Ouch, that really hurt!

The Roof of the Sir Ralph Perring Centre on the Golden Lane Estate is a potential death trap for delinquent male teenagers, who prowl its dizzy heights in testosteronic competition and juvenile joshing with one another. I spotted one unlucky specimen today attempting a tricky climbdown, only to twist over on his ankle during the final drop. He staggered painfully to his feet and was ushered away supported by two friends, who both looked like they were enjoying his pain. I smiled a smile bordering on laughter, and felt slightly ashamed.

Golden Lane: September 2018

Summer slowed to a crawl this year on Golden Lane. The excitement of the World Cup and Wimbledon faded quickly and, once the hot weather arrived, a snail’s pace took over. The concrete repairs across the estate left behind a film of fine dust, so suffocation looked like a distinct possibility. But still nobody seemed that bothered. Even the ever-present bitching about the City Corporation and its serial crimes against happiness fell into a lull.

Then the weather changed, the exam results rolled in and the children began to steel themselves for a new school year. It was time to wake up and get moving. Now the new football season is back in full swing, 2018 has found its legs again. In Summer, our tennis courts are plagued by would-be Wimbledonians. But already the netball teams have moved into that space with their fierce tactical shouting and piercing whistles. I can feel hackles raising in Cullum Welch and Crescent House already, as those are the blocks within earshot. Angry postings to message boards are in the pipeline.

Sport is important for some residents, not so much for others. There’s a local tribal loyalty to Arsenal, which is a drawback (I support Liverpool), but even so it is fascinating to see attitudes to sport in competition: to spectate or to participate? For fitness or for fun, health or happiness, whose side are you on? In the corner of our estate at the junction of Baltic Street and Goswell Road is the People’s Choice cafe. Nowadays it is a sanctuary for stressed office workers and anyone just passing, but some years ago, I’m told, it was a resting place for off-duty training staff from Arsenal FC, who would be joined occasionally by squad players for impromptu team talks and mugs of stewed tea. I like these kinds of stories.

Yes, times have changed. Sport is now a serious business; spreadsheets, analytics, psychotherapy and a new pair of Adidas Predators are today's essentials. We have a number of betting shops locally, but I am yet to convince anyone that a flutter on the horses is as good as a frantic half-hour session on a rowing machine.

I’m not a slob, but I fell out with our estate's gym, Golden Lane Sport and Fitness (GLSF), for a number of reasons, the most serious being a failure to promptly repair busted machines. They also got rid of the punchbag, which really got my goat.

But all that has changed recently and new machines have just been installed as part of what is punted as an £80,000 refit. Residents harbour the suspicion that any investment in GLSF, which is run by the Fusion chain, is for City workers rather than residents – and that rankles.

GLSF does at least support health initiatives such as Exercise on Referral in partnership with GP surgeries. It also connects parents and children to Fit for Sport, which runs activities during school holidays, though these are charged at a market rate and are beyond the means of many. A discount rate is offered to over-50s in GLSF’s Young at Heart membership. And City of London Time Credits can be swapped for gym and swimming sessions.

I advise residents to use GLSF whenever they can. There is a huge variety and diversity of sports available, not only a gym staffed by skilled and friendly trainers, a swimming pool, a badminton court, two tennis courts and a multitude of classes in the ‘glass box’ studio. As I’ve stated already, the tennis courts double as netball pitches, the badminton court is also used in down-times for table tennis, the swimming pool has a hoist and occasionally runs assisted swimming sessions for the disabled, There's even the chance to learn the basics of scuba diving. The studio covers everything from the gentle (yoga, pilates, aerobics) to the more energetic reaches of individual sport (kickboxing, bodycombat, bootcamp fitness). If the cost is likely to be prohibitive, I point residents to City LivingWise for advice on free or low-cost exercising for good health. For the big team sports (football, cricket, rugby), there are few opportunities here in the City.

Aside from all this, the urge to be active will always find its own form of expression. Next to the Basterfield Rotunda tree garden here on the estate is a designated soft-surface ball-games space where football-fanatic boys (and girls, more commonly these days) practise keepy-uppies and precision spot kicks long after their parents told them to stop. In Cuthbert-Harrowing House we have a (reluctant) young basketball ace. Embarrassingly, his mother carries around on her iPhone a video of him effortlessly planting balls through the hoop from 20 metres. The scene plays on, over and over, until you start to suspect it’s all a stunt, some sort of trick photography. You are wrong. It’s for real. Her son is just monotonously good at basketball. He plays for pleasure, and that's what makes him a winner.

To have your say on the Mayor's city-wide strategy for sport, visit the Assembly's Talk London website. Billy Mann has lived on the Golden Lane Estate for 24 years. He is a City of London Community Builder and blogs about neighbourhood happenings at basterfieldbilly.blogspot.com.

An edited version of this column appeared in the City Matters newspaper, issue number 081.

Incident: Whitecross Street

A news report might read something like this:

Immigration officers swooped on a Mediterranean restaurant in Whitecross Street EC1 on the evening of 1 September in what looked to customers like a coordinated 'sting' operation.

We were sitting at an outside table enjoying what we grandly call an apéritif (a quick drink before we head home for an M&S curry) at Iskelé when a posse of around six chunky officers in black uniforms stomped noisily through the front door in single file while others stationed themselves in pairs at strategic points outside of the restaurant.

From my seat I could see one of the officers inside checking a bundle of papers, which I guessed to be the employment documentation for the people working there. The checking and talking continued for some time. None of the customers seemed bothered by what we felt was an air of menace and aggression. At one point, officers hurried out of the front of the restaurant and scuttled to the rear. They had, I assume, twigged that anyone trying to abscond from the premises would head that way. In fact, anyone trying to abscond would have given them the slip long ago such was the dim-wittedness of those in charge.

The Iskelé is a Mediterranean mezze/grill outfit serving locals and visitors to the nearby Barbican Centre. It gets 4.5 stars on Tripadvisor and is well used by the area's residents, who enjoy its friendly family style and polite service. Its kebabs and tagines are glorious, but top prize goes to its "chilli sauce", which is actually a chilli salsa of chopped chillies, onion, tomato and no doubt some other secret ingredient that makes it an essential item on any food order. We ask for it regardless of what we are eating.

We once enjoyed a long conversation with The Isekelé's owner — or at least he said he was the owner. We talked about the fantastic coloured lamps they have hanging from the ceiling. He said he got them through family and friends in Egypt. He promised to get us one, but we never saw him again.

He also talked about the area at the junction of Whitecross Street and Banner Street ,where he has business interests in a dry cleaners, and Italian restaurant, Cozzo, and a cafe, the Market Restaurant, opposite The Iskelé. Next door to the Market Restaurant cafe was an ailing tailors, which specialised in alterations and custom-made clothes. The business closed recently and The Iskelé group of businesses now use the shop as a storage space.

What prompted the immigration raid, I can only guess, though I suspect that this type of operation is likely to be common in areas of London such as Edgware Road and Brick Lane. Some see them as a direct result of Home Office policy in the past under Theresa May (now Prime Minister), which embedded a "hostile approach" to outsiders. I guess also that the trend is likely to continue up to and after Brexit. This evening, even as customers, we somehow felt bullied.