Booking a court is one of the enduring rites of amateur sport. It's the first taste of everything sport offers: Timing, anxiety, competitiveness, joy and misery. This is where the game begins.

You flip open laptops and wait for a booking to open on a public court with your finger poised like a scorpion's tail. You want this badminton court, you need this golf round. Else the week is unfulfilled.