To Move Together

It’s a simple enough question—what’s the most fun way to exercise? But for me, the answer loops around in unexpected directions, landing somewhere between the paradoxical and the profound. The short answer is: with people. Always with people. But not just any people. And certainly not in any way.

This in itself is strange. I’m an introvert. I don’t light up a room, I don’t relish small talk, and I have never, not once, been the life of any party. And yet, I’ve always felt most alive when part of a team. Not at the centre of it—never there—but in the thick of it. Doing my bit. Playing my role. Pushing toward something together.

It started with football—real football, of course (Soccer, for the uninitiated). I laced up my boots at seven, and played through most of the next fifty years. Sure, there were gaps—university, work, life—but it was the constant rhythm of training, matches, camaraderie, and the quiet satisfaction of teamwork that shaped my physical life.

Then came the end of it. I stopped playing in my late fifties. Partly because work ramped up and I couldn’t commit to the fitness I wanted. But mostly because of the merger. Two teams joined into one—on paper, a practical solution. In reality, it dismantled everything I loved. The other team were former state champions, and they carried that pedigree proudly. There was no grace for mistakes. Imperfection was punished, performance was everything. I don’t do ego-driven spaces well. I’m not the “smartest guy in the room.” I’m not even looking for the room.

Ironically, that space, which should have been about team, became a battleground for individual supremacy. The very thing that made football fun—the collective striving, the subtle symphony of roles—was drowned out by noise and posture. It’s ironic that a game designed to be played together could be torn apart by too much self.

And yet, this introvert—this person who finds solace in the background—needs others to exercise with joy. That’s the paradox. I tried the gym: endless rows of mirrors reflecting back my boredom. I tried cycling: practical, once. I rode everywhere after our family’s old EH Holden was stolen and burnt—pre-Lycra, pre-MAMIL. I was lean, fit, sun-bronzed from mowing lawns for eight hours a day, but even then, the cycling wasn’t the fun part. It was just how I got there.

As for golf—no thanks. A sport that demands solitary perfection is my personal purgatory. There’s no team. Just a quiet war against yourself and your swing. Too frustrating, too lonely.

So I circle back, again and again, to the same strange truth: the fun in exercise is communal, but never competitive. I don’t want to be the best. I want to belong. I want to contribute. I want to know my role and do it well, not loudly. It’s in those spaces—where ego fades and effort shines—that I find joy. Where you’re not pushing yourself to the front, but pushing yourself to offer something worthy. A tackle. A pass. A run. A goal. An assist.

It’s not about being seen. It’s about seeing—the space, the teammate, the moment—and moving toward it. And that, for me, is the most fun way to move. Together.

It begins with a ball,
and a team,
and a space that isn’t yours alone.

Not a spotlight—
a patch of grass,
a line to hold,
a role to play,
with others breathing beside you.

I have never needed to lead,
never wanted the microphone,
but give me a place
in the pattern,
and I will run until I can’t.

Strange, maybe—
that an introvert finds joy
in the hum of shared movement.
Not the gym’s mirror maze,
not the solitary thud of a golf swing
against too much sky.

But a shout from the wing,
a glance,
a run made trusting someone sees you.
That is music.

For fifty years
I traced that rhythm—
boot to ball,
breath to chase,
my body learning how
to belong.

Then it stopped.
Not all at once.
Work crept in like a tide,
but what really ended it
was pride.
Too much posture,
not enough play.
A team that forgot
how to be team.

They punished mistakes.
They performed.
They were champions, once—
but champions of what?

I slipped away.
Quietly.
Because joy had left the field.

I do not chase greatness.
I chase connection.
That moment when your part,
small but vital,
slides perfectly
into the whole.

The fun is not in the finish.
It’s in the movement,
shared.

In the contribution
you give without fanfare.
In the knowing:
you were part of something
that only worked
because you were there.