Rugby Shenanigans
In year 8 during PE we were forced to do rugby union for a term - in an inner London school relatively near to Highbury (yay!) and White Hart Lane (boo!) this wasn't the most popular of sporting choices, especially seeing as they had plenty of proper shaped footballs lying around, but they seemed adamant that we had to get a bit closer to each other than newly-pubescent boys would like to be, and scrum/tackle/try our ways to physical fitness (I would say to a passing grade, but fucking hell, it was PE for Christ's sake!).

It so happened that my good friend Rob was (and still is) built like a tank, and had been ever since I'd met him the year previously, so I obviously joined forces with him for any team activities, as having someone twice the size of anyone else in the class was a good thing in my inexperienced rugby-playing eyes.

Mr Simon, our teacher, was explaining the rules of a 3-vs-3 drill we were playing. One member of the attackers would run forward with the ball, turning back on himself as the defending team tackled him. This would hold the ball up long enough for his attacking colleagues to run up behind him, allowing him to pass the ball to them on the overlap so they could advance past the line. Simple enough.

It came to our turn. Our team (well, mainly Rob) turned over the other lads as they attacked, but this wasn't unusual, nobody (a) knew what they were doing and (b) gave a shit. Then it was our turn. Rob took the ball in his gargantuan hands.

And he ran.

You know those shock-based road safety adverts where some slightly tipsy mortgage broker sends a jaywalking kid flying? It was just like watching that. The first two landed somewhere in Enfield, and, to his eternal credit, the other member of their team (who should've been marking against us on the overlap, but was clearly redundant in that role) bravely charged at the juggernaut. He got a good connection with Rob, but, not having been taught how to tackle yet, ended up holding on to Rob's waist trying to yank him down as he ran through. Mr Simon was not impressed, as he was trying to teach us tactics (although in my opinion hiding behind the biggest bloke is a pretty solid tactic), and shouted "ROB, HOLD THE BALL UP, HOLD THE BALL UP!"

So Rob carried on running holding the ball above his head...
(Dowbocop, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 1:26, Reply)