Oh What A Time... - #176 Sporting Revolutionaries And Tom Gets Stuck On A Rollercoaster (Part 1)

Episode Date: April 26, 2026

This week on the show we’re talking about the sporting prowess of history’s most well-known revolutionaries; we have baseball-loving Fidel Castro, Chairman Mao’s love of ping pong and we’ve got Vladimir Lenin and his love of the bicycle.Elsewhere, Tom Craine got stuck up a rollercoaster. Has this ever happened to you? Why does this sort of thing keep happening to Tom? If you know, please do inform us: [e-mail] from now on Part 1 is released on Monday and Part 2 on Wednesday - but if you want more Oh What A Time and both parts at once, you should sign up for our Patreon! On there you’ll now find:•The full archive of bonus episodes•Brand new bonus episodes each month•OWAT subscriber group chats•Loads of extra perks for supporters of the show•PLUS ad-free episodes earlier than everyone elseJoin us at 👉 patreon.com/ohwhatatimeAnd as a special thank you for joining, use the code CUSTARD for 25% off your first month.You can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh, What a Time is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else, add free, plus access to our full archive of bonus content, two bonus episodes every month, early access to live show tickets and access to the Oh Water Time group chat. Plus, if you become an O Water Time All-Timer, myself, Tom and Ellis, will riff on your name to postulate where else in history you might have popped up. For all your options, you can go to patreon.com forward slash oh water time. And welcome to Oh, What a Time. Welcome to this episode, which is on Sporting Revolutionaries. Now, this is a history podcast where we dwell on the past, and Tom, we have to dwell on something that happened in your past. Anyone who's seen the Oh, What a Time Instagram will know what happened to you.

I'm going to give you the floor and just kick us off. You're having a lovely day at Alton Towers. Yeah. I'd have given anything to the floor to be on a skull. What happened next? desperate to get back to the floor. I go to Horton Towers and my kids. Lovely day.

We've been there an hour. We've already spent £700 on. On chips and fluffy animals and whatever it happens to be. Anyway, we go on a ride called, is it called the spinning devil or the whirly spinner? There's some kind of ride. Sounds bad. There's a lot of screams as we approach it.

I get on the ride. We go around successfully. it's the scariest two minutes of my life. We're pulling back into the station to get off, and then we stop. And there we remain stuck on the ride for 50 minutes. 5-0? 5-0.

This is our first ride of the day, the first ride of the entire day. So 50 minutes, we're stuck. So were your kids with you? Me and my 7-year-old. So toilet-wise, what are we talking? I would be terrified that my son would need the toilet. Yes.

If he was on a ride for 50 minutes. The amount of tears meant that he was getting rid of liquid. Oh, no. We'd probably help that situation. Yeah, there was a degree of comforting, to be honest. It was fine to begin with, but after... Well, yours or his? Well, I was suppressing mine.

Well done. But, yeah, it's a lot. It's a long time to be sat. Also, it's a spinning carriage. And unfortunately, ours had spun in such a way that it was facing directly into the sun. So the people behind us... were in the shade and having quite a relaxing time. We were basically on a sunbed.

Unbelievably hot, 45 minutes. Even more painful, we'd broke it down just by the temporary platform. And they were calling out to us that due to, as the guy described it, forms and legislation, they weren't able to move us onto this temporary platform and get it off, get us off. Basically, the legalities of it meant that we were stuck, despite the fact rescue was at one footstep. step away so we just have to sit there stuck on this ride for 45 minutes first ride if you were a different kind of person you'd have ended up doing that anyway right you'd have

had a fight with a guy in high viz and i can name a hundred dads who would have done that and it would have been such a you'd have made a horrible event even worse yeah what i'd say to that ell you know what i'm like what would happen is i would have stepped out one foot on the platform which point the ride would have started again and now i've got one foot in the ride and one on the platform My left is getting dragged further and further apart. Part of your penis is on the ride. Can I say when I told my wife what had happened to you, Sophie said that her first question was, did she have the kids with him?

And it just made me laugh thinking that some part of her thought you might have gone to Alton Towers on your own and got on rides on your own. But I remember Tom dragging me to Chessington when we did have children. Can I do that? Because he genuinely loves theme parks. Yeah, I do quite like a ride. But I like them when they're moving. when they're static for 45 minutes in the sun.

A friend of mine, she was at fairground in West Wales, and it went wrong when she was upside down. What? And she was there to get the fire brigade. Oh, my God. She had to give an interview to the local paper. Well, she was still upside down. No, no.

She kept the article. Yeah. And the caption was, terrified. But the only photo, the photos she gave to them was of her with a load of friends on a night down. And she's smiling in the foot. She was like, terrified. But she was upside down.

And I said, how was it? She said, my friend got very, very upset and was completely manic throughout. Whereas I felt a tremendous sense of calm. Well, this was the blessing, actually. There were parts of the ride where you spiral up really high and you're at an angle and you are essentially upside down. So it could have been much worse. So I was sort of, I was clinging on to that fact, basically.

But it was quite a long time. and also not really knowing when you're going to get off is a sort of strange experience. Also, such a, I mean, an experience didn't really exist prior to about the 1890s. Yes. So it's almost a new human, as in the grand scheme of things,

a new human experience. But I put this on our Instagram page, by the way, and we got so many messages about this on my personal page and also on the show's Instagram. And basically every message, There must be probably 90 to 100 messages are all like, this is so you. This is exactly what you do. Classic crane.

It's all versions of that. Classic crane. Of course this has happened to you. I told my daughter about you eating the ticket. Oh, yeah. And she was just like, I love it. In a way that she respects the eccentricity or just things? No, just like, I wouldn't have imagined it.

Couldn't have come up with that, but it's happened. and I love it. So there we are. But I survived it. I've got a free bottle of mineral water and also, do you know what, they've also given us tickets to go to Chessington as well

as an apology. Because it's quite a long time. Yeah, we went... Are they owned by the same company? They are, yeah, they said, go and speak to... No, they're not. He's going to turn up at Chessington

and they're going to be like, mate, this isn't valid. Do you know what? An interesting feature because what have you been palmed off with after a horrific event. So Tom got a free ticket to a different theme park. Could have got four and a half million in the courts.

Yeah, yeah. But instead it's taken four tickets to Jess. A different, a ticket to a different theme park after a horrific experience at another theme park is, I mean, I'm not sure about that. I choked on a boiled sweet during a production of The Hobbit at the Swansea. Grand Theatre in the summer of 1990.

This feels like a lie on would I lie to you? I love it. No, no, no, but I thought I was going to die, right? So my mum, bless her, I'm not knocking my mum, but she just rubbed my back and said, there, there, as I was like, well, that's not good enough. Doing this.

No, no, that's will take action now. And my dad realised what was happened. What was happening? What were you watching? I was watching a production of The Hobbit. Well, sounding like Gollum. Yeah. I remember rubbing my back in the foyer going,

There, there. I mean, that's good. That's good. And my dad realised what happened, and he slapped me really hard on the back. And I remember it was a fox's glassier mint. Yeah. And I vomited up, and it was fine.

When the manager of the Swansea Grand had seen me choking on CCTV, and he gave me a free carton of Ambongo. And even though I suppose it's not really... I like that. Did he look that up on a list? Child chokes on mint. That's one and bongo. One and bongo. Statt.

I thought, it's not really the fault of the Swansea Grand Theatre, but it's such a funny little... It's such a funny thing to give a kid. Yeah, absolutely. That is a really good question. Have you ever been... Has something awful happened to you? Have they managed to palm you off?

In that way, the British people do get palmed off, but an American probably would come out from your... the situation with $4.5 million in their... Yeah, we're not a very litigious. We're not a very litigious culture. I've got a good palm-off story. Probably 10 years ago.

My wife and I were going away for the weekend. Like to Berlin or somewhere like that. Like city break. And I'd bought her for this trip, I think it was her birthday, a brand new suitcase. That was her main birthday present. This lovely little Samsonite suitcase. You old romantic.

Absolutely. Practical. got you a washback. Don't say I don't love you. That's not a romantic gift, Chris. That's a prize on the generation game. A brand new suitcase. Or bull's eye. Or bullsye. Lovely. Electric Blue, Samsonite suitcase.

Yeah. And we went to Berlin, lovely, came back. We stood there at the conveyor belt. All the suitcases come out. 20 minutes passes. Everyone's like picking up their suitcases. 40 minutes has passed now. They've turned the conveyor belt off.

There is no other suitcases left on there. We give it five more minutes. We better ask someone. Sorry, there's really more suitcases coming on here? No, no, no. That should be everything. We're like, what do we do? We go to the desk.

Like, where's the suitcase? And she goes, let me ring around. As we're waiting for this woman to, like, ring around to check where the suitcases are, in the corner of my eye at Stamsted Airport. And like the far corner, like five conveyor belts away, I see this absolutely battered electric blue. It looked like it had gone through a shredder or like someone had taken a chainsaw to it. It was comically messed up.

It was all like black tariff like like an airplane had run over it. Right. And then a lawnmower had gone over the top. It was afraid it was smashed the bit. So we picked up to get back to the desk. It was like, what I couldn't. What's happened here? Like this suitcase is absolutely like battered.

What can we do? And the woman behind the desk said, okay, you got two options. the airline will refund you 50% of the value of the suitcase. Bear in mind, it's like, it's first, it's debut trip

and it's been bad, 50%. Or you can choose from this catalogue of Ryanair suitcases. Anyone you want. I really thought that sounded like she was going to say, or you can choose what's in this mystery box.

Yeah. A catalogue. A catalogue of Ryanair. So are they Ryanair branded? Yeah. That's hilarious. The fact that she knows that's her

go-to option suggests it happens quite a lot. If they have a catalogue of replacement suitcases ready to go on the desk, yours is in the first one. You'd also look like you just loved the brand. Like you just loved a Ryanair flight. That's so funny. So if you, dear listener, have been palmed off in the past

after something's gone wrong, do let us know. But I have to say it, to be fair, to all the towers, they did give us these tickets to Chessington. So, you know, it wasn't ideal, but we did get something we will enjoy. But I'd like to hear about your stories and if you've done worse. This is, you wouldn't, and you're just like me. I'm exactly the same as you. I'm not knocking you.

You wouldn't last two minutes in America, Tom. You should be saying to Altowers, I won't. see you in court. Take me through. If you were a tough American, how you'd have dealt with yourself? Okay? You've got off the ride

after 45 minutes. Johnny Cochran is waiting at the foot of the roller coaster as Ellis gets off. Well, they all seem to have lawyer. I don't have a lawyer. Nope. Like, I used to solicitor

when I bought the house. What's he doing in this situation? But the relationships of ending. once we'd sign the contract. So lawyers that you call if you fall off a step ladder at work. I've seen their adverts. Injury lawyers.

I'm not sure if that's the right one for this. But I've got a number for that. I've seen it on. There's a solicitor's office maybe half a mile from the house. I suppose I could call them. I don't know what. A friend of mine did a law degree for the first year when I lived with him and then switched to doing politics.

Okay. So he's got a... He's got a year's worth of... He's got a year's worth of... He's got a year, but they're like, I'm going to call my lawyer. Yeah. So you've just got to do that. I'll see you in court, buddy.

To be fair, El, that statement suggests that that is a proper lawyer, not someone who's just on his first year at uni. So you're hoping it rattles them, basically. I've met Bob Mortimer twice. I know that he's got a law degree. There you go. It's all shaping up. There you go.

That's that. Seam in court on towers. Tom, how did they get you off the roller coaster? How did it resolve? Did it just start going again? It was the carriage in front of us had wedged at a wrong angle and wasn't going into the platform. So they had to get the correct people who were allowed onto the track to un wedge it. But there was such a long process of waiting for these correct people to come on.

The unwedges. Yeah, exactly. We had to wait for ages. And even then, it was basically just people trying to turn it with their hands and failing. It was less of a technical reaction to it than I was expecting. Eventually it got moved on. There were different people on carriages elsewhere on the ride, some people higher up.

Then there was a bit of a sort of blitz spirit of thumbs up and a bit of banter between us all. Banta. They're on, you've got to get through it. I've been on trains. I remember there was one Edinburgh when John was doing the show, so we had to do the show every week from Edinburgh. He was doing the festival.

And so I would get the train up on the sort of Thursday into the show on the Friday. And there was one occasion when I was trying to come back to London when my train was so hugely delayed. Right. Like I'm talking by six or seven hours. And you think to yourself, every aspect of my day is fucked now. Every single plan I had has gone out the window.

What should have been a four and a half hour journey, it's now going to turn into like a 13-hour saga. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And they're like, oh, sorry, but in. any inconvenience caused. It is quite inconvenient, actually. It's the most inconvenient thing I can imagine.

Did I take them to court? No, of course I did. I accepted the free bottle of water and we moved on. Okay, enough about me and my newest failure. Should we crack on with this episode? What is this episode about Chris Scull? Sporting revolutionaries and later in this episode, I'll be telling you all about how table tennis gripped China.

And I will be talking about Lenin on his bike. And after this little splash of correspondence, I'm going to be telling you about Fidel Castro and his sporting passions. But before we get to that, a quick email from Mike Jones. So, you sent us some correspondence, have you? Well, let's take a look at you then. Mike Jones has emailed the show with the title, Tom, rethink your preferred holiday destinations. Now, you may remember recently, I think it might even mean the last episode.

I talked about my unbelievable fear of sharks. And one of the reasons I'm not particularly keen to go to Australia, as much clearly a great place to live, wonderful people, wonderful quality of life. To my mind, the sea is 98% shark and they're 2% liquid. and that really worries me. Well, Mike has sent me some information that worries me about Europe, to be honest. Good morning, chaps.

I feel duty-bound to share this with you all, but particularly Tom, having heard his claim that it's perfectly safe to swim in the Mediterranean Sea. Great White Sharks are present in the Mediterranean, forming a distinct, endangered ghost population that has existed there for 3.2 million years. So they know what they're doing. 3.2 million.

They've really, they've owned their skills if it's 3.2 million years. million years. They're like Tony Pooleas, the survivors. Shark set pieces. To upset the odds. Exactly. Whilst quite rare, the southern Sicilian Channel

is a key hotspot and suspected breeding ground. That's not why I want to hear, breeding ground for sharks, where both pregnant females and juveniles have been spotted. Other areas include the Adriatic Sea, the Tyrrhenian Sea, and the Aegean coast of Turkey. But a large adult was seen off the Spanish coast last summer. I'm going to Spain this year. This is an absolute nightmare.

This is not what I want to hear. Historically, some of the largest ever recorded great white sharks have been found in the Mediterranean, often exceeding five meters. Feeding on Mediterranean, pelagic fish, dolphin, sea turtle, other sharks and superstars DJs. Nice little call back to something I talked about last week. Again, they are rare, and some scientists feel the Mediterranean population will be extinct in the near future.

However, as you have a recorded history of attracting mishaps, it would be negligent of me not to share this information. Thanks for the laughs. Stay safe, Mike. Okay, I now put it to you, now that you know that there are five-metre-long great white sharks knocking around the Mediterranean, Spain, Portugal. You go to Portugal each year, El. Are you rethinking the sea and your willingness to paddle? I will be going to Inverness and we will be swimming in Loch Ness because I am willing to tip my chances with Nessie. So it's going to be an entirely lockness-based holiday

now for me and my family for the rest of our lives. Thank you, Mike. What about you, Chris? Thank you, Mike. Don't you get sharks in Cornwall? Have I dreamt that? You get Blue Shark off the coast of Cornwall. There was actually an attack last year.

But to get out to the blue sharks, you have to go out in a boat to swim with them. So they're not really near the coastline. I know this because I've googled it before going swimming in Cornwall. There are over 40 species of sharks inhabiting British waters. Yeah, sharks in Wales. You get dolphins in whales. Have you got a problem with dolphins?

No, I love dolphins. Dolphins are famously friendly. They'll also save you from the sharks. I've read stories of ponds of dolphins saving people. It would be so Tom Crane if he had to be rescued by a school of dolphins. It would be the ultimate Tom Crane story. And then they make him their king. No, no, no, no.

He'd be brought in land by a load of really friendly dolphins, all making that weird dolphin noise that I can't impersonate. But for some reason, his trunks would have come off. And one dolphin will do like a large exhale from his blowhole, and you'll see my trunks fly into the air. Oh, there they are. And they're squeaking in a way that they're clearly laughing. Yeah, horrendous.

A good friend of ours, a man called Will Briggs, It's a very funny man who books big comedy festivals around the UK. Lovely, lovely man. Used to be in a great band called The Lama Farmers, who worth checking out if you're a Brit Pop fan. His dad went swimming on holiday once, got into a bit of trouble. Someone spotted him, went out on a jet ski to try and help him. Will's dad was trying to hold on to the back of the jet ski.

And the guy was going, you've got to get a grip. Come on, come on, hold on to the back of it, and I'll take you into the shore. Eventually, he managed his jet ski. just about hang on to the back. The engine starts. They zoom up the beach. But somehow the motor and the water has blown his shorts off.

So he's dragged up the beach at speed completely naked. White British ass being dragged up a beach about 40 miles an hour. In one day A, I will take all of our jobs. B, it will allow us somehow to access other people's memories.

And I would pay a hundred grand to be able to remember that. I would love to access Will's brain. It blew his shore's off. It's also the dragging up the beach I love as well. Yeah. So he doesn't even have the chance of sort of like crouching down a bit in the surf near the shore and asking someone to bring him some replacement short. No, straight up the beach.

Everyone's seen it. Remarkable. Well, Mike, thank you for telling me about great white sharks in the Mediterranean. I am going to Spain this year. That's ruined that holiday. So thanks for that. If there's anything else, any of the rest of you would like to ruin for me

to get in contact with the show. And here's how you do just that. All right, you horrible look. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at ohwatertime.com and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at oh what a time pod.

Now clear off. So one of the benefits of signing up for the oh what a time patron is that you get two bonus episodes every month, ad-free listening, early release episodes. But one big bonus on the top tier, the oh-water time all-timers, is that we will take your name and figure out using our historical powers

where in history you may have been before. And up this week, gentlemen, we have Klaus Lindisfarne. What a fantastic name. That's one of the best names I've ever heard. Route 1 is Viking, isn't it? Route 1 is Viking or the world's leading academic authority on Vikings. Oh yeah, that's nice. That's good. I'm just surrounded by towers of books.

but also clearly, clearly Viking DNA, so he's really hard. Massive muscles, big beard, yeah. There's an element of world's strongest man about it as well for some reason. That's it. That's it. Yeah, yeah. He can deadlift like 600 kilos. Yeah. And when he does it, his nose bleeds, but he loves it.

And all the blood's going in his mouth. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And those massive big stones that they've got to throw. Atlas stones, they're called. Easy, be easy. Yeah, Atlas stones are they're cool. Nothing. Klaus Lindenfarn, is that right?

Klaus Lindenfarn. Absolutely love that. I also got another one which would be sort of pretty underwhelming Southampton Centre back in about 1994. Who played with Ken Mancalfe. It was all right. Because Lindersfan is a, it was, it's a holy island, isn't it?

Yes, it is, yeah. Yeah, I drove past Lindersfan on the way to do a gig in Newcastle. Yeah. Oh, no, no, we've done the gig in Newcastle. so we're on the way to do a gig in Edinburgh. I'd never seen it. Wasn't there a big massacre there? The Vikings, there was a monastery

and the Vikings destroyed it, I think. So you were pretty close, obviously, loving it. You were pretty claustle-Linders-Varn then, weren't you? If you drove you and fast, you're having that? Pretty Klaus to Lindersvarn? That's not bad, is it? It's fine, come on. I was stocking a roller coaster for 45 minutes yesterday hell

in the beating heat. You've got a lower man that. I've still got sunstroke. Do you know what would have happened, right? If you'd done that joke to the people who rescued you, then he'd be like, he's ill, he's got sunstroke, we need to get this guy to the hospital now. Get him back on is the other thing.

Punish him. There you are. I think I like that. So what are we going for? We're going for World Strongest Man. World Strongest Man. I like, I think. World Strongest Man.

Or expert on Vikings, I think either work. No, Will Strongest Man, and he's like 6 foot 10. Yeah. And he's absolutely, and there are documentaries about what he eats in a week. That it's absolutely There's a rumour that over a four-year period he ate a mini metro but it can't be true

It can't be definitively proven Yeah, he sort of slowly but surely made his way through it You think that can't be true There's like a photo in the front of a newspaper We're fighting on a hubcap But you think I actually haven't seen the video So I don't know if that's true But Klaus, I do know this, your name is superb

What a great name, well done, that's brilliant Great name And if you want us to tell you where in history Your name may have been before you can sign up and here's how. Hello again, you horrible lot. Enjoying the show. Well, why not show the love

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next. Your support makes everything possible, so sign up today at patreon.com slash oh what's a time or oh what's a time.com. What are you waiting for? Stop dawdling. And if you send up to our Patreon, you'll get our recent first ever video episode, which went down really well. We raided the BBC archives for great historical footage, which we've shared and we'll be doing another one very soon on top of the big one, the history of trousers, which should be available right now. Which is mine. Yes, it's actually quite a fun episode.

I will back myself on that. But today, it's proper history. It's not trousers, as we say, it's about sporting revolutionaries and I'm going to kick things off now with Fidel Castro. Right. Today, I'm going to tell you all about Fidel Castro and his sporting passions. I'm going to start with a question, which is, what do you think is the most popular sport by far in Cuba? By a long mile, what do you think is the most popular sport in Cuba?

Baseball. Correct. Very good. Absolutely thrilled. It would have been helpful to the podcast if I've been like, oh, I don't know, is it? Ooh, is it, is it, is it netball or is it, is it soccer? Yeah. But no, I knew it was baseball.

Bang, wallop, you're in. Wow. Baseball. Yeah. They use the massive cigars as bats. Do you know that, Chris? No, that's not true. Another great fact.

Exactly. No, it is baseball. And what's interesting about it, it's by quite some distance. It's like a national religion, basically, in Cuba. People of Cuba absolutely love baseball. And it's surprising, really, when you think about it, given, A, the island's complex entanglement

with its imperial ruler Spain or former imperial ruler, and also its relations with the United States. You know, that's been unbelievably complicated. particularly after the revolution in 1959. But baseball has acted as a great unifier for Cuba. It's sort of part of the island's culture ever since his introduction in the 1860s. That's quite early, isn't it?

I'd never imagine it would have been that early. It was able to bring together colonial, post-colonial, pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary Cuban society. And in the early days, liberals and nationalists alike, saw baseball as a way of getting rid of traditional Spanish pastimes, like icons of imperial rules such as bullfighting. Oh. I can say...

They produce some very good boxes as well, the kids. Yes. As a youngster, I am happy to see ball fighting being moved out and being replaced by baseball. I'm not gutted to say, you know... No, no, no, no. I've no long had to do my bullfighting training. That's not so I'm going to miss. How would you feel?

Is that something you can get into if you've brought up, if you've been brought up, let's say, Camarvan happened to be really into ball fighting. Well, Camarthen was really, really into rugby. Yes. Oh, yeah? Which I completely opted out of because it was just too violent and tough a game. So my school has produced loads of Welsh internationals. But I was never, ever, I was opting out of rugby at the very first opportunity to me,

even though my dad loved it and it was the only game we played in school. I reckon I'd have been man enough to say, I'm scared. Yeah, okay. I don't want to wind up a bull. My social algorithm shows me a lot of bull fighters getting gourd for some reason. I don't know why they show me this. But from what I've seen, I think, Elle, you would have made a good bull fighter because you've got a big bum.

Yeah, yeah. Ample room for a horn to slide in and slide out without doing too much damage. Yeah. So it's just flesh, isn't it? It's just a massive flesh wound. Nature's airbag. But you're also often seen knocking around in a bright red whale shirt, which is going to antagonise the ball.

I know, yeah, yeah, yeah. That could be your Welsh twist on bullfighting. What, in that I wear a whale's shirt and I'm dead in the first minute. What a twist. It's my twist. What we can take from the tale is that the bulls would be safe with you. But bullfighting was massive. In comes baseball.

And they see this as a way to depart from, as I say, this imperialistic kind of this Spanish idea of life. And so baseball is really taken by the Cuban people. Then they absolutely love it. In fact, the fact that it had been popular for so long also meant that by the time the communists came along, they had no reasons to argue against a sport that had been so thoroughly acclimatized. And crucially, it also helped that the island's biggest baseball fan was a certain Fidel Castro. Now, Fidel Castro, he's born in Cuba on the 13th of Oregon, 1926. He's a son of a wealthy Spanish immigrant-turned farmer, a man called Angel Castro,

and his maid-servant turned second wife, Lena Gonzalez. And given his background, it was not inevitable that he would become the leader of communist revolution. However, with a six-foot-three frame, it's sort of hardly surprising he developed a love for American sports like baseball and basketball. that felt sort of more inevitable. Do you know what that made me think about? Because he was massive from a very young age. Yeah, he's quite too long. Did you have the kid in your school

who was like massive from year seven? Yeah. So we had a guy called James, a lovely guy, who was like six foot two from year seven. And you play rugby with him. He'd basically be handed the ball. And then he'd just walk down the pitch with about six kids hanging off his legs.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly the same. And he ended up playing for West Wales youth because it was like, how do you bring down a man when you're 11th? Like a viable story. In New Zealand, they play according to weight. So if you're like I was a really small thing,

sick former, I weighed probably nine stone when I was 18. So I'd have been playing with other kids who were nine stone and probably would have enjoyed the game more. Whereas the boy I'm thinking of would have been playing with the sick formers at the age of seven. Because he was absolutely huge. You're right, because that is all well and good unless you are the massive kidney

and now you're playing with... That feels like it's a nice idea, but pretty cruel to be playing with the sick formers when you're 12. I could tell you one thing. He'd have been able to handle it. He would have loved it. Well, it's interesting.

It makes sense to play rugby according to weight class because it's very similar to boxing, isn't it? You wouldn't put a heavy weight in there with like a... Yeah, a bantam weight. A feather weight. I was a bantam weight,

and I was being forced to tackle Sonny Listern. And it didn't happen. It couldn't happen. And my dad who loves rugby. Makes sense. My dad who absolutely loves rugby and played in a really decent school,

played with a British lion, actually. He loved it. And he obviously dad's the same size as me. He would not accept my size as an excuse. And he'd always say, go for the legs, son. You know, no one can run without their legs. You just ankle tap them.

You just go down low. And I was like, all right, Dad, I will. and I would, and he would just run through my pathetic tuckles. Is it a matter of technique? It's a matter of strength, you idiot. The game has changed. It's not the 60s anymore, Dad. That's my main memory of games playing rugby,

because I went to really rugby school as well, is being told that I had to throw myself at these running studs and grab him and bring the person down. But simultaneously thinking, but what you fail to recognise here is I don't care about the result or what's happening. Yes. I have no need or want to do that because I do not care at all.

Yes. So I'm happy for him to run over the line because that line doesn't mean anything to me. I'm in 7-1 class and if we lose to 7-2, it could not affect me less. The sport I do not like. It could not affect me less. Exactly. So as I say, Castro, okay, he is one of these big kids. He is the kid.

You toss the ball to in rugby. He walks down the field with the kids hanging off him. He's big from a young age. But he's quite lanky Castro. He's not thick set. Not thick set, but he's perfectly set for these American sports, basketball, baseball. He's built to them. His introduction to baseball comes at school in Havana.

He excels so much that in 1944 he's elected top schoolboy athlete in his year at Belen and Jesuit Preparatory School. These skills were then further honed at university from 1945 onwards where he was otherwise studying law. and in the summers when he played on a team attached to the prestigious Havana Yacht Club. However, certain myths about quite how good he was at baseball have been a bit exaggerated. Are you familiar with these myths about Castro? Have you heard about his... Yeah, there's just lots of myths about him in general. But I think this tends to happen with sort of communist dictators, isn't it?

Absolutely. Kinjongham, isn't it like 18 holes in one? No, no. They kept it believable. It's like 17. He gets on a 15 hole course, you get 17 holes in one. Last hole took 132 shots. He went way over.

The main myth with Castro in his sporting abilities is that he was so talented as a pitcher that he was scouted for major American teams. The myth normally goes like this. Castro was known for his wicked curveball and scouted by spotters for either the New York Giants, the Washington Senators or the Pittsburgh Pirates.

None of that is actually true. He did play in front of a talent scout for the major league team, the senators, but it was an open session and one that Castro had gone to himself on his own terms. And certainly not with any direct invitation from the Americans. And also, crucially, there's some doubt as to quite how wicked his pitching really was. However, despite all of this, he clearly did have talent.

But it wasn't his favourite sport. That actually goes to basketball. I mean, as we say, we know he was tall, six for three. I think it was. A lot of tall people seem to go that way because it does. help with that sport. There are countless pictures of him playing pick-up games, particularly as a young man, more formal contests. And in fact, it was through this sport that he displayed some of his famous single-minded, relentless spirit. Having been snubbed by the university first-team coach,

Castro joined with some classmates to form a separate team, they called Los Lippereras, which is the low-life, and determined to make the first team, Castro knew this new team that he created himself as a showcase for his talent. That is dedication, isn't it? He bought a ball of his own, spent the rest of the term practising, and it worked. He won a place in the university team, because he'd taken the time to set up his own team and showcase what he could do. The question, though, is, why does any of this really matter? Politicians often like sport is all part of their humanity. I mean, that's just a normal thing. It crops up time and time again. But in this case, Castro's sporting enthusiasms are indicative of Cuba's changing

sense of itself. As mentioned earlier, baseball in particular challenged imperial pastimes and during the first war of independence which raged on the island for a decade between 1868 and 1878, the Spanish authorities banned the sport completely and it therefore

gained a direct association with Cuban identity and freedom. If you see what I mean. So they were told they were not allowed to play, therefore it became all the more important to their sense of themselves, I guess. This was reinforced then by the Spanish-American War of 1898, which saw the United States plunge itself into the final phase of Spain's imperial disintegration, a process which had been ongoing throughout the 19th century, and the conflict secured Cuban independence and encouraged a period of Americanisation symbolised by the island's appetite for baseball.

Basketball arrived not long after the war, so that by the time Castro was a young child, Havana alone had two amateur leagues and the University of Havana, was able to field teams to tour the United States, including to New York City. One tour, this is really interesting, organized in 1944, was stage managed, no less, by Nelson Rockefeller, who was the future vice president of the United States under Gerald Ford.

He organized this basketball tour for the Havana University team to come to America. The centerpiece of this trip, this is amazing this, was a contest against the Long Island University at Madison Square Garden, where 20,000 spectators saw the Cubans defeat the Americans 40 points to 37. So packed out Madison Square Garden, just watching these two teams going at it,

the Cuban University team and the American one. And the fact these American sports were so embedded in Cuban society meant that when the revolution happened in 1959, it was basically impossible to bring an end to baseball and basketball on the island. What happened instead was that the professional endeavours that had developed in the 50s, such as the Havana Sugar Kings baseball team, they were shut down and strictly amateur setups were instituted instead. The Sugar Kings franchise, incidentally, then moved to New Jersey.

Why do you think, as a closing point, why do you think these professional outfits were shut down and these amateur teams were set up instead? Why do you think that was? Communism? Yeah, well, it's actually, it's the reason is that they wanted to support to serve the revolution by training the population encouraging healthy lifestyles instead of being an increasingly

commercialised form of entertainment, alongside, you know, which is basically the American model. So they wanted baseball and basketball to have a Cuban identity and to be part of this revolutionary spirit. And with Castro, they're great exponent of it. He was, of course, an amateur, and the Olympic Games were to be the preeminent platform for international achievement.

So quite ironically then, Fidel Castro, the communist revolutionary who stood opposed to the United States for half a century, ultimately symbolised that country's lasting cultural influence on Cuba and the Cubans. Quite interesting that, isn't it? That this person that was so anti-America and so steadfastly part of that movement for change also, you know, loved and was a great exponent of this sport, which is really so American. But those sports, especially the Olympic sports that were good at like boxing, it brought tremendous prestige to Cuba. This was the same of the Soviet countries. I'm not seeing sport as a way of making money.

That's why rugby union stayed amateur in Wales because of the influence of the chapel, because you were just doing it to represent your community as opposed to, you know, as a way of making money, which is why footballers will look down upon a little bit because they were doing it professionally. That's so interesting. Rugby Union was amateur until 1995. 95, which is insane. So was that really this feeling in Wales up until that point that there was?

It was, I mean, it certainly was at the start of the 20th century, especially when rugby league became professional in the north of England. That was certainly the feeling in South Wales because we followed, you know, we followed the English middle classes because they were doing it for the sort of, for the love of the game and with an amateurish ethos. But like, you know, cricket had a bit. amateurthos, with the sort of whole,

if you're either a gentleman or a player when they are different dressing, changing rooms and all sorts of stuff. Sport is not always just a way of making money. Yeah, it's really interesting. I'm delighted to say that we have quite a few overseas listeners and American listeners. It's quite a sort of thing to explain

this idea in the 90s where we had very famous sports stars playing rugby who could quite easily come and sort out your you, Ben. Absolutely, 100%. Plumbers, I grew up in Bath, So England internationals who were on TV and were household names, you'd book to have, you'd need to have some plumbing done or whatever, writing fixed.

And suddenly this person who was hugely famous would turn up and fix your... It's amazing. They're all teachers and coppers and plumbers and Jonathan Davis was in a building site. And yeah, it's mad. Do you think anyone ever booked a plumber with one eye on a Q&A? Oh, that used to happen all the time. That used to happen all the time.

And what would often happen, was if a player was bright academically, they became reps for companies because it was a real prestige to be like, oh, we'll send him to the sales conference and because he's playing rugby for him of 20 million people on Saturday. A lot of people would be interested in our product.

But yeah, a lot of them were just builders and all sorts of stuff. Good stuff. That's it for part one. If you want part two of Sporting Revolutionaries, you can sign up to our. Patreon at patreon.com.com for slash oh what a time or subscribe via Apple now. Do that too.

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