BRUNTY'S ARCH NEMESIS

Superman had kryptonite, Batman, The Joker. For Brunt? His left leg. Here he explains how one of his limbs has become enemy No.1

- MARTYN BRUNT

“Do you know what nemesis means?” asks the character Bricktop in the cult British gangster film Snatch. He goes on to explain that it is: “A righteous infliction of retribution, manifested by an appropriate agent…” and we’ll leave the rest of the quote there!

Everyone has a nemesis. For Superman it was kryptonite, for Batman it was The Joker, and for my friend Anthony it’s cheese. But for me it’s a bit more awkward than that, because mine is my own leg.

It may sound harsh to be listing parts of your own body as instruments of divine retribution, but it certainly feels like it’s working against me in a highly malevolent fashion, frequently causing me to gnash my teeth more than during a Cliff Richard centre court singalong.

The leg in question is my left one. My right leg behaves itself beautifully and sets the standard for how I expect my limbs to behave. It’s flexible, muscular, it bears the kind of adventurous-looking scar which draws admiring glances from other triathletes, and, most importantly of all, it gives me no pain.