Our school wasn't the most athletic.


This was the rugby team.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 16:52, 8 replies)

Sports day, primary school, about 15 years ago.
At a guess. That would put me at 6, an age suitable so as not to feel embarrassed about this story. Probably closer to 10.

Being that long ago, I have few recollections, but this bit sticks out in my memory like a jagged spear in my side, going septic.

The sack race. Perhaps the most highly regarded race of a primary schools’ sports day, it is infinitely more interesting than the 100m dash, just involving running, and a million miles better than the egg and spoon race, just involving walking (and eggs). The sack race combines stamina, agility, and the ability to hop in a sporting piece of inspiration.

I might be slightly over-playing it. Suffice to say I quite liked the sack race.

I was never the fastest runner or anything like that in my school. I had a bloody good eye and a strong arm so I would go on to hold throwing records at my schools for the next 10 years, and enjoyed cricket et al. But I wasn’t slight and sleek, I was a bit chubby and frankly just not that aerodynamic. So when I stepped up to the line, sweaty hands clenched around the lip of my sack as tight as I could muster, I wasn’t exactly brimming with confidence. I remember 2 competitors – Luke – a decent friend, but not a sporting hero. Frankly I even fancied MY chances against him. The other, Craig, I wasn’t quite so confident. He was a renowned runner, and excelled at most things sporting. He had taken home many a ‘1st place’ rosette while I stumbled back with a scraped knee and a ‘Great effort’ bow pinned to my polo shirt.

Still, despite my poor odds against such a specimen of athletic prowess, I was ready to go. The parents were loving the sack race, if possible, even more than me. I was charged and ready, and I looked down the line of chanting parents – my lane being closest to them – to see my mum and Luke’s mum cheering with everyone else, anticipating the whistle. I fixed my eyes on them and heard the blast. I was off, working my legs as hard as I could. The line of parents cheering right into my face was disconcerting at best, but once I had gained some speed, they blurred into insignificance as the finish line beckoned.

I chanced a look over my shoulder and saw them all – Luke was well out of the running, slowly jumping in his sack, making little to no progress, his little face gurning in concentration. Craig on the other hand, he was fucking close - but most importantly, still behind me. I returned my view to the front, and stepped it up a notch. Going as far as I could with each jump, not wasting any energy. I passed my mum, gave her a quick, nervous look as she screamed, and returned my eyes to the finish. It was a matter of meters now.

I could feel Craig baring down on me from behind, his springy legs and less than ample frame working to his advantage. I, on the other hand, was fucking knackered. I had pushed so hard, but I wasn’t about the lose this without a fight. I carried on my stupendous efforts, already hearing the chanting of my name as I was borne aloft and carried inside the school for squash and biscuits. Until I felt that horribly ungainly feeling – you know where you’re running like a bat out of hell, but your legs lose rhythm and can’t keep up with your speed any more? Imagine that, in a sack.

I just had no chance. My hands were gripped eternally to the sack, my legs were tangled amongst each other, and there was nothing else left but to let it happen. I felt, hard, onto the cracked earth. The distance left to the line was such that when I fell, my head was basically touching the line. Not quite there, but one more step and I would be through the tape. I looked up through dusty vision and saw Craig hopping over the line. I saw the disappointment etched on my mums’ face. I tried getting up, but it was useless. The sack was now physically attached to my legs. I flailed on the floor as everyone else passed through, Luke hopping over last. Until I got up, disentangled myself from the sack, and crossed over the line, holding back the tears. My one chance to show everyone, and Craig in particular, that I did have an ounce of athleticism. I was hurt, humiliated, and not only did I not get to be borne aloft into the school for juice, I didn’t even have a fucking Second Place rosette. I got my usual ‘Great Job!’ sticker, not even worthy of my scorn.

You might chose to think of this as an over-embellished attempt at humour. But honestly, that was one of the most heart-breaking days of my young life.
( Rookie You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 16:49, 2 replies)

Inappropriate nudity!
By the time we'd got into the 6th form, our games lessons had improved. We had the choice of a variety of other sports, some of which were taught by the female teachers. One term I picked Trampolining which was taught by a mid 20s woman with long dark hair she wore in a ponytail. Not a looker by any means, but certainly better than the hairy arsed blokes we'd had until then. Now one of the lads had landed himself a job developing photos at a local chemists (this was in 1986) and it was a never ending source of amusement for us, as anything slightly dodgy always ended up being reprinted a few times and dished out to us. One day he came into school and was quite cagey about his findings over the weekend.

"So you got nothing this weekend then?"

"Err..."

"Is that a yes or a no?"

"Well I did, but it's a bit sensitive?"

"Why?"

"We know her!"

"Fuck off! Seriously?"

"Yep, serious!"

"Does she go to this school?"

"In a way."

"What class?"

I'm sure you can see where this is going! Said Pony Tail Teacher had dropped a film off, little realising who would serve her. My mate had waited until she'd left the shop before quickly developing a film full of photos of her on a boat, all very boring, except for the very final shot of her on the sofa, blouse held open, tits on full display! Now she never found out that we'd seen this, although she probably guessed, but it remained our elephant in the gym for every games lesson after that.

Looking back we should have blackmailed her for blow jobs.
(Markthrone, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 16:28, 2 replies)

Teapot Parade & other horrors!
To put this in the right historical context, this story is from my first term at big school in 1980, there is no way they'd get away with it today!

In an effort to teach us about personal hygiene, we were forced to undergo a ritual every games lesson called Teapot Parade. The premise being that doing games in the same pants as you'd wear for the rest of the day would lead to unpleasant sweaty smells was a sound one, but the manner in which our teachers performed it was by the usual ritual of humiliation and shame! After we'd got changed, we were told to line up by our pegs in the changing room, and the teacher would walk down the line asking each child to drop their shorts in turn. Should a pair of Y-Fronts great him, proof was instantly required of a second pair, if these were shown, then onto the next lad, if not the boy was told to take them off, thus exposing his Teapot. Lads without a second pair had a stark choice, to expose his cock straight away or strip in front of the teacher. We were prepubescent and so apart from hanging down instead of up, Teapot was an accurate, if not rather disturbing description.

We didn't get out onto the games field very often that first term, be it the awful weather outside or that self-loathing most games teachers had that if only they'd studied hard enough they might be in a nice warm classroom instead, but I seem to recall that we took too long to get changed, so entire lessons were spent getting dressed and undressed in full view of the teacher. I remember one lesson, we managed to do it quickly enough about ten minutes from the end, were we rewarded with an early finish? God no, we were sent out for a run.

Another occasion saw a mud fight break out in the changing rooms, the guilty parties were hauled away and given a 100 lines, not as they'd hoped "I must not throw mud", but something along the lines of "I must not project projectiles in the changing rooms, or a projectile might project into someone's eye."

I'd be interested to know if anyone else had to endure Teapot Parade!

Apologies for length, I was only 12.
(Markthrone, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 16:13, 2 replies)

Charles
Charles fell in love with me. He had hardly spoken to me; he’d seen me ‘round the school and liked the cut of my hammer pants. I ignored his attempts at sparkling pickup lines, he smelled of bumholes, wee and old hair, and I had a certain degree of NKOTB loving coolness to uphold. Nonetheless, his love could not be contained and, just before my gym lesson in the 6th grade, he proposed. He got on one knee in front of the drinking fountain, gazed straight into my eyes and gave me a ring. The bell buzzed and I ran away, lucky to breath because, bloody hell, he did smell like a barnyard.

Never before had I so eagerly entered that gym class. I changed into my blue polyester shorts and attractive white t-shirt, then bounded into the gym. But wait. Charles was standing there. What was Charles doing there? He wasn’t going to tell my friends, was he? Oh God, don’t say anything in front of the cool girls, ‘cause that would be, like, TOTALLY embarrassing.

No, Charles set about badly breakdancing, sans music. He tried to uprock and backspring his way into my heart. He flailed and spun around the gym as word alighted through the school that there was an embarrassing life-changing spectacle to be had. Children of all ages came to see Charles dance for my hand in marriage. They gave him a beat; they started clapping. I tried to run into the changing rooms but was blocked by Joe and Evan (I still hate you guys) and a swarm of cackling girls pushed me in the direction of my paramour. He twirled, he jumped, then he landed a kiss on my lips and a tongue in my mouth.

And the entire gym broke out laughing. Charles became the hero. I became the girl who kissed the boy who smelled of toilets IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE SCHOOL.

That was also the story of my first kiss. If you like this story, one day I’ll tell you all about how I lost my virginity.
(TheSnark oh, c'mon, like you didn't see me coming, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 16:11, 23 replies)

Junior School.
Aged 10. Girls got changed in one classroom, boys in another. Guaranteed after every single PE lesson without fail Mr Williams would walk into the room the girls were getting changed in just as we were in our knickers and vests. Until the fateful week when a classroom full of 10 year old girls screamed 'PERVERT' at him. Mrs Ralphs came to check on us then...

Edit: Sort of to do with PE. I just wanted to join in with the 'Paedo Teachers' posts.
( Blue Star was working part time at the 5 and Dime, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 16:05, 3 replies)

The Mong Leagues
You didn't have to do sport at my school; not proper sport anyway. Those who were unable or unwilling to kick, throw or run in any meaningful fashion had the option of The Mong Leagues: a cornucopia of uncoordinated, frightened and reluctant nerds who wallowed in their collective crapness while the fit, able or willing would endure the torment of over-zealous coaches hell-bent on making young boys suffer for their own reflected glory.

My school was, however, very small. For this reason it was virtually impossible to avoid entirely the draft to the school teams if you displayed anything even remotely approaching coordination... a mistake I made all too early in my school career and one I was unable to rectify with shocking displays of utter mongitude in my later years.

I was never that good at sports. Indeed I proudly displayed my startling inability to perform to any decent standard with each outing onto the field of battle, but for some reason I was chosen. I was by no means a first team regular, or rarely even substitute, but upon my reluctant head was oft bestowed that most dubious honour: 2nd team captain. Not quite good enough even to warm the benches for the elite, but most worthy of pity among the rejects.

This had two distinct drawbacks: Firstly that I had to endure training with those who enjoyed sport and didn't take far greater interest in learning how to smoke. Secondly in that I couldn't join my friends in the far more appealing Mong Leagues, a world where sport is enjoyed at a walking pace and scarves and gloves were considered acceptable attire in colder weather. They looked upon sport in a gentlemanly way, where the competitiveness of the serious sports folk was derided for its grotesque brutishness and the pursuit of success on cold, muddy pitches was so far from their aspirations as to be a disgraceful and hideous nightmare never to be entertained in their creative and cultured minds. I watched them enviously through reddened and pulsating pupils after yet another session of lung-hating sprints about a soggy field, while they meandered about the "baby pitches" with lackadaisical ease, mocking me with their natural lack of discernible ability.
( Moey, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 15:40, 1 reply)

I have a note..
From my mum

That excuses me from this weeks post!



Ironically it's Atheletes foot?
(MudButton does not mean to offend but......, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 15:38, 2 replies)

Shock! Horror! Surprise!
In much the same way as other B3tans, I was a bookish sort at school, given to academic pursuits over physicality. The resulting report card at the end of the year held, therefore, a nice, neat row of swotty As, sullied by the ridiculous inclusion of PE on the list. These two niggling letters were accompanied by a third, often a C. I was unconcerned by the mark itself, but being the type who ensured all things atop the desk were aligned to the same angle and knotted my tie to the perfect length and shape, the lack of symmetry irked me.

I took the marks I was given on these reports as an indictment of the scoring system and its wild inaccuracies. The letter grade stood for the effort the teachers perceived emanating from a student and ran from A to F. Each letter was paired with a number ranging from one to ten, designating the pupil's status in the hierarchy of learning. These were generally nines and tens, save the subject that is the very substance of this QOTW: a six, perhaps, in a good year. Oddly, these attainment scores bothered me not in the least; they weren't nearly as pleasing as the shiny grade at the far left. Those subjects I found easy and in which I excelled, therefore, garnered an A, despite my complete lack of effort. PE, where (for some reason) I had to try to attain some form of goal but for which I had no real aptitude, gathered only low grades.

As I matured and passed through my schooling, the lack of straight As ceased to infuriate me. I developed a perverse pride in my lack of athletic ambition, cultivating that lower grade by putting in less and less effort until the summer months, whereupon we were able to play cricket, tennis or rounders rather than football or rugby. Both of these latter sports were foreign to me, as all PE teachers assumed I was born with foreknowledge of the rules like other male children. All of the above is probably common ground to many geekatypes; I shall now diverge from the norm in that all of my PE teachers were generally quite pleasant. Nearing the end of compulsory education, they became downright pleasant and once let me choose the activity for the day because I was the only person being quiet and sitting still. Even picking cricket over football in opposition to the shouts of the other pupils failed to incur their ire and a jolly time was had by all.

At the end of that year came the shock, horror and surprise of the title. I glanced over my school report and found, to my horror, an A in every subject... including PE. Did this mean I had to give up my status as an unpopular, outcast child? Was my prized intelligence now a hindrance to my new and physical existence? Well, no. I'd just discovered I preferred solo sports (stop sniggering at the back) and had more of a chance to do them that year. What fun.

Apologies for lack of anything resembling amusement and the waste of several valuable seconds of your time. On the other hand, there are no puns in the above text.
(ThomsonsPier consumes, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 14:53, 1 reply)

PE a introduction to sport
I have good and bad memories from my secondary school.
My school was Coundon Court Comprehensive School in Coventry

My PE teacher was Mr Brown a handlebar moustached extremely angry individual who seemed to delight in wearing the kind of figure hugging tracksuit hip people these days would shop for and call retro.

Mr Browns favourite sport was setting up a gymnastics horse in the gym at a level that was just about low enough for only the most athletic youths to vault over. He would then proceed to make every member of the class leap over the horse using a springboard to take flight with. Of course not every student could jump over it and these individuals would end up having to keep trying to jump the horse over and over again because they basically couldn't make it over the top. What started out as amusement as the fatties or shorter people of the class tried over and over again to jump the horse turned to gasps of horror as the class was forced to witness kids smashing their shins, nuts or faces off the horse and crash mat over and over again until Mr Brown was pleased with their acrobatic attempt.

Another fantastic love of Mr Browns was to drop the class off using the school minibus at the wedge ( which was a rural expanse of land in the coundon/ allesley area of coventry ) on the most bitter bitterly cold days and ask the students to make their way back to the school. We were asked to wear our shorts and vests to do this !! in November !!

You wouldn't get away with it now Mr Brown but in fairness even now i don
cotton shorts and a vest and go jogging late on most November evenings.......

do i fuck ...fuck you mr brown you psychotic moustachio'd cock cosmonaut
(Cov Boy, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 14:26, Reply)

Dance
As women asre obviously incapable of any competative sport we had to do dance for a term, I remember 'dancing' around a plastic chair whilst 'eye of the tiger' blasted out of the worst internal speaker system outside a village fete.
(CaptainSpunker, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 13:34, Reply)

motherfucking 'interperative dance' lessons
no 15 yr old boy wants to prance about pretending to dance to Queen's I want to break free for 2 hours a week. It made me hate Queen. It made me hate any form of dancing. It made me hate music for a long time.

Well done Malmesbury comprehensive. you twats.

/the pyschic wounds are still raw.
( monstrinho do biscoito teeeshurts = www.nogunarmy.com, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 12:55, 7 replies)

Volleyball ended a friendship
During Year 7 at primary school, volleyball was introduced to our PE lessons, much to the delight of most of the class as it meant we had an hour in the warm assembly hall (which doubled as the gym), rather than outside in the cold, playing rounders. At the time, a few of us had started to discover the opposite sex; some boys walked around the playground at lunch time with their arms around their ‘girlfriend’. Some would even snog, much to the disgust of the other boys, who preferred to play Cops and Robbers and ‘Tag on the lines’ during lunch break. I remember these times well; it was during one volleyball session that I learnt the term ‘Sheep-shagger’, and although I didn’t know what it meant, it became the basis of my vocabulary for the next couple of weeks (until I learnt ‘jam-rag’, which caused my mother to spit out her tea when I asked what it meant)

There was a girl in our class named Heather and she was the one girl that every boy wanted to ‘go out with’. She was pretty, intelligent and very flirty, and her beauty caught the eye of two lads in particular in my class; Neil and Martin. Both had a reputation for being disruptive in lessons, but good with the girls, and although they were mates, it was to be Heather that came between them. The events of one volleyball lesson during which their friendship ended have gone down in folklore at my old primary school.
Neil was a beast of a 12-year old; nicknamed Rat Catcher, because he once fed a rat he found half alive (after it had been poisoned on the school premises) some crisps, he was someone you didn’t mess with. What he said, generally went. The girls would flock round him; I couldn’t understand it, but nothing ever makes sense when you’re young. Neil had been pursuing Heather for quite some time, and she was finally beginning to crack. She would spend some lunch breaks with Neil sat on the bench in the playground, just talking, and her presence definitely had a sort of calming effect on Neil – he was improving in lessons and spent less time putting itching powder down the back of the shirts of classmates. Neil’s mate at the time, Martin, was a charmer – quite a skinny lad with a bit of a strange face, he used the gift of the gab to snag his girls. Unbeknown to Neil, Martin also had a huge crush of Heather, and seeing her spending time with Neil was killing him inside. When Neil found about the secret crush, he warned Martin off, but this seemed to fire Martin up. One lunch break, Martin was seen by Neil, who was in detention, with his arm around Heather’s neck, smiling and joking. Neil was livid. Although he wasn’t officially going out with Heather yet, she was his, and besides, Martin was supposed to be his mate.

That same afternoon, we got changed and went into the hall for our PE lesson, which was volleyball. The teacher split us into three teams by lining us up and numbering us from 1 to 3. Neil and Martin usually stood in the line when teams were picked so that they were on the same side, and their team inevitably won; but not today – they stood shoulder to shoulder, barely looking at one another, to ensure they were on different sides. We were to play ‘Winner Stays On’, with one team sitting out, who would then replace the losing team after every seven points. I was on the team sitting out, and on this particular day, we never got to play a game. The two other teams started their game, with almost everyone in the lesson seeing it more of a Neil versus Martin game. Neil served the ball for his team, but Martin’s team were equal to the task, and the ball came back over and the point was won. Neil snapped at the girls on his team, and was visibly angry. Looking up, he saw Martin high-5 Heather, and I could see him shaking – veins were visible on his forehead. With Martin’s team now serving, Neil came forth to the net, face to face with Martin who was in a crouched position, ready for any return.

The serve came over, and Neil’s team mates did well to return the ball to Martin’s team. Back it came again, at a good height for Neil, who jumped up ready to smash the ball downwards. As he jumped, Martin jumped with him, arms spread, hoping to block the attempted smash at the net. The ball left Neil’s clenched fist at a ferocious speed – straight into Martin’s nose, which spread outwards across his face. Martin collapsed to the floor, bawling, clenching his nose tightly. I remember hearing the crunch as the ball hit him. The girls in the class screamed, a few of the boys laughed. Neil sat down on the piano stool at the side of the court and smiled. ‘What a bastard’ I remember thinking. Amidst the commotion, the teacher managed to get Martin to his feet and lead him to the matron’s office. The class was cut short – we were made to get changed.

You’d be wrong to think that Neil had the last laugh though. Unimpressed by his show of strength, Heather went out with Martin for “being really brave”, and Neil went back to being disruptive. His reputation with the girls soon waivered after the event, and Martin never fully forgave him, even though Neil insisted it was an accident.
(Monkey the Chicken Twitter: death_stairs, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 12:48, Reply)

Garfield Sobers, eat your heart out
The only sport I ever actively enjoyed playing was cricket, which is strange for a Scot, but there you go.

Anyway, we used to play it in the playground at primary school, during the summer. This wasn't part of formal PE lessons, it was just what we did before school and at lunchtime. The playground was quite big, and there were certain unique ground rules regarding scoring. A four was deemed to have been scored if the ball hit any of the walls enclosing the playground. To score a six required the ball to be hit over the side wall, into the car park/grassy field.

However, if the ball was hit over the wall into the field at the top of the playground, a six was awarded, but the batsman was also declared out, because there was a horse in the field, and we were a bit scared of it when we went to recover the ball!

But my finest moment came one day when I hit a sweep shot worthy of Ian Botham in his prime, which went round to my leg side, and continued down behind me, past the school, out the gates and down the main road. Because it hadn't hit the wall, the ball was deemed to be still in play, and so by the time the fielders (with the help of the lollipop lady) had run down the road and retrieved it, I had amassed a total of 12 runs off a single ball.

The annoying thing was that had I not been a fat lazy sod, I'd probably have managed another half dozen!
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 12:45, 1 reply)

Oh, the hockey-cocky...
Here's a quick bit of PE anthropology: those who're good at team sport quickly become the "in" crowd within any group of teenagers; the slightly more academic, unsporty, individualistic, and unpopular people end up in a sort of hinterland. From that hinterland, a defiant, "anti-in-crowd" can emerge. And that crowd actually can have a lot of fun.

After having endured two years of compulsory rugby, we were finally given the opportunity to switch to hockey as we entered the third year. I hate team sports, but hockey was a less bad option. The choice was easy for me, as it was for everyone else who hated team sports. Yet there were also members of the sporty "in-crowd" who also chose hockey. So it was that the year divided into three rough groups: the rugby crowd - all of whom took their game seriously - and two hockey crowds - one of which was drawn from people who took it seriously, and the other of which... um... wasn't. I belonged to this last crowd.

Very quickly, the divide between the two hockey crowds opened and became a chasm. The sporty group would merrily run around doing things that sporty people do, calling each other "mate", and engaging in that sort of blokey bonhomie so despised by people with a fully-functioning brain.

We, on the other hand, realised that we were holding sticks. Weapons. When the games were, in effect, played between the hockey team and the others, the injury rate rocketed. It's easy to break a bone in someone's hand without it looking deliberate.

When the teachers realised that the nerds were treating games lessons as a thinly-disguised excuse to purge teenage resentment of the popular by maiming them, they tried to ensure that the teams were more of a mix of the popular and unpopular.

Did I mention that there was quite an active strain of Marxism among the unpopular kids at my school? I didn't? There was. So when the popular kids who'd appointed themselves team captains and star players tried to chivvy us into showing obeisance to them and their pitiful pastime, we just sat down and started singing the Internationale and the Soviet national anthem. Yup: we went on strike - well, lolstrike - from PE.

I never liked hockey, but I grew to be tolerably keen on hockey lessons.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 12:33, 4 replies)

Leotard
ultimately I was a really lazy bugger at school and gd there was a way round something i'd surely find it.
So when we were given the choice between rugby or pop-mobility then it would be fair to say that myself and a few other layabouts jumped at the chance. If you haven't heard of pop-mobility (PM) then it's basically yoga and similar excersise to music.
Anyhow, the most memorable day was when we were all sitting facing the rather tasty and very fit teacher, legs out out in front of us in a stretched out 'V' shape and touching our toes mimicking her, until that is when the gusset of her leotard got sucked up her fanny, well not all the way up obviously, but enough for 5 or 6 13yr old boys to get a good eyeful. It's still talked about to this day.
(Kip, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 11:58, 1 reply)

"It's character-building!"
...shouted my rowing coach as I hugged the elderly radiator in the shed, shivering so much I looked slightly blurred.

3 minutes earlier, I'd been fine. I was going sculling, and asked a friend to hold my right oar down, as I leant precariously over to my left oar to do the gate up. Except said friend got distracted very easily. Someone shouted her name, and she looked round, jumped up and let go of my oar. As I was leaning out over the water so much, I did a rather ungraceful roll into the water, and came up spluttering and struggling for air. I was unable to breathe, due to the fact that this was in mid-December, and we'd had to spend a couple of minutes breaking up the thin ice clinging to the jetty before we could even get the boats out. Fortunately the coach grabbed my arms and bodily pulled me out of the water; the river isn't too deep where I went to school, and I'm a very strong swimmer, but I suddenly understood how easy it is to drown in cold water.

Was the coach sympathetic? Did he rebuke the friend for not paying enough attention to what she was doing and thus being the cause of my untimely dunking?

Did he fuck.

He shouted at me for embarrassing him in front of the GB coach, who had come along that day to trial some of us for the junior squad. I protested that it wasn't my fault, but he was having none of it.


Thus ended my potentially quite promising rowing career; I was buggered if I was going to hang around with a sadistic pillock like that if I didn't have to. So I changed my options to squash and fives - both in the warm indoors, both a 5 minute walk from my house. Best decision I ever made.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 11:47, 2 replies)

In which my goat is got
I went to a very sporty school. Before I got to uni, I hadn't realised that it was out of the ordinary to have eight - yup, eight - games lessons a week. (We had it twice on Wednesdays.)

Despite being quite the malcoordinant, I always liked games. I liked skittering hither and thither in the fresh air, and rolling about on gym mats. I liked not being sat trapped at a small plastic desk, thinking of ways I could potentially injure myself with a protractor severely enough to escape the penury of humiliation and non-comprehension that was double maths. I liked swimming in the local crappy public baths in our regulation school costumes, even if my hair used to freeze on the cold, cold walk back to school in winter. Generally, I like being up and about, and the ridiculous amount of PE we were obliged to do up until the age of 15 wasn't too onerous, and probably stood us in good stead for the future, or something.

What I hated, though, and hate still, was the policy-cum-attitude of the sports department. Like I said, it was a very, very sporty school, and the emphasis was on winning and getting as many national trophies as possible. And to that end, all the expensive tuition and equipment and development opportunities were lavished on the select few who were part of the squad. If you weren't in there, you didn't have a chance. Trips to the Caribbean, South Africa and New Zealand (to name but a few) laid on at the school's expense (just how many world-class hockey squads are there in the Bahamas, I wonder...) while the rest of us were kicked down to the bottom astroturf with a few spare old sticks and the dregs of the boot cupboard, to figure it out for ourselves. It was pretty damn unfair, to say the least, particularly as all this sporting glory and all those expensively-embossed team tracksuits were purchased to the massive detriment of the drama and art departments, which were shunted down into little temporary buildings to make way for a sixth rugby pitch.

But what really riled me about all this was the way that these teams were selected. Continuous assesment, perchance? A few shot games every year, or, indeed, a reassessment at the beginning of each new school year, so one might have a chance to improve over the hols?

Nope.

The entire girl's sport squad was picked in the very first fortnight of high school solely and entirely from girls who had attended the attached junior school, and had therefore been playing hockey - under the training of the same teachers - for three years already. Me, and half the rest of the school, had never picked up a stick in our lives before we left our modest little village primaries. We were fucked. Because then, perhaps thinking that it would be easier for their meagre allowances of grey matter to just have to remember one set of names, the entire set of other sports teams were then selected from this same group of 15 or so girls. Never mind that half of them couldn't run to save their ponies' lives, or that I'd played tennis for the county the previous year. The teachers just did not want to know.

And it really, really pissed me off.

There is something of a redemptive coda to this story - and plenty of incidents of more-or-less petty revenge I could recount, but I've got to be off now. I'll leave you with this. Doing that amount of sport plus extra training sessions per week will, as you might expect, keep one reasonably trim and slender. What the hockey-playing girls seemed to totally fail to account for is what happens when you leave school, go off to uni and completely stop playing sport whilst continuing to eat at the same level. Nine months after we left, we had a little reunion. The look on the faces of the group when one by one enormous wobbling heifers that bore a dim resemblance to our former classmates (and were still trying and failing to squeeze into their clothes) came in was utterly priceless. It was worth it, just for that.

Bye!
(jennymnemonic, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 11:28, 7 replies)

I failed bowling.
My school didn’t have much going for it, so gym class was mandatory for 3 out of the 4 years of high school. I was more interested in mathematics that gymnastics, and did my best to convince the school administration that I was better served in physics than physical exercise. Alas, I couldn’t wriggle my way out of this one.

I was a gangly teenager who had grown nearly a foot over the course of six months and hardly possessed the ability to walk, let alone dribble a bloody basketball. I was so knock-kneed, my legs bent the wrong way like some sort of robot spider. The most attractive part of my daily fashion ensemble was a back brace for my wretched scoliosis. Alas, my gym grade wasn’t based on go-getter attitude or hard-workyness – no, I was graded on skill.

I’d bumbled through basketball and tennis, line-dancing (oh yes) and flag football, but it was time for the worst of them all: bowling. High scores were worth A+s, anything less than this was considered sub-average or even a failure. And since this grade counted towards my overall high school grade point average, I was bowling for my FUTURE. The rest of my life was to be determined in this bowling alley.

What with the inability to walk, move or even pick up the bowling ball, my scores averaged around 20. Failure! I failed bowling. I. FAILED. BOWLING. Because I failed bowling, my grade in gym class slipped to a B+. This B+ tarnished my perfect record, and also meant that I was overall second in my class, not first. I therefore lost out on several prospective college scholarships. I had to attend the university which was my cheapest option, not the Ivy League school that was my first. Because this university didn’t do learning as much as it did partying, I discovered beer…

…hurrah!

Thank you gym class!
(TheSnark oh, c'mon, like you didn't see me coming, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 11:01, 6 replies)

PE, oh the horrors!!
I have always hated sports, and still do, a few things I have tried to blot out:
Junior school, hanging upside down by my shorts from the 'apparatus' with shorts at my knees and pants not far behind, much hilarity when I had to be helped down by the teachers.
Changing in the classroom in front of all the girls who could put on their PE knickers (dark blue) without showing you their real knickers whereas boys had to take their shorts off.

Secondary school, being hit in the knackers by a football launced from 2 feet away at full speed (a miss-kick allegedly) and spending the rest of the lesson with a towel soaked in cold water between the legs.
Being launched into the girls changing room just in pants and the door being held closed for what seemed like days, having said pants removed and your hands held behind your back so you couldn't cover yourself.
Being dared to strip off and go into the girls changing room mid lesson when nobody was about and finding a girl in there (the dare-er knew that cos he'd seen her go in) I won the dare, he got several bruises, and she got an eyefull!

The only good thing was the short skirts and the possibility of a little flash of cotton, mmmmmmmm :)
(Underpants, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 10:56, 2 replies)

I went to an all boys grammar that was esablished in the 1500s. for PE, this meant many things. Definitely no football for starters, Rugby was the only team game on offer in winter. I was (briefly) in the B team, but eventually kicked out for running very quickly away from the ball so I didn't have to get cold and muddy. The other sports on offer, depending on the time of year, were tennis (too much scrutiny as the PE block overlooked the courts), cross country (three laps around the schoold grounds - could hop the fence into a mate's house quite easily and watch crappy afternoon telly instead), cricket (wish I'd gotten into this now actually, any sport that involves tea is good in my book), squash and eton fives. there was also an indoor pool, but we had specific lessons for that. nothing more amusing than watching a class of 12 year olds trying to grasp the concept of doing a back dive off the middle board (fall back, don't jump!) and ending up with a gut shattering belly flop.

but back to eton fives. I loved picking fives or squash because the courts were away from the shouty shouty of mr archer, the head of games. I still have no clue how to play fives, as far as I can remember the rules involved putting a high jump crash mat in the middle of the court and jumping from the gallery, hoping to hell you landed on it. which was great until someone didn't. and broke his leg.

surprisingly difficult to explain a broken leg when you're meant to be playing a sedate racquet sport that doesn't involve racquets...
(Alphabet Soap boshboshboshbosh, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 10:53, 2 replies)

I was popular at school...
So let me even things out and become unpopular here :)

I loved PE, was always in the school teams for nearly every sport we actually participated in (For some reason they wouldn't let me wear a pleated skirt and play netball).

I've seen a lot of people whining about how they were made to run and do sports that they hated and therefore their teacher was a 'bastard/prick/paedo' etc.

Actually, most of them were probably trying to stop you from being bullied as the obese kid you were/were about to become for being so fucking LAZY as not to bother in sports lessons. I doubt all of them wanted you to win Olympic Gold, just not stand at the edge of the field with your hands jangling in your tracky bums, bemoaning the audacity of anyone expecting you to make a fucking slight effort not to die of an early heart attack.

Sorry!
(Galahad is out of his gourd on yellow bentines, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 10:17, 8 replies)

Team Ethics
Football in PE was, and probably still is, the best players picking the next best players and so on until you 'have' to pick the deadwood.

As a fairly ok player it was pretty good getting picked middle order cos it meant you werent percieved as wank at football, but the punishment for the slightest mistake was being screamed at. Also having to watch these "better" players not pass, shoot from anywhere and generally do what the fuck they liked slightly irked me and my mate.

After a bit discussion we decided to pick a team next week, which meant a shift in the football power base.....

As planned I picked my mate who was a mental good keeper then next pick picked my other mate and so on till we had an actual Team, not a bunch of individuals/strangers. We proceeded to win 3 of the 5 games that week with NONE of the "better" players on our side.

Strangely my mate bob would not play for us as he saw it embarrasing as we were not a fanciful team to play for, we were like a Stoke or Charlton, no real flair but a tendancy to thrash out wins against better teams. Anyways we won more games than we lost that year with the same thing every week, picking a Team and not nobheads who didnt pass. We remained unfancied every week but even had good players asking to get picked by us after a while :-O

Also....
The best man marking Ive ever seen to this day was when i told a very shy and timid friend called Ian to watch the best player in our half called Lee. Every time Ian was more than 5 yards from Lee i shouted at him, it resulted in him sticking to lee like glue and giving him the kicking off a lifetime, mainly due to his inability to tackle. Ian got a pat on the back off pretty much everyone for that, he was relentless, even Lee who was almost red with rage told me i was a bastard after that one and chuckled.


I loved PE :-/
(Monkeystrumpet monkey. Monkey, MONKEY!!!, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 10:16, 3 replies)

"Slow and steady wins the race,"
said the old lady at the May Fair, just before the egg and spoon race.

To my six-year-old brain, this sounded like a hot tip! A sure-fire way of coming first! The winning secret of this tricky race!

No ifs, not buts, no maybes: just go slow and steady: you'll win.

At the starting line, I could see everyone else getting ready to run. The mugs! Little do they know! Slow and steady wins the race! Watch me triumph!

I came last.
( teedyay, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 10:13, 4 replies)

Hit the Welshman
Badminton was dull and we were rubbish at it, so instead we played Hit the Welshman.

It's a simple game: you have to hit the (Welsh) PE teacher as hard as possible with your shuttlecock without him realising you're doing it on purpose.
( teedyay, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 10:05, 1 reply)

On yer bike
By my late teens, I had discovered a love of running, and I had discovered that I could be pretty good at it, too. What made me keen and good was the fact that I was running because I wanted to run. This would have come as a surprise to my wan, slightly asthmatic 13-year-old self.

My 13-year-old self was not a runner. My 13-year-old self was not much of anything when it came to sport, and I saw PE lessons as largely unwelcome intrusions into my life; they were there to cement the self-regard of the sporty - but I was neither sporty nor self-regarding. The weekly swimming session was tolerable; the weekly PE lesson in the sports hall - usually basketball - was also tolerable. But on top of this came Double Games. That meant, at least during the autumn and spring terms, either an hour of rugby, or an hour of cross-country. I hated both.

The games teachers saw fit to send us on a run. The naturally sporty and sub-literate hared off into the sunny distance in their expensive shoes; I settled into my slightly undignified plod somewhere near the back of the group. I was trying, though: by half way around the course, I could barely see and my lungs were bursting.

I fell to the pavement, a gasping, wheezing, spluttering pile of weakling. In the back of my throat was the taste of slow suffocation.

And along the road came the head of Sport, Tosh; he was patrolling the route on his bike to make sure that noone took any shortcuts. Tosh was not, I don't think, a sadist or deliberately unsympathetic. It was just that he loved sport, and was utterly baffled by anyone who did not. He looked at me, doubled up on the ground, as he rode past. He chose to express his concern for my welfare in the only way he knew.

"GET UP AND RUN, YOU LAZY BASTARD!"
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 9:59, Reply)

Miss Lapin...
Now, I shall publicly name and shame this evil excuse of a human being. She was the longest standing PE teacher at my secondary school. She was there when our parents atteneded the school. She was pure evil. Tiny pruned face like a cat's arse sucking a lemon. Short cut, curly hair tight to her scalp - grey, with hints of white. Bad, gappy, yellowed teeth. I shall call her Miss Lapin, as that was her name.
She was an ex-olympic gymnastics coach. For that read: Heartless twat. The wife of the then alcoholic head master (who can blame him with that as his wife?!) she could get away with murder.
Along with the obligatory PE bullying incidents and such, a few stick in my mind.
The first is the being picked last for rounders incident. Instead of simply assigning me to a team when I was the last person left standing there, whilst the teams argued over who had to have me. She joined in. The 14 year old me, burst into tears and walked off. My mum wrote me notes for the rest of the year.
Another was involving another girl in the class. Long distance running around the track. The girl was quite a big girl, and it was quite a hot day. She made us run around the track for the entire PE lesson. When the larger girl collapsed, you'd think she'd call for a first aider, water, maybe an ambulance? Nope.. she goes over and starts to yell at her for collapsing! She eventually manages to get up and starts to walk-run around the track, only to collapse again.
The last is involving me again, being the incident with the broken foot. I'd broken my foot spectaculaly falling down a kerb. Fractured a metatarsal. At the time my parents (equally sadistic) thought I was making it up and hadn't taken me to a doctor. Yet I quite obviously had a fat foot and couldn't walk. Later on it was found to be broken. Yet did Miss Lapin care? Nope... I was FORCED to play netball with a broken, uncast foot. Screamed at for not making an effort, running like an idiot, and crying about it. Oh joy.

On the plus side, he divorced her I think... but I'm pretty sure the psycho-cow still works at the school. SS officer reincarnated.
( Bathory, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 9:53, Reply)

There's a guy, drinks in my local.
You just have to mention PE teachers, and he loses it big time. You can actually see the veins throbbing in his head. He probably got bummed at school by one.
At least once a week we get onto the subject of games teachers, to see if we can make him have a heart attack.
(Bear Pookie The Frankly Challenged. Halloween is coming to town., Mon 23 Nov 2009, 9:49, Reply)

Dirty Parker
We had a creepy old PE teacher who would insist on showering after
PE. Nowadays I know a nice shower after the gym and that is nice and refreshing and keeps the ladys happy, but back in schooldays it was pointless having a shower when we could go fuckabout elsewhere....

After PE ended we had to sprint up to the changers to quickly get ready as Parker would be on his way up to "check we'd had a shower", so the 1st ones in would run their heads under the shower heads and walk out as he approached. "hairs wet see Sir"..... and we were off free, and not thinking about the slower chumps who had to shower under Sirs watchful eye.

Dont think he was a pedo, just a firm believer of us not being smelly little gits.... course back then we never knew the pedo storm of the 90/00's was on the horizon
(Monkeystrumpet monkey. Monkey, MONKEY!!!, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 9:38, Reply)

Kenny Brownley
Was a bit of a twat, but we had to admire his guile as he burst forth from a bush where he had patiently laid in wait for over an hour to snatch a glorious cross-country win.
( SigmaX0 Dear Die Hard. You rock!, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 8:27, 2 replies)