True suffering
I switched schools halfway through secondary school from a crap school to a slightly less crap school.

In crap school, boys winter sports were football and extreme ice snowballing (only one of which was officially sanctioned). The rules to both are pretty simple, even for someone like myself with *zero* interest in taking part in outdoor sports.

In slightly less crap school, boys winter sports were rugby and more rugby. The rules of rugby are, as far as I can discern, made up on the spot. Even if they are actually written down somewhere, having joined halfway through the voyage of discovery of rugby most of my fellow boys were embarked on, I didn't have the first clue what they might be.

So on my first trip to the rugby pitch (which was frozen harder than concrete), in the snow and wind and so on, I wasn't very good. I did a few things wrong, which had names I didn't understand, like "knock on" and "offside" and "what the fuck?!". Not being a very big chap I also suffered somewhat in the not-getting-the-shit-kicked-out-of-me sub-game that seems to be an integral part of rugby.

Anyway, my PE teacher eventually flipped, had a five minute rant at me for being a stupid, pathetic boy. As his punishment he sent me to play volleyball in the warm sports hall with a bunch of fresh, pink, bouncy 14/15-year-old girls in gym-skirts. This ultimate humiliation, he explained, would teach me what being a man was all about. In that he wasn't wrong, though probably not quite in the ways he intended. I would, he foamed, never play rugby on his pitch again, and would for the rest of my days be banished during the winter months to the warm sports hall, with those damned girls in those damned gym skirts and bouncy bits. Bouncy, bouncy.

I still don't understand the rules of rugby. Volleyball on the other hand I still have a bit of a hard-spot for. Thanks Mr Pugh :)
(Wilton Mitrowserz, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 19:02, Reply)