My new year’s resolution is to raise my badminton game to high art

Sport is all about artistry; or at least it should be. That’s why cricket is plainly the greatest sport of all, a thing of beauty as well as skill, the batter wielding their willow wand against spells cast by bowlers of various stripes. Admittedly it’s not always obvious when watching England, but hey ho.

By contrast, F1 isn’t really a sport at all, but an engineering competition. Rugby has moments of high art, but is mostly low thuggery. And while it’s no doubt impressive that some people can swim quickly, essentially it’s just a lot of splashing about.

Football falls somewhere in the middle of the artistic spectrum. It can, in the phrase popularised by Pelé, indeed be “the beautiful game”; but I have watched too many matches at Cambridge United’s Abbey Stadium to be under any illusion about football’s capacity for turgidity. As for playing it, my overriding memories are of feeling cold and angry.

Recently, I have rediscovered my love for a game that can certainly be bracketed among sport’s most aesthetically pleasing; one that is almost poetic in its flow, as speed and strength is interspersed with deftness, delicacy and elements of deception. I’m talking of course about badminton.

Quite why badminton has had to play second fiddle to tennis in the pantheon of racquet sports is beyond me. That isn’t to diss tennis particularly, but it patently has less to offer the casual player, and as a spectator sport it can frequently be mundane: for every great rally in tennis, there seem to be five or six that involve interminable hits to the baseline followed by an unforced error.

I first played badminton when I was 11 or so. I’m not sure how I came to join a club in my village, but join it I did, along with a couple of my school mates. It cost a quid a week as far as I remember, plus 10p for a KitKat and a cup of squash halfway through. The club was run by an old chap called George Peake, who could occasionally be crotchety, but who was hugely encouraging of the younger players – even when we started to beat him.

Until I was 14 or 15, I played at the club every week, until I reached a misguided age when badminton suddenly seemed uncool. I then didn’t pick up a shuttlecock again until my early twenties, when I played occasionally with a group in Earlsfield, south London. It too was run by a moderately grumpy old buffer, as these kinds of club generally are I suppose.

A move away from the area meant I left that club behind too. But my latent affection for the sport has remained, and my enthusiasm has occasionally been fired by modest British success at the Olympic Games.

Now, after a break of nearly two decades, I am back on court, having discovered that a friend in Berkhamsted is a fellow badminton devotee. We both have slightly dodgy knees, and are perhaps not quite as svelte as we might once have been. Ahead of our last match, we also both unwisely chose to eat a large dinner, which possibly didn’t help our speed at the net.

Still, my drop-shot – which was always the deadliest weapon in my badders armoury – turns out to be in good working order, despite the passing of years. And I can still slice a low serve that deceives my opponent at least as often as it falls short of the service box.

There are occasional air shots for sure, and the clank of conical shuttle on racquet frame is heard more often than it should be. Yet we have played some rallies of rare quality and loveliness, flicks flying high, drives buccaneering to the rear of the court, and delightful dinks dropping just over the net to win the point with a final, arty flourish.

My new year’s resolution for 2022 will be to play more badminton, not for the sake of winning but for the innate glory of this beautiful game.