Peter Buckley: Loser as Winner

I ain’t no fight fan, but a Canadian friend who was once described boxing to me as “like chess at speed” and I can see why people follow the fight game. Yesterday I heard an item on the BBC whilst in the car, which refernced a slightly dotty item in yesterday’s Times: ‘World’s worst boxer throws in the towel on lucrative career as human punchbag:’

Peter Buckley, defeated 256 times, says that his next fight will be his last. He boxes so often that he sometimes turns up with a black eye before a bout. Boxing fans will gather in Birmingham on Friday night to witness the final fight of a man who should be remembered for ever as Britain’s most spectacular sporting loser...

Buckley has lost more fights than any other boxer in the world. Throughout his 256 defeats, he has remained magnificently undeterred. While the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBC) remained desperately concerned that he would do himself a serious lasting injury, Buckley persisted, losing bout after bout.

In the past five years he has put together a particularly impressive losing streak, failing to win in 88 successive bouts. “I’ve had my eye on the 300 mark for a while, and it’s a little milestone I want to achieve, but I don’t want to fight on,” he said...

One site commenter, obviously knowledgeable in these matters, is very positive:

Peter is a defensive master. He even gave a defense masterclass on Sky Sports a couple of years ago. He simply does not get hit. He has fought so many future champions and yet has been stopped 10 times in 299 fights.

You have to say he stays alive somehow, and must be a very courageous gentleman, with lots of grit and pluck and all those other Boys Own virtues our Edwardian great grandfathers so admired, that rather died in the trenches.

We Brits celebrate the charge of the Light Brigade and Captain Scott’s Polar expedition; so here’s to you, Peter Buckley. It probably couldn’t be asked in the US in such a way as to make sense, but here‘s a question: Every game has winners and losers. Why is “loser” a term of playground abuse? Can you be such a good loser that you become, eventually, an iconic winner? Resilience, courage and stickability are surely admirable qualities. I’m reminded of Cool Runnings and the Jamaican Bobsleigh Team. I’d certainly buy this guy a drink any day, and the article does say that by losing he has been an essential part of many winners’ careers. At that point the whole daft thing begins to sound almost Christian...

Crooks for Cats and Sport for all

I really enjoyed going back to Lacey Green School yesterday, three years after I first visited to open a new ICT suite. Paul de Wolf, then deputy head, is now head, and the school is a warm but focussed learning and social community. There’s an active school council, and I noticed how direct and confident the children were in their interactions with each other and adults.

The school’s large grounds are very well used, formally and informally. It buys in coaching from Wycombe Wanderers, London Wasps, and others, and large numbers are involved in team games — rugby, football, hockey, netball and even lacrosse. There’s real enthusiasm about organised sport in the school, but also a wonderful scheme where older children help out as structured play leaders for younger children, using informal play equipment like these space hoppers. There’s also a superb ecology garden, with raised beds which classes can fill for themselves. There’s major development going on to develop the reception area, and a really interesting project to put an outdoor learning area where there used to be a swimming pool.

In assembly, Children were sometimes lively and interactive and sometimes very focussed and quiet. There’s a prayer corner, and Denise Critchell, the local vicar, comes in every week, sharing friendship and faith with everyone in the school. I told the children about Jesus the good shepherd, who really cares whatever the cost, and will never give up on us. Someone in reception thought my crook has a hook to help me climb trees to rescue my cat, if it ever got stuck up there... I must try that sometime. Last year I confirmed Melissa Stone, the RE and worship co-ordinator, and I was really excited to see how her work in the school is really flourishing.

Paul told me about extended project work the children do on topics that interest them — The dragon (right) was part of a project on a painting of St George, and I was rather wowed by some particularly magnificent turtles from a Bermuda Triangle project:

The school mission statement says that St John’s School

exists in the community to provide all round excellence in education, developing and nurturing the intellectual, artistic, social, spiritual and physical resources of each child in a Christian context, enabling all pupils to achieve their full potential in a caring environment.

It’s been doing this for over 150 years, and right now it’s on a bit of a roll...