COURAGE. Bravery. Spirit. Nerve. Guts. Pluck. Sheer old fashioned grit and determination.
Do you have all that? Hope so, because you're going to need it in spades if you're going to accept the ultimate challenge that our daughters passed with flying colours last week.
Put yourself in their position. Imagine you're dressed in a loose-fi
tting t-shirt, shorts, socks and pumps (but seeing as I'm such a nice guy I'll let you wear state-of-the-art running shoes, not that they'll do you much good. I mean, look at the state of you).
Then go and stand in a big field with between 120 and 180 people the same age as you.
Oh, did I mention that you'll be running a series of races against them and that the most important people in your lives will be perched on little red plastic chairs the full length of the track yelling at you like they were in the grandstand at Aintree when they've got 50 quid on the 100/1 shot that's neck-and-neck with the favourite with three furlongs to the finishing post.
That's school sports day, that is.
Getting a bit of a flashback? Got that horrible rising feeling in your stomach? I know I did.
Quite rightly, and as I've banged on about before, our kids' school is big on competitive sports. Of course, everyone who takes part is a winner – because the secret of sport is that you're not really up against an opponent, your biggest test is always against yourself. If you did better than you did last time then you've won – even if you didn't get a sticker with a big 'No.1' on it.
Having said that, kids being kids, they want to know who has won the sprint, egg and spoon, sack, obstacle and pyjama race.
Our nine-year-old daughter hates any sport that isn't swimming, but she was as game as anything for sports day. I was at the finish line when she lined up for the sprint, and she was so far away I had to zoom in as much as my little camcorder would allow to make sure it was her that I was filming and not some other kid with a floppy Madchester haircut and arms and legs so long that when she prizes herself off our sofa she looks like a giant spider crawling out from a crack in the wall – just like me when I was nine, apart from the bob haircut, I didn't have one of those till I was 19 and pretending I was Shaun Ryder.
Anyway, the whistle went and so did she. Off like a windmill, arms and legs whirling and she glided up the track to a creditable 5th place finish.
She didn't win but was happy enough to have taken part in a race with her mates. No tantrums, no appealing to the ref, no waving to the heavens or running the palms of her hands down her face in the way that Ronaldo used to do at Old Trafford after John O'Shea or Darren Fletcher had failed to put the ball right on his big toe with a 40-yard pass.
No, she grinned and walked back to her spot with the rest of her friends and waited for her next race. Next up was the lung-bursting one-lap yomp around the field. She didn't win that either but was delighted to have got to the finish line. I fully expect to see the winner taking gold for Great Britain in the Women's 800m at the 2020 Olympic Games – she finished about 40 yards ahead of everyone else and won every race she entered by a street, much to the bemusement of her parents.
The pyjama race and relay didn't bring any first prizes either but, from the Queen of Strops, there wasn't even a sneer. Not even a sideways glance of disappointment.
And to be fair to the school, teachers, parents and kids, you could say the same for just about every kid who didn't win – and even the ones that did didn't punch the air like heavyweight boxers once they'd crossed the finish line.
Then I realised what I'd witnessed – sportsmanship. Watching Premier League football most weekends it appears to be in very short supply.
The next day was our seven-year-old daughter's turn. She loves sport and is the ultimate competitior – or should that be warrior? Put it this way, she even eats her dinner competitively.
On the night before sports day she confidently breezed that she knew she'd win the egg and spoon and skipping, and would probably win the sprint.
Cometh the hour, cometh the girl. She romped home in the egg and spoon, won the skipping by a good 10 yards but was beaten by a head in the sprint.
Was she bothered? Was she balls.
After each race she went to sit down with her mates and nattered like nothing had happened.
Which, of course, it hadn't. Because as we all know sports days are hosted by the school for the benefit of the parents – not the children.
And don't we just love it.
