Coming out of retirement and playing football: one of the most meaningful personal development triumphs I can remember.
Two weeks ago I had one of the most meaningful personal development triumphs I can remember.
It felt like a reinforcement of all the things I say, in books, articles, talks and more.
And only now can I see how tiny it will sound to some of you.
I played football.
For the first time in 16 years. And the second time in 20 years.
Of course this isn't quite true, there have been plenty of kickabouts, but there hasn't been anything approaching a competitive game since I was about 22. And before this there had only been one since I left school.
Working on the 12-Minute Method books had really slowed me down on the power of practice. Anyone who has followed my work will know that.
How talent, mostly, is a myth, and yet we're peddled that myth everywhere.
When I slowed down with that idea, over the last few years as my books came out and I appeared on many podcasts and stages to talk about them, there were two big areas that I could see where the talent myth had held me back.
Music, and sport.
The way I can see that is to compare how I would treat the things I once wanted if I wanted them now.
As a teenager, I so wanted to be a great singer, to be in a band. If I wanted that now, I would get a singing coach. I would get a guitar teacher. And I would find some friends and start practising, knowing that only by practising could I get better.
As a teenager I didn't have that awareness. I believed far more in talent, and I didn't have as clear a view on my ability as I could have. A combination of thinking I was good enough and not knowing I could better meant that I never tried to get help to get better.
In the end, that desire passed. In some ways, I think, because I actually did complete my Hero's Journey with music: I learned and grew enough that I could play The Circle (acoustic version!) by Ocean Colour Scene on my wedding day. And I could feel (relatively) relaxed about that, even if my hands were shaking.
As a teenager I loved sport, although I was never the best at any of them. I loved football, but partly because I came to school late (aged 9), not having really been interested in it before, I was behind from the start.
Although I did practice, and I did train, and I did go to some holiday camps, I didn't really get that practice mattered so much. I thought the local football and cricket clubs were for people who were good at football and cricket: I didn't seem to see that perhaps part of the reason that the people who went to the local clubs were good was because they went to the clubs.
I played in goal, and the goalkeeper in the year below me was Bobby Hodgson. He got it.
We were talking about it once - I think I was probably complementing him on some aspect of his play, and he said, in the really kind, generous way that I remember characterising him and his older brother: 'That's just because I train a lot more.'
Bobby knew, but I didn't.
At least, I didn’t use that: I didn’t join the club he played for and start training.
But I did play, I played for the school, I played in the holidays sometimes. Until I didn't.
I left school, and at university the football club felt too intimidating and serious for someone with deficiencies in their game (I didn't realise that UCL 7th Team would potentially have been exactly my level!).
I remember the closest I got to playing regularly after the age of 18 was meeting - on a train north from London - a fellow UCL student who ran the Skill-less Soccer club. That sounded about right. But when I got back to uni the next year, that club was gone.
And so apart from one game with a friend's work colleagues, no football. Until a few weeks ago.
At some point since moving out to Warwickshire, I saw a banner up for 6-a-side football, including for single players without a team.
I had thought about talent and practice by then, and the 12-Minute Method, and so in a rush of energy I registered.
And heard nothing for months, until, out of the blue, a text message offering me the chance to play.
I looked at it, I felt nervous, I didn't want to say yes.
And yet I knew that this was it: if I didn't play now I was saying that I would never play football again.
And I knew my own myth - not playing now doesn't sound like the kind of thing Robbie Swale of 2023 would do.
So I went.
I haven't been that nervous about anything for a long time. It occupied my mind for days. My subconscious looked for excuses and ways out.
But I took the lessons I had learned - I practised in the garden. I found my old goalkeeping gloves and boots.
And then gradually the universe started to line up to support me as I stepped out into the void that courage requires.
The captain put me at ease - ‘it doesn't matter how rusty you are, if you're willing to stand in goal, that's great with us. ‘
'Of course,’ I thought. ‘No one wants to go in goal. Every second team probably wishes they had someone who would be happy to do it.'
And I knew from other social sport that being short of players is a common occurrence. They were grateful to have me.
Then I got there and found out the rules were almost designed to cover my weaknesses - no kicking ('All the defenders I've ever played with wished that was the rule for me,' I joked, truthfully - my kicking was always the weakest part of my game).
Not only that, but no attackers in the area, so if I spilt shots, I had the chance to recover.
And the muscle memory came back.
It was incredible.
8 or 9 years of playing regularly, even 20 years ago, was still in there.
Even though my gloves were older than the players I was playing with, I was starting to enjoy it.
And then... I found out why sports people retire in their 30s. I sprained my wrist saving a shot, and I pulled an intercostal muscle - both in the warm up!
I was too embarrassed to tell them, so I played on, throwing the ball with my weaker hand, gratefully letting my reactions use my injured wrist to make the best save of a good game, down to my right.
It wasn't good for my wrist, but it was good for my growth.
At the end of the game, which we drew 1-1, the referee came over and told me he was giving me the Man of the Match award.
I almost can't believe that's how the story ends - it was almost the exact demonstration that fortune favours the brave.
That all the reasons I hadn't been playing for 20 years were invalid.
There's a sadness to that - a genuine loss of fun and camaraderie that might have been.
But I'd rather know that now.
Because I still have time.
I can still play.
Well, I can once my wrist heals.
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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.
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