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)

Sounds like my school
Jenny,

Something here rings a bell. Village primaries, double games on Wednesdays, international trips for the sporty elite, a matching junior school and your properly good English ('redemptive coda') suggest the same public school which tried to educate me for a few years.

It wasn't in an out-of-the-way, very rainy county more famous for fermented apple juice than sporting prowess, was it?

PS even if it wasn't the same school, have a click for the last laugh.
( Scrumper, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 14:14, closed)

Oooh...
I went to (a very minor) public school in cider county. I remember the names of about half a dozen gurlz schools, some of which we used to invite to Sixth Form parties...
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 15:12, closed)

Oh, hang on
Not girls' school - mixed, or as our American friends would say, co-ed.

It doesn't have a name that's reminiscent of an enclosed tract of land with flour-making facilities, does it?
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 15:54, closed)

That's the one
It was the perfect place for a skinny nerd who was hopeless at sport.

Also, how did you manage to forget the fact that there were girls at your school?

Edit: D'oh, sorry, you didn't. I didn't understand your perfectly clear comment.
( Scrumper, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 16:24, closed)

Aha!
We used to play you at rugby and hockey. Many rumours abounded about the sheer opulence of your school, some (the school had its own stables) more plausible than others (the CCF had a tank).
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 17:07, closed)

"You" definitely doesn't equal "me"
Team? Me? No chance! I am going to post something up later about my sports experiences there, such as they were.

Stables, those we had. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the CCF had a tank, although I never saw it and my memory is far too hazy to recollect ever hearing about it. There were a couple of small hovercraft, though, that much I do remember.

It was another world. I got there on massively reduced fees as I lived just down the road and wasn't entirely thick, unlike some of the other kids whose parents actually FLEW IN BY HELICOPTER to sports days. I got out when I was 16 and went to the local 6th form, a much, much happier place for me. Don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge a second I spent at the school, it was a fantastic start and a great basic education, but it wasn't really me. I had a few friends there and it wasn't especially miserable, but if you were shite at games like me you were never going to be part of the establishment.

I can think of a few places you might have gone. that part of the world is quite well served by public schools.
( Scrumper, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 17:48, closed)

nope
twasn't Millfield. Though we were annually thwacked by them in the finals in Milton Keynes. Every bloody time. No way we could compete with all their international ringers (and fifty squillion quid-a-term fees: I went to a grammar, I did.)

My sympathies, sir. Possibly the one place worse than my alma mater to be a non-sportist.
(jennymnemonic, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 21:12, closed)