I wanted my son to get into sport – but now I’ve created a monster

Struggling to keep up with his child’s athletic demands, Will Gore begins to feel his age

He is perpetually on the go; I am perennially knackered (Getty)

The child, so they say, is the father of the man. But the man rarely has as much energy as he once did.

I was a livewire as a youngster, full of anxious bounce. All I wanted to do was race about, kick a ball, dig a hole, throw a ball, play soldiers, catch a ball and fight my brother. I don’t recall ever being tired.

If ever I thought about it at all, I suppose I assumed most children were like that. Certainly, I imagined that my own children would be, and indeed my daughter was incredibly active in her early years, endlessly demanding to be out and about. Even when she couldn’t yet walk, we spent hours pounding the streets to keep her on the move, hoping she might fall asleep but resigning ourselves to the reality that she just wanted to see what was going on in the world.