I wasn’t expecting very much and my lowly expectations proved well founded. Someone should tell athletes, even highly impressive ones like Jessica Ennis, that they don’t automatically produce great autobiographies. This one was obviously rushed out post London Olympics in time for the Christmas market, and to be brutally honest, I don’t think they should have bothered. Autobiographies, I would have thought, are best left towards the end of a person’s career when they have had time to reflect on their life’s ups and downs, gain some perspective on events, and have the humility to allow for history to make some of its own judgements.

Rushing to get one out just because you have won a competition, no matter how prestigious, reeks of commercial opportunism. Premier League footballers are particularly fond of this particular wheeze.

Much of the content is excruciatingly simplistic, bordering on the banal, and the style of the thing seemed to match the content. Remember those primary school essays we were asked to write on the first day back after the summer holidays. I did this and then I did that and then I went home to bed and lived happily ever after. So much of the book I’m afraid has this child-like feel about it. This is not to belittle Ennis’s achievement one iota, but simply to stress that training routines and overcoming niggling injuries interspersed with uninspiring homespun anecdotes are not always the stuff of great literature. I suppose much of the blame must be directed at her journalist co-writer Rick Broadbent, who was probably trying to create the impression of Ennis simply being ‘the girl next door that done good’. Well in that respect I suppose you could argue that he has succeeded, but at the expense of creating something more challenging, more thoughtful, more cerebral.

Having started on such a negative note I will admit there are a number of insightful passages, particularly those relating to Ennis’s relationship were her long standing coach. It is here that we come closest to seeing a real person rather than the plastic poster girl of London 2012. I have had the dubious pleasure of witnessing at first hand the strained and often contradictory emotions between coach and elite athletes and it is not always a pretty sight. Ennis touches on this strained relationship but fails to explore it in the depth you would expect from a psychology graduate. What is she afraid of; upsetting her coach or upsetting her legions of commercial sponsors. (A bit below the belt perhaps but that is the price you pay if you insist on churning out superficial and safe life stories while you’re still in your twenties.)
The first lines that did impress me came in chapter two when Ennis confesses:

I think it’s important to stress that, while championing the merits of sport and an active lifestyle, you have to remember that people are different. Not everyone likes sport. Some people hate it. Even I’m not that interested in watching it. I like doing it but have never considered myself a sports nut and I don’t have an evangelical belief in spreading the gospel, because it’s all about finding what you like and want to do.’

Nicely put. In this age of highly commercialised sport, where everything , music, fashion, food and sport, is packaged together into a single commodity, to be bought and sold on the global market, it is extremely difficult for people, particularly young people, to find a space to simply be. You have to have the right trainers, the right clothes, listen to the latest music on the latest electronic gadgets while eating bucket loads of food soaked in fats, sugars and salt. Yet paradoxically, despite all this wall to wall global advertising, the majority of young people in the wealthy developed nations actually do very little sport or physical activity, hence the growing time bomb of obesity. It’s a pity that Ennis, with her huge influence amongst the general population in this country, didn’t find time to elaborate on these matters. She’s no fool, but again, she obviously doesn’t want to upset her sponsors or those that bestow upon her great civic honours. Ennis is clever enough to know that you dare not bite the hand that feeds you.

There is another useful little snippet in that second chapter but again Ennis opts not to develop the theme. Ennis notes:

My parents have never really been ones to intervene. They are the antithesis of the pushy parents so prevalent around sport and schools. Chell and I would go to the English Schools competitions and be amazed at the pressure heaped on the kids by their parents. Many would scream at them and berate them if the times did not add up. It was sad to see and made you understand why so many dropped out.’ P32

Again, the beginning of an insightful observation but again Ennis fails to expand. What should take the place of neurotic parents? Well-funded schools, well-funded clubs or well-funded sports academies? These are serious questions for British sport if we want more working class kids to have a chance to make the elite level. Perhaps pushy parents are only filling the vacuum left by ill-funded, ill resourced community clubs.

In Chapter Three Ennis once again flirts with something interesting that has a resonance well beyond sport. Discussing her interest in psychology Ennis has this to say:

The psychology of sports is interesting and there are lots of issues that affect people. It is an elitist, cut-throat world and it is, inevitably, results driven. That can lead to lots of pressure and even desperate measures. In athletics, eating disorders are not uncommon. I occasionally see people who I can tell are suffering, and I have heard lots of stories about long distance runners suffering from bulimia and anorexia.’ P46

Here then should be the start of a really thought-provoking chapter dealing with the complex interaction between social psychology, individual genetics and an individual desire to succeed. What is winning gold medals all about; nationalistic glory for governments hungry for a feel good story or a personal journey to the extremes of endurance? Is the end result worth the suffering? What of those that don’t make to the podium? Is the British government right to only fund sports with a realistic chance to win medals? Is doping an inevitable consequence of a global fixation with winning gold? Are fallen heroes like Lance Armstrong victims or perpetrators or both? Has the commercialisation of sport robbed of its intrinsic beauty? So many questions that Ennis could have explored but chose only not to.

Chapter 4, entitled ‘The Odd Couple’ does give some insights into the often tortured relationship between athlete and coach. Ennis provides an excellent passage the captures perfectly that relationship. She says of her coach:

He says there are seven boxes in the brain and, when they are full, that is when rational thought goes out of the window. He tells me to de-clutter my mind and empty the boxes. We rage at each other and there are plenty of times when I storm out of sessions. I get a bit tearful but I never go home. I can’t because I know I need to train. I just can’t leave. It’s always petty things, but he can be patronising and still speak to me as if I am at junior school.’ P59

That’s good stuff. You can really feel the simmering tension. But what is not explored is when those simmering tensions spill over into outright bullying. I’ve seen it too many times and I sincerely hope that other people have not seen this bullying trait in me. On some occasions I have sensed I have been getting too close to the margins and have forced myself to step back. But there again, most of my work has been at the grassroots and intermediate levels where the pressures to succeed are not quite so intense. It is at the very highest levels of performance that dedicated and determined coaching can easily slip over into cruel psychological abuse. A fine line that I wish Ennis had explored a little further.

Much of what follows in the remaining chapters is rather dull unless you happen to be an athletics junkie obsessively following every competition and every individual result. Ennis has had her fair share of trials and tribulations and her World Championship and London Olympic gold medals are no mean achievement. Her sickly- sweet relationship with the British media and her ever present corporate face can be somewhat off-putting and perhaps one day, when she has tired of that aspect of her career, or they have tired of her, we may get some deeper insights into the Jessica Ennis behind the bill-boards. But for now it seems to be all about milking the system while she can, and for a girl that has known hard times as a child, that is completely comprehensible. Comprehensive school educated, like Mo Farah,that makes her achievement all the more impressive.