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)

Ooh
You've just reminded me what they called the mongs at my school.

When I was 13 I went up from a prep school where I played soccer, hockey (because I couldn't see the appeal of rugby) and cricket to a public school where the main options were rugby followed by hockey and cricket or two terms of rowing. When I say "rugby", the bare minimum number of able-bodied Third Formers to make up two teams plus a couple of touch judges/subs actually played rugby, the rest spent a year in a bizarre purgatory called Junior League. This involved a little bit of half-arsed running, a bit of soccer and possibly sitting indoors watching sport on TV. Having been a half-decent exponent of the round ball game at my previous school, I pleaded my ignorance of the school's preferred code of football, and enthusiastically joined the mongs in Junior League.

After a couple of weeks of scoring double hat tricks against classmates who would clearly be much happier playing Dungeons and Dragaons or writing computer programs, I was bored titless and begged to be allowed to play rugby with my slightly cooler mates. By the end of term I was in the 'A' XV, and am still playing 23 years later.
(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, 16:12, closed)