The Pope, Lewis Hamilton and my mum: a week that reminded me of the joy of sport
There is so much wrong with modern sport, it's easy to forget that it can touch so many lives, so profoundly. I've been reminded of that this past week
This story might initially seem to revolve around Pope John Paul II, Lewis Hamilton and my mum but I can promise you it’s about much more than that - it’s about sport’s capacity to bring joy.
When you’ve done the job I’ve done for so long, writing about corruption and doping and sports washing, abuse scandals, vast gender inequality and much else, it can be easy to forget the great bits.
Over the past week, I’ve experienced a few.
Late last year my mum’s GP thought she was a bit pale and maybe anaemic. He ordered some blood tests, and then some scans. Conclusion: cancer of the oesophagus. At 78 there was a theoretical option of surgery but one with massive risks and guarantees of huge long-term complications. It was ruled out but don’t waste a second on sympathy - my mum is an archetypal half-glass-full kind of person.
She was told she may have a year with a reasonable quality of life, but no guarantees. And when the tumour finally stopped her eating, at least it would be quick.
Her response? “Time to live every last drop of life.” And then she shared a bucket list that included a big weekend with all the family: her three kids, our kids (her eight grandchildren), and their partners, and a few other lifelong friends.
Also on the list: being well enough to be at two grandchildren’s weddings, in April and June, the latter of her oldest granddaughter, Poppy, who is 28 today - Happy Birthday, Pops! 🎈 - and now a doctor in Liverpool.
Mum also said she’d love to go to an F1 Grand Prix. Mum has been an F1 superfan for decades. She has a Sky subscription solely to watch every minute of every F1 race weekend. Since Poppy was maybe six, they’ve watched it together whenever they can.
My mum’s favourite driver is Lewis Hamilton. She’s been on first-name terms with Lewis since he entered the sport, despite never having met him or ever had any contact with him. For years she has talked about Lewis and Toto and George, as if she routinely has them round for tea. Toto Wolff is the CEO of the Mercedes team and George Russell is Hamilton’s team-mate.
As for Mercedes’ rivals, Mum thinks Red Bull’s team principal Christian Horner is “a bit of a rotter"“, but she holds even greater disdain for “grumpy” Max Verstappen; it’s not so much that he has been winning all the time but she thinks he’s rude.
Anyway, she is immersed in F1 and Mercedes is her team. Poppy and other family members have adopted Mum’s stance; no less than two speeches at Poppy’s wedding last month cited family disapproval of Max.
Rewinding to March, we arranged that family get-together and it was brilliant, a Friday to Sunday party of good food, beach walks for those who were able, karaoke, all sorts of games, a Sunday roast, and a “special meeting” convened by Mum.
We assembled on sofas and rugs in the big lounge and she solemnly announced that she knew, when she was gone, that we’d all want to inherit THAT framed photo of her and Pope John Paul II, the one taken in the early 90s when she took a trip to Rome with some friends from church.
This cherished item, below - where Mum’s right hand is brushing the fingers of Pope John Paul II’s left hand - has become a family running joke over the years. But it’s been on her wall ever since. Then, wallop! It’s pretty amazing how a terminal diagnosis makes you recalibrate. Oh, actually, that is a pretty special piece of memorabilia after all. So of course we all want it.
Mum told us all our names were on bits of paper in a cloth bag she produced from the side of her armchair. “One of you will get The Pope,” she said, “and I want you all to see it was given fairly.”
She then proceeded to draw three blank squares of paper consecutively, claiming she didn’t know what was happening. But she had a glint in her eye. And then she produced a box with a framed copy of that photo for everyone.
The family get-together meant so much to Mum but we knew she had other fish to fry. Other heroes to see. Poppy and I bought her a VIP day for the Saturday of this year’s Silverstone Grand Prix; the one that happened three days ago. I joked with Mum on that March weekend that she might one day get to meet someone even more famous than The Pope, namely Lewis, and she laughed, and I didn’t mention it again.
Fast forward to Wednesday of the week before last, and I hadn’t given it any further thought but I’d got an email address for the Mercedes team. I don’t know anyone in F1; I’ve never covered it. It wasn’t like I was using contacts to try to wangle something.
I just sent an email saying my mum had been ill but she’s determined to live life to the full while she can blah blah. I explained Mum and Poppy would be going to the Saturday practice day at Silverstone and I know it’s probably impossible, but was there any way she could meet Lewis for 10 seconds at any point on that day and get a selfie?
Failing that, could Lewis record a 10-second message saying: “Hi Penny, I’m told you’re a huge fan and thanks for coming to support me at the Silverstone Grand Prix.”
I thought the first option would not be possible, but maybe the second could happen. I pressed send.
The next morning I set off on my holiday, a road trip holiday I’m still on, currently in Copenhagen. First I went down to Manchester to see friends, then to Nottingham to see Mum, before heading off to a couple of days at Wimbledon before taking the Chunnel to the continent.
About 11am on the Thursday before last, after sending the email on Wednesday evening, my mobile rang and I answered it and a friendly woman asked if this was Nick. Yes I said.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m calling from Mercedes, we got your email last night about your mum. I’m afraid there is NO way we can do Saturday; it’s qualifying, so no distractions and there’s all sorts of security stuff that make it impossible.”
“Ok, thanks for letting me know,” I said. I thought the next line might be "Could you confirm your phone number because maybe Lewis can send a WhatsApp message?”
Except it wasn’t that. It was: “But we can do the Thursday, if your mum can get to Silverstone. She’ll meet the team, have a spot of lunch, get a tour of our garage.”
“WHAAAT?” I said. “Really?”
“Yes, but we need a definite yes or no by 3pm because we have to get security clearance and badges for all guests and that’s the cut-off. We need photos and details for your mum and whoever will be accompanying her.”
“YES,” I almost shouted. “I’ll make it work.”
I called Poppy - she couldn’t believe it, away on honeymoon, but couldn’t be the one to accompany Mum on the Thursday. I tried lots of people and left lots of messages before getting a firm yes from a family friend, Alice.
I phoned my mum to tell her she was going to Silverstone as a guest of Mercedes on the Thursday of Grand Prix week, ie in a week’s time, and she was speechless. Speechless apart from telling everyone she knew that she was going to meet Lewis Hamilton.
By the time the fateful Thursday rolled around - last Thursday, that is - I was over in Antwerp on my road trip, having a couple of days with an old school friend from Nottingham, Helena, and her family.
I’m not quite sure how you’d describe the intervening week of Mum’s life but she was off-the-charts excited, equal parts disbelief and exhilarated. Of course I started to worry that it might not live up to her expectations.
Alice sent me a WhatsApp about 10am last Thursday saying they were setting off. And another at 12.42pm as they picked up their lanyards at the Mercedes reception. Then a photo of lunch at 2pm, and message that Lewis would be arriving at 3pm.
There were pictures from the pit lane, and the garage, and then this, below, which Alice captioned: “Meeting the top man.”
Mum and Toto Wolff, or Toto as Mum calls him. Chatting like she’s known him for years, asking after his wife and the plans for the weekend. He was, apparently, absolutely lovely.
And then my phone pinged again. This time it’s a pic of Lewis, Mum and Alice, as below. I have no idea what is going on with Mum’s hair; she lost quite a bit after radiotherapy earlier this year to try to buy her more time. She insists it was a windy day. But who cares, really?! That’s Mum … and Lewis!
Another message from Alice, gushing: “Honestly, he’s SO nice.”
Later that evening when she was home, Mum told me all about it. She might as well have been literally in the clouds, waxing lyrical about how Lewis had been so kind and interested, and took lots of questions from other guests at lunch - largely kids with life-limiting illnesses - and spent time with everyone, and signed everything any wanting signing, and was just SO lovely.
“Did Alice send you the photo of me with George?” Mum asked. “He won the Austrian Grand Prix last weekend and he sat down with me and talked for ages. He’s such a lovely young man.”
Mum has been in a kind of wonderland, but we’ll come back to her day at qualifying, and Sunday’s Silverstone Grand Prix, shortly.
Before I arrived in Antwerp, I’d said to Helena I wasn’t sure where my road trip would end up. Maybe I’d go via Germany and try to catch a game or see if Thomas Hitzlsperger (our pundit in Sporting Intelligence’s Euro 2024 preview series) was free for lunch.
Going to Euro 2024 wasn’t in my main plan, certainly not to see England; I’m fairly agnostic on international football but I’m always up for seeing exciting teams of any nation. England had not been exciting although surely they could be!
Then Helena told me she’d never been to an England game, and she would love to go one day. We grew up together in Nottingham. She’s a massive Forest fan and was a regular in the Trend End from her teens in the 1980s. But she’s lived abroad for much of the past few decades.
After England’s last-16 win, I put out feelers to see if there was any chance I could get a couple of tickets for England vs Switzerland. I struck gold, or rather red and white, and was gobsmacked that a friend offered me two really decent seats. Helena, like my mum with Lewis, was off-the-scale excited.
Over lunch before the match on Saturday, she assured me she could be utterly starstruck by seeing such stars as Harry Kane (her favourite England player) and Bukayo Saka, and Phil Foden, in the flesh. “I cannot believe we are going to see them, and so close up.” (Our seats were in the second row on a side block, pretty much in line with the 18-yard box).
I was transported back to being that excited myself, at about eight years old, with my dad at a Southampton game either at The Dell or at an away game, standing in a car park, post-match, waiting for my heroes to sign my autograph book. At that time those heroes included Nick Holmes (youngster in the 1976 team who beat Manchester United in the FA Cup final), Alan Ball, Chris Nicholl, Peter Osgood, Mick Channon and so many others.
Helena was high, no two ways about it, and she hadn’t had a drop of booze or any artificial stimulant. This was the power of sport, and sporting heroes.
We got into the stadium and when the players came out, Helena was cock-a-hoop, messaging her 16-year-daughter and various friends.
We were in a mixed block, England fans, Switzerland fans and neutrals but the atmosphere was brilliant. The game, in my view, wasn’t anywhere near as turgid as numerous podcasts and reports told me it was afterwards, but maybe that was the “being there” premium.
Sure, there weren’t loads of England shots but it was so much better than the four previous games, and we had Cole Palmer and Luke Shaw and Trent AA and various others warming up for long periods, right in front of us.
Switzerland scored and Helena got worried. She was so invested in this, it was a joy to watch! Then Saka equalised, and celebrated right in front of us (clip I filmed below). Again, joyous.
Bukayo Saka is one of my favourite footballers. Not only can he light up a game, but he also seems like a thoroughly lovely young man. I’ve never met him but I’ve had some arms-length interaction, including in 2021, when a friend who runs a charity was trying to find a money-can’t-buy experience for a young Arsenal fan in the last days of his life.
I have told this story before, on Twitter, in 2022, and I make no apologies for telling it again here. You can read the original tweet thread, or visit it by clicking the tweet below.
Long story short, on behalf of my friend, I’d emailed Arsenal to explain about the poorly fan. Saka was away on England duty but I’d said if he could film a little clip when he got back, that would be amazing. The next day, a personalised clip pinged into my WhatsApp.
That young fan, in his dying days, had a message from Saka saying he was with him. It meant the world …
But back to England versus Switzerland, which goes to penalties. By this point Helena has become engrossed beyond words, yelling “C’MON” and “Go on JUUUUUDE” so loudly, she kept startling herself and then looking at me as if to say “Sorry.”
Don’t be sorry, I said.
And so to penalties. “Oh my GOD!” said Helena. “My legs are like jelly.”
And she spent the entirety of the spot kicks yelling “Come on Englaaaand” and clapping her hands, non-stop. This is the footage I took of Trent AA’s winning penalty, and yes, that’s Helena you can hear, clapping and screaming.
Glorious.
Trent AA has, of course, been an integral part of Liverpool’s successes in recent years, winning the Premier League, Champions League and assorted other cups. I know that he, like so many club-mates and indeed like so many football players and sportspeope at all levels, has done a lot of good work in the community, making a fan’s day - or month or year - via simple, unreported interactions that mean the world.
Now and again these things will be shared, and go viral, and will move millions of people. But the vast majority of this stuff will happen without fanfare. All I can add, given the past week, is that sport matters, and it matters sooooo much more than you’d ever think. Now and again.
Silverstone Grand Prix postscript
I called mum late on Saturday after I got back to my Dusseldorf hotel and she was home from her VIP day at qualifying. She’d had another absolute blast, from a big breakfast early in the morning in her trackside suite, to a small glass of red as soon as the bar opened at 11am. She hardly ever drinks so this was pushing the boat out. They’d watched a day of racing too, and all was right with the world.
Fast forward to Sunday, and about 4.30pm UK time, or 5.30pm Danish time, where I was now closing in on Odense on my way north to Scandinavia from Dusseldorf.
If you were on the E20 outside Odense about that time and you noticed a car with British number plates being driven by a bloke with frizzy hair and damp cheeks, it was probably me at the wheel.
I’d just listened to the Silverstone Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton had not won an F1 race since victory in Saudi Arabia in December 2021.
Yet in a rain-affected 2024 British Grand Prix, in his final British GP of his time with Mercedes, he’d won. I’m not hugely into F1 but this was dramatic stuff. And even more dramatic as Radio 5 Live interviewed his dad afterwards, on the edge of tears, then Lewis himself, who said he couldn’t stop crying.
Even Toto - my mum’s mate, Toto Wolff, that is - was hugely emotional.
I rang Mum later in the evening. She was already convinced that it was down to her, that lunch with Lewis on Thursday had made all the difference. And she will believe it, and revel in it, until the day she dies.
There is just one more twist in this tale. Back in March, when Mum had given us the photos of The Pope, and I’d suggested that maybe one day she might dream of having a photo of her and Lewis, I had asked her: “If that did happen, and theoretically there was only space on your wall for one of them, who would it be?”
And she’d looked a bit sheepish. And, with a twinkle in her eye, she whispered: “Lewis?”
Beautiful piece, Nick
Nick, I just sobbed my way through this. The photo of your Mum with Lewis is beyond wonderful.x