ON occasion this comment page attracts letters from readers who take serious exception to my thoughts and views about sport in Jersey.

On even rarer occasions, I have actually been heckled in public; the last time when I wrote about one of the sports I really do enjoy watching – netball.

I was at the Opera House at the time, when a woman I have never seen before and will probably never see again accused me of being ‘sexist’, because I’d talked about an inter-insular netball game which Jersey won, during which time I explained that I was so caught up in the mood of the game that after the first ten minutes or so I’d ‘forgotten’ the sex of the players I was watching.

Before curtain up I realized that I’d never been called a pervert before. ‘Disgusting! That you should even think about sex, when you’re supposed to be writing about sport!’ I was told.

At the time I was, physically, stopped in my tracks. And the haranguing continued. Because I’d mentioned the ‘S’ word I was being labelled as some kind of deviant who watched sports, apparently, not because I love my sport, but because these were girls – women – playing their sport in front of me.

It is an image of myself I have had to live with ever since. And, although this is a sports page comment piece I mention it, now, for several reasons.

First, because on Saturday I had the pleasure – and it was a genuine pleasure – of sharing an indoor picnic with Linda Andrews and Jackie Nelson from Jersey (and the shortbread was delicious, Jackie), plus Pamela Cookey and Sara Bayman from Team Bath, full England netball stars who are in their early 20s and who are both athletic and (so I suppose I am going to be accused of being sexist again!) very pretty. But during our hour-long conversation my interest was in all four women’s contribution to Island netball.

Of course, there are attractive netballers on court – but my second point is that while sport is, with the exception of my immediate family, the love of my life, I can remember taking my youngest daughter, Jamie, to a rugby international at Twickenham, who, at the time knew very little about the game. But she loved Jonny Wilkinson.

‘Look at his thighs!’ she said. And, having looked at them from a much more dispassionate viewpoint, I knew what she meant. My thighs, compared to Wilkinson’s, for example, are like Gummie Bear’s.

Not all people are immediately attracted to each other. If they were, we’d simply form a queue and marry whoever was next in line when it was our turn to choose.

I’ve probably laboured the point too much; but from my point of view that it is not a physical attraction in sport, but rather how good you are that matters. For example, one of my sporting heroes was Jason Robinson, on the wing for England. Why? Because I recognized his supreme athleticism. Another was Steve Redgrave; another was the late Mary Rand; another was Mary Peters.

In sport you judge people first, according to their talent and attitude. Talent. I’ve seen it in many forms over my lifetime, and if ‘Two Jags’ John Prescott played centre-forward for Derby and scored two goals every game for the Rams for the next two years, I’d happily place a (small) picture of him on the wall.

Of course you can’t ignore the sex of the people you watch in sport. But, personally, I’m more interested in what sportspeople achieve, rather than what they look like. And, besides, speaking as a sports journalist now in his mid-50s, I’d prefer personality over looks any day. Sexist? I’d argue ‘no’; but to be called to task was, I have to admit, a shock to the system.