology, but like all good ideas it’s been dressed up, made over, re-packaged and marketed as something you need to pay £125 an hour for.

So what is it?

Common sense.

Yes, that’s not what you need to answer the question. That is the answer to the question.

Around about 0.0001%of sports psychologists DNA differs from that of management consultants. What holds them together is their time together at the University of the Bleeding Obvious and ability to re-format common sense into a power-point –and have the brass neck to try and flog it as insight and wisdom.

For those who are at risk of being reeled in here’s what some of those sports psychology terms mean in everyday Village parlance – and just think of the money you are saving….

‘Positive Images’ or ‘Visualistion’ is, in simple terms, thinking about things going well.

Well blow me down with a gentle breeze from behind the off-spinners left shoulder. It’s what we do all week. That full length mirror hasn’t seen many catch the shoulder of the bat during the week. We dream, we are Village Cricketers. It’s all we have.

Next!

 ‘Power’ or ‘Cue’ words seek to address your ‘inner critic’ but as we know your main critic is the Skipper, not yourself – and for the experienced Villager they know that talk is cheap. A good example is the distain they show for that increasingly common phrase that has emerged from junior cricket ‘Wicket coming’. A phrase with a statistically significant relationship with the opposition being 145-1 off 32.

‘Focus’ sometimes called ‘Present Focus’ is what we used to call concentration: Why do you need to think about ‘focus’ when the skipper is already all over it?

Typical skipper focus phrase, directed to his chortling fielders:  ‘will you lot bloody concentrate’.

For the individual player the there is no shortage of opportunities to regret your lack of focus – or more accurately concentration: The returning batsman so often repeats one of those super accurate Village insights:  ‘I don’t know what I was thinking about’. 

Yes focus is concentration   Focus is central to sports psychology and apparently essential to success – but the Villager at heart is driven by impulse, a love for the game and a short-lived shot at glory every Saturday or Sunday – or both if they are single.

‘Chunking Goals’ is when you focus (that word again) on your immediate target or break things down into a sequence of tasks. This is when the skipper says ‘Pitch it up’ repeatedly or the other batsman shouts ‘yes, no, get back’ as he focuses on his immediate target – not being run out. Classic Villager ‘chunking’ would go like this for a batsman at the non-striker’s end.

(a) This guy’s quick (b) ask ump how many balls to go (c) find opportunity to encourage partner to dig in (d) start to back up less (e) stay put.

Another key point is (apparently) ‘knowing what you need to focus on’. Firstly there’s not forgetting your kit, then the list of jobs to do on arrival, then there is turning the urn on, then there’s nipping home at tea to pick up the wife and then there’s the playing bit. So for the villager it’s an easy one to answer - ‘pretty much everything and I am not even the skip’.

So there it is in a nutshell. The obvious for the oblivious.

Just add it to the list of things you don’t need like a chest guard or being told that you shouldn’t have played that shot…

So what’s the alternative?

In a word.

Nets