10 things I learned about improv comedy from losing A LOT
The same skills of resilience, humility and teamwork continue to be so valuable from muddy playing fields to black-box pub theatres.
From 13 to 16 years old I played Sunday league football in the North Bury Junior Football League Division Two. My team was Bury FC Juniors B. At the turn of the 2000s, Bury FC was fairly high-flying in the context of their history, hovering between Division 1 and 2 (now the Championship and League One). They beat Manchester City once.
However, the club had no footballing centre of excellence to incubate youth talent. We were an offshoot of the Supporters’ Club: mainly the sons of members and their friends, based out of a glorified portakabin in the stadium carpark. And we were the B team. In the second division of two. Think black-box pub theatre versus a historic West End auditorium.
Bury FC no longer exists in its current form. We weren’t directly to blame, but we weren’t exactly the next generation of youth football talent to save the club in the long-term either. Much like 90% of live theatre fans aren’t checking for improv shows, 90% of teenage football fans in Bury at the time were more interested in Manchester United.
We went to Gigg Lane for two reasons: when there were free tickets to Bury games for local high school students, and when Man Utd Reserves played there. For £2 for adults and zero for kids, you could see the nascent Class of 92 tear-up trees a short walk from your house. A couple of decades later, Bury FC went bust. Makes sense.
From 1998 to 2002, my Bury FC Juniors B side played around 120 games. We won 3, drew 3, and lost the remaining 80-odd games. Often by double-figure margins. A defeat by less than 7 goals was a good Sunday. Cup games were a new form of torture, allowing us to be humbled by youths from across the entirety of north and east Manchester. We lost 18-0 to the Failsworth Tigers in a game the referee (himself only 4 or 5 years older than us) stopped 10 minutes early as an act of mercy. I’ve not returned to Failsworth since in case I’m laughed out of town.
Despite my self-perceived prowess as a goal-poaching fox-in-the-box in the Ruud Van Nistelrooy mold, I played left-back (most often met with the follow-up phrase ‘in the changing rooms’).
Surely among the most futile positions in a losing team, I spent most of my time fishing the ball out of the net after it was lobbed over our goalkeeper (the smallest player on the team) or dispatched there in error by a member of our own team. Across those 120 games, I scored 3 goals, and 3 own goals. A picture of conflict-avoiding, fence-sitting neutrality I maintain to this day. I’m very malleable and I guess that’s useful for improvising?
This team was not a picture of organisation. We had 4 different kits over the 4 seasons. The first was a Bury FC first team replica kit from 3 seasons before - sponsor logo of local enormo-corporation Birthdays card shop fading and peeling from the front. The jersey was worn by local heroes Chris Lucketti and Michael Jackson (not that one).
The second was this oversized yellow-and-blue Umbro kit clearly intended for a team of very large adults. The third was a very itchy factory-second bright red ‘Adidas’ number. Finally, we all decided to use our pocket money to buy our own kit, via the £5 replica shirt offer in the club shop intended to save Bury FC from financial ruin. Spoiler: it didn’t work.
It took 6 months for our training drill-tops to arrive, with our initials embroidered on the chest and team name on the back. It wasn’t much, but was our most treasured possession. Sometimes the improv uniform of plaid-shirts and converse will do just fine.
Our coach was one of the Dads obviously, with no qualifications beyond regular availability on a Sunday and having a son in the team. Pep Guardiola he was not. There were two tactical masterclass instructions from the touchline, both delivered at high volume whenever he felt like it: ‘SHOOT!’ and ‘GET OUT!’.
The latter was an attempt to play an offside trap. This was doomed to fail in myriad ways: we didn’t ever prepare it in training, nor were there any linesmen to actually award offsides. None of us knew where to stand, or where to move. You couldn’t play a silky possession based game on the quagmire fields we played on. We didn’t have the skill to do so anyway.
Warm-ups consisted solely of us lined-up on the edge of the box blasting shots at the keeper - we rarely got far enough forward to use this ‘skill’ in a match. Warm-up properly before your improv shows.
We were a freeform team, no clever improv formats like a Harold or Pretty Flower here. Just 11 lads recklessly running around a field for 90 minutes, having the time of their lives. Hoof it and run.
Every Sunday my Dad would schlep us to muddy fields across Bury, Bolton and Salford, and loyally stand in the rain (it always rained) while we suffered another chastening defeat, then drive us back covered in mud and shame. He was actually good at sport in his youth. Charitably, I was keen. Unfortunately, I was also keen on a picky diet of hamburgers and chocolate, the breakfast of champions*.
But we kept turning up, because we loved it. We loved playing with our friends and acting out the fantasy that we might one day be real footballers. Now, I improvise, to act out the fantasy that I might one day be a real actor. Old habits die hard.
We played for the love of it. We were uncompetitive. We weren’t just willing to lose, it was an essential part of our being. Failure was very much an option. The only option. We bonded hugely. From the angry sets of lads we faced each week, it was clear we were the best friends and loved each other the most.
This wasn’t enough to win very often, but it meant we supported each other massively in the highs (on the rare occasion we actually scored a goal against a top of the league team) and lows. One of our teammates badly broke their ankle in a game. The opposition and their coach laughed at him thinking he was play-acting. We knew he was honest. An ambulance picked him up from that game. We all went to visit him in hospital. The other team sent a card.
We did win one trophy - the league’s Fair Play Award - on more than one occasion. This is despite receiving our fair share of red cards due to our clumsy defending. That same teammate who broke their ankle was actually sent-off the week before. He wouldn’t have been playing if his £28 fine and suspension had come through from the league office in time.
The Fair Play Award was pity-prize handed to the team in the league who were so sporting they allowed their opponents to rack up their points tally and goal difference by astonishing margins every week. We couldn’t believe the glamour of Radcliffe Civic Hall for the ceremony. And to win an award! We must be doing something right. They don’t typically hand out prizes for improv, but if they did, it’d be theatre’s Fair Play Award.
When you lose every week, your whole parameters for enjoyment and success are different. Like improv: It’s not actually about the result, it’s the process. Improv can be frustrating for actors who are used to going into sets or acting gigs with a detailed handle on their character and lines that speak to it.
Losing week-after-week without a plan on Lancashire’s muddy playing fields, I learned to enjoy the process. I learned to trust my instincts, since I have no control over the audience’s reaction beyond that. I learned how I was just one part of the whole. It wasn’t just about me. A team requires you to put ego to one-side.
I learned how if a team wasn’t organised, if they didn’t all pull in the same direction, they wouldn’t succeed.
Those times we did were the times we pulled off one of our 6 draws or wins. Most of all, I learned how much fun it is to play with your friends. These are the things I try to remember now. Now I can run around having fun with my friends, except my friends are some of the best in the world at the thing we’re doing AND I don’t even have to do it in the rain. That’s a win.
*So picky was my diet that on a trip to the US, I actually had 3 different forms of hamburger for each meal of the day. God bless America.
If more sport-meets-improv is your thing: I direct and perform in Winner - the improvised sporting biopic - at The Free Association in London. Currently running every Friday and Saturday until 29 April 2023. Tickets here.