As I say, I've been umming and ahhing for a while about it because it is very personal to me and something that I had blocked out for the majority of my adult life. In fact, I only remembered about it when a memory was triggered last year and the whole story came tumbling out to my long suffering wife.
I don't want any sympathy for this, it happened, I blocked it out, I remembered it and I moved on. This is a catharsis thing. (Again with the catharsis thing Dude! Give it a rest why don't you?)
So here it is...
My dad used to watch the wrestling on Saturday afternoon every week with Giant haystacks and big daddy and brian Jacks et al. When I was in primary school, there was a guy that used to hang around the school gates talking to parents trying to publicise his wrestling club, he had a very old fashioned mutton chop moustache thing going on and looked quite charismatic and eccentric. Friends of friends said not to have anything to do with him as he was a dirty man. At this point, I can only picture him in a grubby mackintosh now, even though I am sure he never wore one as the parents would've surely beaten him away from their kids if he looked so dirty... Maybe it's my memory playing tricks and I clothed him in stereotypical paedophile garb.
I can't quite remember how, but one of my friends got invited to the club and asked me to go with him. It wasn't for him and he only lasted a couple of weeks. I however persevered. I wanted to impress my dad with my wrestling abilities and emulate the guys on the telly. It was held at a little hall in the Tilery area of Stockton on Tees and looked a little dingy but there were proper mats and there was a healthy uptake of boys up to the age of around 12-13 so it had to be legitimate. I have to admit that stuff like that didn't really feature in my mental precautions, but I have a feeling that it must've struck a chord with my parents and the parents of the other kids who regularly dropped their kids off at the hall every week.
So fast forward a little bit, I am getting exercise and learning something in the process as it turned out, it was very different to the display wrestling that I had been exposed to and there was a lot more rolling around in the floor. The guy that was branded a dirty man ran the club and did so quite well in my opinion, I was learning some competition wrestling and getting better weekly. We didn't go to any local or national competitions though and this began to trouble me. Why do it if there was no reward?
Then came the yearly (apparently) inter club wrestling competition. This is the thing that I blocked out for so long. (Quick spoiler, there was no physical fiddling so don't be afraid to read on). The competition was held on a Saturday rather than on a regular training night. The weigh in was a little strange though. We all were required to wear the regulation suit when practicing, but at the weigh in, the chap insisted that we disrobe entirely to use the scales. The older boys were adamant that they were leaving their underpants on at least, but the younger boys all dutifully took their clothes and underpants off to be weighed with the chap kneeling down in front of us looking at the dial on the scales. Nothing felt wrong about this at the time and indeed I was chuckling about the older boys not wanting to take their pants off to get a more accurate reading on the scales. As it turned out, there was no-one else in my age-weight group to wrestle with so I automatically achieved a gold. I still have the little plastic plaque somewhere in the attic. After that, I kind of drifted away from the wrestling. If there was no competitive element to it then what was the point? I didn't have to do anything to get a gold so there was no challenge... After that, I started going to judo at a more prestigious and above board class at the sports centre in Thornaby when I hit senior school and consequently broke my arm at a competition meaning I would never compete again.
The point is that even though fiddling wasn't involved with me at least (no idea about with the other boys) and I can't remember the chaps name, so I can't research it. I'm not actually sure that I want to see if anything happened to the guy or the wrestling club just in case I find something I don't really want to.
There is a point to all of this. A person in a position of power abused his authority and even though I had been warned about him, it didn't even register that he was doing something wrong when he asked the boys to get naked to be weighed. He abused us without touching us, he took away our right to privacy, his authority was not questioned (except by the older boys and even then they acquiesced by disrobing to their pants). I wish I could confront the bastard now and ask why he did that. Likely as not, he's probably dead now as he was certainly getting on when I was that age. So, no closure on it. Just because he didn't touch or ask us to touch him, it doesn't mean that lives aren't ruined as a result. I think I got off pretty lightly and was only psychologically fucked up as a result. I might see if I can find the plaque to ritually burn it to placate my demons.
I had managed to block it all out until earlier this year, I am glad that I did remember as it could explain some of the problems that I had with male role models later in life. In fact, I am sure that it had soured my relationship with my dad.
He was the one that dropped me off every week and the person that I wanted to impress most by being like his Saturday afternoon heroes.
No jokes in this one guys... This was purely getting it out of my head and onto digital paper. I seem to be doing this rather a lot recently. Is it a good thing? I certainly feel lighter for putting it here.
