It's a boy!” I shouted to my wife, after 32 long hours of labour. And immediately I imagined playing football with him, teaching him all that I know about cricket, taking him down the pub for the first time, probably to talk about sport. OK, there might be other stuff too - from changing nappies to learning to read and introducing him to Bob Dylan - but sport was always going to be high on my agenda.

My first-born had arrived. I was suitably ecstatic - not that he was a boy, despite everyone insisting I “must be chuffed”, but simply that I was a dad. Of course, it never crossed my mind that my offspring, whether male or female, wouldn't enjoy, participate in, and hopefully excel at, a variety of sports. But it can happen; and you need to be ready if it does.

I should probably point out, if you hadn't already gathered, that I love sport - watching it, talking about it and, most of all, playing it. It has therefore had a major, possibly disproportionate, influence on my life. It had taken a central role from the age of 8 through to 18, and a significant one from then until now (I'm 37), though active participation has inevitably diminished in recent years as children take over my non-working time and attention.

What's more, I come from a family of sporting achievers. My great-grandfather played rugby for Scotland, my grandfather was an international athlete, my dad skied in the British championships, played squash in the European championships and dabbled in almost every middle-class sport to a more-than-passable degree: tennis, golf, polo, sailing and more.

Neither I nor my siblings achieved such heights, but we were still extremely keen participants, notching up school and junior-county appearances, Oxford Blues and the like, across a range of disciplines. I attended a private school with exceptional sporting facilities and team sports pretty much defined my day-to-day life. While exams, smoking, drinking and playing in rock bands slowly intruded into this outdoor idyll - the last three solely as segues to meeting and, possibly, even talking to girls - sport remained to the fore.

It's not that any of this is exceptional, just that it sets up a fairly typical subconscious expectation. I simply assumed my eldest son would inherit some of those not-so-impervious family sports genes.

I did all the enthusiastic first-time-dad stuff: kicking a miniature ball in the back garden, playing catch (or, more accurately, drop) with random objects, explaining the new offside rule while feeding him his mushy baby-tea, even insisting that his beleaguered mother bring him to watch his dad, ahem, “run the midfield” on match days. So when I realised that Tom, at the age of 4 or 5, was fundamentally unathletic, painfully slow (in terms of ground speed and reactions) and blessed with terrible hand-eye co-ordination, I was shocked. And then, being a typical angst-ridden 21st-century dad, I felt horribly guilty about my own disappointment.

“Fathers usually expect sons to embody the beliefs that they hold to be important,” explains Patrick Alexander of the Social Issue Research Centre, Oxford. “Encouraging sons to do well in sports is an issue of passing on realised, or unrealised, ambitions and aspirations to your kin. This fits with a traditional understanding of ‘kinship relations' - as well as family names and family traditions, children must inherit the social aspirations and expectations of their parents.”

I should make it clear that I am inordinately proud of my boy, as any dad should be. I love him unreservedly - and by definition that emotion is unsullied by his sporting prowess or otherwise. In fact, I think the process of overcoming my initial surprise and disappointment has made me a better, more considered, father.

However, I'd be lying if I claimed that I wasn't bothered to start with.Images of a sport-free future flashed in my mind: no honing his dribbling skills so that he could leave team-mates for dead, no witnessing the legendary family side-step help to overcome the All Blacks at Twickenham and little hope that the mythical “doosra” I was mentally working on will ever pass muster in the Lord's nets.

I don't think the desire for my son to succeed in sport stems from any unfulfilled ambitions of my own - though a psychoanalyst might differ - so is it simply a fear that he'll “miss out” on something that I have enjoyed so fully?

“If sport is really important to you, it is attached to the values that you live your life by,” says Paula Hall, a psychotherapist for the counselling service Relate who specialises in family relationships. “If your children aren't sharing your values, that's a shock. We're talking about things such as competitiveness, achievement and ambition - areas that you might see as noble.”

So even if we don't pass on sporting ability, we still bestow inflated expectations on our unsuspecting offspring. “Children sense it. But it's a balancing act. Of course encouraging your children to reach their potential is to be applauded. I see as many clients questioning the fact that they weren't pushed and encouraged to achieve more by their own parents. But it's a great parental dilemma, getting that balance right,” Hall says.

I certainly got the balance wrong. I replaced my early lofty and vicarious ambitions with an obsession that Tom should “be the best he can be”. It doesn't matter how good he is at football, I told myself, as long as he tries his hardest and reaches his maximum potential. A fair enough sentiment, you might think, but it depends how hard you push.

When Tom joined the local football mini-league - largely because his friends were doing so, he never actually wanted to play footie in the park or the garden - I was there encouraging, cajoling, lecturing and praising. All the while trying, and almost certainly failing, not to become part of that unattractive phenomenon: the Pushy Parent.

My Damascene moment came when Graham, my friend and fellow touchline dad, said, as our boys suffered an 8-1 beating: “Well, it really doesn't matter, as long as they're enjoying it.”

A sincere, rational and unimpeachable statement when applied to six-year-olds playing seven-a-side. But one that made me realise that whether Tom was enjoying himself was secondary in my mind to how hard he was trying. I could convince myself that he'd like it much more if he put his all into it, but I was viewing his enjoyment as a by-product, not the primary reason to play.

Dr Mike Atkinson, a sociologist of sport at Loughborough University who specialises in the relationship between masculine identity and sports cultures, says that such an outlook is not uncommon.

“Men often look at sport from a middle-class work perspective. So what's important to them] is progressive skill development, advancement, effort, that sort of thing,” Atkinson says. “It's hard for us to divorce from that mentality when we watch as fathers. It's not seen as ‘play'. This is competitive, rational and goal-oriented; it's not just about them having a good time.”

He points out that sporting activity is often a key part of our social identity and sense of status, and has been used as a vehicle for class association throughout history: “Parents will think that if they get their boy into this team or club, it's an opportunity to mix with people he might otherwise not - perhaps provide access to opportunities they themselves didn't have. It can be seen as a means of social mobility.”

Paula Hall backs this up, suggesting that my generation has also been decisively influenced by growing up during the Thatcher era. “It was very much the generation that was taught to believe, ‘You can achieve anything and should be aiming for the very top'. The generation prior to that was more of the mind that ‘this is our lot, our path in life'. Society changed quite considerably - and a lot of that generation are now parents.”

This could certainly account for the growth in the pushy parents club (of which I'm a former member, now rehabilitated). On my part, I became hyper-aware that I had been putting undue pressure on my son. I backed off, letting Tom - and his younger brother - choose the sports they wanted to try, giving them as much non-judgmental encouragement and help as possible, and consciously self-checking my behaviour and reactions. I may, however, have been too late - and the consequences of pushing too hard can be severe.

“Every piece of evidence suggests that the number of excessively pushy parents is on the rise and they do create excess pressure,” Atkin- son says. “Young boys look to their dads for approval as to which sport they should play. They think ‘If I don't play then I'm letting my dad down'. Too many kids are made to feel that if they're failing in sport, then they're failing in life at a young age. That has a tremendous consequence for a lot of young boys that they never get over - they feel less of a guy.”

Tom, now 8, plays rugby regularly - a sport to which he's more physically suited - as well as a bit of football and tennis. He learnt to ski this year, showing bravery and determination as well as great enthusiasm.

Sport is not his abiding passion in life, nor will it ever be, but he's very happy giving it his best.

While I can't guarantee my vicarious ambitions and subsequent frustrations haven't messed with my son's psyche in the long-term (I have written this under a pseudonym in an attempt to protect him from further turmoil), I do genuinely appreciate him for his myriad qualities. The strength of various sport-and-parenting-related emotions at least prompted me to analyse my approach to fatherhood, unblinkering me in the process. And I have a thriving, healthy, happy charming, popular, funny and brilliant technologically minded eldest son, to boot.

Mind you, if he stumbles upon a hitherto untapped talent for speed-skating/windsurfing/synchronised tenpin tiddlywinks, I'll be there cheering him on at the 2020 Olympics. Bellowing “encouragement” for all I'm worth...

BE A MATCH-FIT FATHER
Don't let your ambition spoil your kids' enjoyment.
Don't push them towards one sport too early. It's more likely to be the parents' sport of choice rather than the child's. And the more you push them, the higher the likelihood they'll drop out of the sport completely later on.
Reinforce the idea that sport can be fun and rewarding in itself - it's not just about winning, or about becoming a celebrity.
Be realistic in your expectations. Accept that there's no guarantee your child is going to be particularly talented, and all the training in the world still won't turn him into Wayne Rooney.
Tread carefully if you have children of differing abilities. If a child is conscious that his sibling is meeting his parents' expectations but he is not, he will feel that he has let you down in some way.
Explore different options. Expose them to a range of physical pursuits at an early stage, and where possible let them decide. Don't dismiss activities just because you're not familiar with them.
Remember, there are other routes to success and happiness than sport. Even though we all know this, it may take a conscious rethink on your part. Emphasise what else is important in life: character, learning, kindness and creativity.

Times recommends

• Gardasil: a cancer jab I don’t regret
• How to haggle for your holiday
• Lesbian chic