I was lucky. If you come from my kind of background, it’s not easy. You can get priced out of sport
COMMONWEALTH HERO ROSS MURDOCH REVEALS THE GREAT LENGTHS HE HAD TO GO TO IN ORDER TO BRIDGE THE FINANCIAL GAP BETWEEN HIS RIVAL COMPETITORS
IT was basics or bust at the outset, Ross Murdoch recounts. ‘When I started out at West Dunbartonshire Swimming Club, some of the kids had the fancy trunks,’ he reflects. ‘I didn’t come from any money. I just had whatever my folks could afford. So it definitely wasn’t the high-tech swimmers that make you go faster.’
His coach, Jimmy Orr, worked some miracles. Goggles were acquired, too. It is maddening that even an activity as basic or essential as this does not offer cheap rides.
The bill to turn the boy from Balloch into a breaststroker formidable enough to bring back world, European and Commonwealth gold medals has surely run into six figures over the years.
‘I was lucky,’ acknowledges Murdoch. ‘If you come from my kind of background, it’s not easy. You can get priced out of sport.’
A lesson to heed as a cost of living crisis bears down upon us: an existential threat, according to recent surveys, to the physical and mental health of Generation Next that will accompany rising barriers to participation. Particularly to working-class products like Murdoch, who rose gloriously to contend at two Olympic Games but amid British teams still populated heavily by those from monied backgrounds.
He has been retired barely a month now, his farewell
at Birmingham’s
You don’t start out for the money, fame, a blue tick or for things like that
Commonwealth Games writing one of the most heart-warming tales of a packed sporting summer with three bronze medals that came out of left-field. Effectively an amateur once more: off funding, off his own back, out of a brief retirement to script a conclusion that was very much on his own terms.
But even at his peak, he attested, there was much scrimping and saving to chase gargantuan dreams. The Lottery funding he received was a priceless crutch.
‘It does change the game entirely,’ he says. ‘Speak to someone like Sharron Davies and she will tell you exactly how hard it was without funding. You speak to David Wilkie — he had to move to the States. UK Sport funding really made that difference to take me to the next level.’
Yet the Scot lifts the lid on the harsh realities of this life he has lapped up for the past decade: a sporting C-Lister — a universe removed from Premier League footballers and an ocean below his friend and contemporary Adam Peaty, whose triumphs have translated into sponsorship riches and Strictly acclaim. Even
Lotto cash runs on a scale from golden tickets to basic prizes. Within the system, there are haves and have-nots.
‘Living year to year, paycheque to paycheque, isn’t fun for anyone,’ adds Murdoch. ‘You get funding confirmed for a year, and that’s a great thing. But it was difficult if you’re one of those people like me.
‘I struggled to make a final. I’ve never made an Olympic final. I had some international success. I have done fairly well for a swimmer. But, when I don’t always make the finals, I don’t always get A (level) funding. And when you’re on C funding and living by yourself, there are no frills attached.
‘You are literally living the bare minimum, going for 10p time at the Co-op at 6pm so you can get a cheap fried chicken. That’s your reality. You’re living and eating the best you can. That’s been my reality, where I don’t earn any money. I’m doing it purely for the love of the game.’
That affection for pulling and paddling in the water propelled him away from the exit and toward Birmingham, and then back onto the podium. Graft at Stirling University. Desire flowing through his veins. Driven not to solidify his future but simply to savour the present.
It took Murdoch full circle, back to ‘WestDun’, to making the most out of little. It reinvigorated him.
‘No frills, no fancy stuff attached, just get in the pool, work hard, get in the gym, lift the weights and go home at the end of the day,’ he reflects. ‘Back to how I started
You are literally living the bare minimum, going for 10p time at the Co-op to get a cheap fried chicken
swimming, when we didn’t have a fancy pool or fancy blocks.
‘We didn’t come from a club where we’d had a lot of international success. Or, in fact, come from a place where people really had any expectations of themselves — never mind trying to be an Olympian.’
He holds no grudges against a system that demanded he jump through hoops. British Swimming’s performance director Chris Spice determined his fate but even when the funding tap was turned off following the Tokyo Olympics, the communication was fair, Murdoch underlines, and the moral support ongoing. Hard decisions: part of this game.
‘I think when you’re swimming for yourself, and really doing it for the love of the game, that’s different,’ he says. ‘And probably those athletes who are funded and never lose that love are probably the ones that do the best.
‘I definitely felt like I lost it for a while. You kind of lose sight of why you started. But I’ve come back to enjoy it. You don’t start for money, you don’t start for fame or a blue tick or anything else that you might get from taking part in sport. Not that I made a lot of money in swimming. But coming back and doing it because you enjoy it. I think that’s a different game.’
He hopes others — even those for whom expensive gear is a luxury — will get the same flow of opportunities that he relished immensely. His university dissertation will soon be finished. Degree secured. An era properly over. He does have a career plan but, pending paperwork, prefers to keep it under wraps for the time being. What can be said is that Murdoch’s journey thus far will surely make him a fine, and inspiring, fit for whatever comes next.
‘I’ve got a lot of challenges and a lot of lessons to learn ahead of me,’ he concedes. ‘My life doesn’t culminate at the end of my swimming career. Whatever the ups and downs I’d had, I think I’ll always look back at it with rose-tinted glasses.’