Stuttering - Attempting to a referee a sports match

I am a very keen sportsman and enjoy playing a number of sports including football, tennis, golf and snooker.

At the age of seventeen I became a member of a five man snooker team. The team played in the local snooker league on a Wednesday evening. Each player had to play one frame of snooker and also had to referee one frame.

It was being a referee which caused me a few worries as you had to add up the number of points scored in any particular break and to then say this number out aloud.

Certain numbers, such as six, seven, nine, fourteen and seventeen, had often caused me problems with stuttering in the past and as I went to play in my first match I could not help but wonder if they would cause me to stutter again.

I did not want to admit my fears to the rest of my team as it all just seemed so pathetic. I was also a lot younger than the rest of the players and hardly even knew them.

I had been attempting to get into the team for some time and eventually was only picked because I had won the clubs yearly tournament, beating three of the other members of the team in the process.

Throughout that first season my snooker performances went well and I ended up being voted the teams player of the year. I did however have a lot of issues with my speech but would not allow the stutter to stop me from playing.

The other players in the team were very supportive and did not mock me at all. I would like to thank them for this support.