Aged about 15, I turned round at the wrong time and got hit right in the
balls by a football kicked from about 3 inches behind me.
It was slightly tender for a while, and caused everybody else much
hilarity!

Hard to stand up when you have a towel soaked in cold water stuffed
down your pants.
(Underpants, Mon 23 Apr 2012, 16:34, 5 replies)

First round of golf woes
Somewhere around the age of 16, golf became all the rage at school and many an evening and weekend was spent at the local driving range (or in the park) with a small selection of clubs stolen from our dads. We were awful to begin with, but over the weeks we stopped shanking the ball into the netting and instead started to find the 200 yard marker.

As our addiction grew, so did our seriousness and gradually the group started to acquire the usual tat associated with this "sport of gentlemen". It began with leather golf gloves and enormous logo-clad club bags, and soon graduated to spiked shoes, ridiculous flared trousers, polo shirts and sun visors.

Strolling around the range we started to feel seriously overdressed. There was only one thing for it, we would have to venture onto an actual golf course.

Sunday morning, 9:30am was the setting for our first foray onto a 9-hole public course. Dropped at the clubhouse by our parents, I can only imagine how ridiculous we all looked (and how much they must have laughed at us), but we paid our fees and lined up at the first hole behind a group of guys.

Watching them smash the ball down the fairway, my stomach started to churn. This was the real-deal, we were about to play an actual game, putting all those hours at the range into practice.

As the group in front made their way towards the green, we all stared at each other, wondering who actually had the nerve to tee off first. It certainly wasn't me, so I adopted my usual technique of staring at the ground until someone else made a decision.
It worked, I would be the last to go out of our group of four. Nick was the most confident so strode forward and popped his tee in the ground. Lining up his 1 wood, I could see he was actually terrified, his legs wobbling a little as he took his swing.

He made contact and the ball traveled about a hundred yards across the ground. James and Mark both managed similar shots, so had at least made some progress even though their balls had barely left terra firma.

As I stepped onto the tee I took a small glance backwards and was horrified to see the next group lining up behind us. They were a group of middle-aged women who seemed to find the group of ludicrously dressed boys in front of them quite amusing.

I felt like throwing up, and as I stood on the tee, my club suddenly felt too big for me and I had an out of body experience, as though I was looking down on myself from a great height. Taking a deep breath, I pulled the club back slowly and expending all my nervous energy into my arms, the club exploded towards the ball.....and promptly missed it by about six inches. Such was the force of my swing that I did a little pirouette on the tee which was roundly mocked by my mates and the women lining up behind.

I was mortified, but had absolutely nowhere to hide. Lining up for a second time I was a shaking wreck and made a snap decision to do everything that is wrong in golf. I closed my eyes, pulled the club back slowly and hoped for the best.

The resulting shot pinged gloriously into the air and rolled beautifully down the middle of the fairway. My mates reluctantly grunted their approval and the ladies behind cooed appreciatively. It was the nadir and pinnacle of my entire golfing career summed up in less than 30 seconds.

We hacked our way around the rest of the course and by the time the final ball was sunk on the ninth whole, there was a silent acknowledgment that this was the first and final time any of us would do it again.
(BinDipper, Mon 23 Apr 2012, 16:20, 1 reply)

The last time I can remember sprinting.
Was nearly a decade ago. I was on Duke of Edinburgh, the bus had stopped in Welshpool, I was running to beat my schoolmates to the chipper.

Don't worry though. I'm still built like a gypsies dog.
( Slippery Mick ‏, Mon 23 Apr 2012, 15:45, 1 reply)

This Sporting Life....
I fell on the playing field
the work of an errant heel
the din of the crowd and the loud commotion
went deafening silence and stopped emotion
the season was almost done
we managed it 12 to 1
so far I had known no humiliation
in front of my friends and close relations

There's my father looking on
and there's my girlfriend arm in arm
with the captain of the other team
and all of this is clear to me
they condescend and fix on me a frown
how they love the sporting life

And father had had such hopes
for a son who would take the ropes
and fulfill all his old athletic aspirations
but apparently now there's some complications
but while I am lying here
trying to fight the tears
I'll prove to the crowd that I come out stronger
though I think I might lie here a little longer

There's my coach he's looking down
the disappointment in his knitted brow
I should've known
he thinks again
I never should have put him in
he turns and loads the lemonade away
and breathes in deep
the sporting life
how he loves...

There's my father looking on
and there's my girlfriend arm in arm
with the captain of the other team
and all of this is clear to me
they condescend and fix on me a frown
how they love the sporting life
(Fleximus Rex briefly gave up lurking on, Mon 23 Apr 2012, 15:15, 4 replies)

Goal!
For some reason my parents decided to take me along to some sort of weekend football club for a bit while I was a kid. I had little enthusiasm or aptitude for football or sports in general so this was a bit of a mystery to me.

Still, I must say that having your entire team celebrate a goal by calling your name and running up to group-hug you is quite encouraging - even if you only "scored" because the ball bounced off your face while you were chatting to your mate the opposition goalkeeper.
( wangmaster2000, Mon 23 Apr 2012, 14:54, Reply)

RIP Tramp!
One year when we were about 13 we got into American football. I've always been pretty good at sports but a mate of mine never really was (that's the way in to this QOTW), although he became a tremendous MMA fighter years later.... anyway i digress.

We used to walk my dogs Tramp and Buster in the park and a few of us would 'line up' and play American footy. The cut down version of our game involved 2 players lining up opposite one another, one of whom would 'snap' the ball between their legs (sort of crouched over ready to hit the opposite guy) to a player behind after a certain pre determined shout, who would then look to pass or run the ball whilst the lined up players wrestled for control of the 'line' one seeking to protect the ball whilst the other sought to block the play.

I was the 'wide receiver' on this particular play and after a brief sprint to evade my marker i turned to look for the incoming pass only to see my friend who was at that time blocking (as ball skills weren't his thing), being rigorously fucked by my dog Tramp, everyone else on the floor laughing whilst my horrified mate was trying to fend off my horny dog who was really clamped on hard, giving my mate a fucking good seeing to.

The dog is dead now sadly. He was great. Fucked everything that moved and many objects that didn't.
(beebolbod for those that are hard of hearing - LISTEN, Mon 23 Apr 2012, 14:17, 3 replies)

If a certain sportsman has a reputation for being a 'difficult' interviewee when things haven't gone his way...
... it is NOT a good idea to try and interview him for the first time when he's just been narrowly (and perhaps unfairly) beaten after a very tough race and just wants to eat something and get back to the hotel.

Still, the doctors managed to sew my head back on okay. You can't even see the stitches.
(Capo, Mon 23 Apr 2012, 13:46, 16 replies)

trying to be supportive
Back when I was about 14, I was 'ok' at running. So much so that I took part in a cross country run as part of an inter-school sort of thing. A few of my mates made the run too.

As we're running the race, rain pouring, mud-a-plenty, one of my mates starts breathing a bit funny (turns out he suffered from asthma) he didn't have his inhaler, so for safety i thought I'd run along side him to keep an eye on him.

We discussed how it wasn't worth it to take it so seriously, especially not as he couldn't really breath. We agreed that we'd cross the line last together, strength in numbers or something...

We slowed down quite a bit and got overtaken by pretty much everyone.

Just as we're both about to finish last, approaching the finish line, the sod sped up shouting over his shoulder something or other about thanks for making sure he didn't die.

I finished last.

I didn't race again.
( Ya What Skiddlyboop, Mon 23 Apr 2012, 13:34, Reply)

I have been searching for
but failing to find, any evidence for the rule that says if you're good at sports then you must be a meathead, and vice-versa.

This seems to be the generally accepted rule on here, and it is frankly bollocks.

Whilst everyone has a story about being some sporting misadventure, I don't see why it's acceptable to admit to being completely unfit and incoordinated any more than it is to be unable to read properly or understand basic science.

And if you are shit at sports, stop whingeing about the kids who were good at it, or how the PE teacher was always a cunt.

I know the question jokes about us being pasty faced shut-ins, but fuck's sake, tell a story without blaming someone else.

Right, so having foolishly whinged on an internet forum, I await some righteous abuse.
(rockdoctor, Mon 23 Apr 2012, 13:29, 57 replies)

The Olympics
I have to pay towards this shit?

FFS what an absolute crock of wank
(magic the cat will someone please think of the kittens, Mon 23 Apr 2012, 13:25, 10 replies)

Unihoc and the champion team of misfits
It was the last few weeks of year 11, so many of the assembled teenagers would never need to take PE lessons again. As such, the PE teachers decided we could do something fairly lighthearted, and organised a unihoc tournament.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, it's a version of indoor hockey, played with a plastic puck and flimsy plastic sticks.

For those of you unfamiliar with me, I'm a big chap - quite capable at badminton and strength related sports such as shotput, etc - but as slow and lumbering as a depressed tortoise in winter.

Several team captains were chosen, and teams were picked. The misfits; and I count myself amongst this posse of the lazy, feeble, slow and fat, decided to form a team of our own. This was partly for laughs, and partly because we knew we would all be picked last anyway. At least this way, we were together as a band of equally poor performers, rather than spread out as the dead weight in the other teams.

We then decided on our main tactic: Refuse to take the game seriously.

To this end we roared when we ran, passed to the other team, stood by and bowed to let some goals in, and were generally quite silly.

So the tournament started, and we set about enjoying ourselves. Then something odd happened. Whether it was our unusual demeanour, or the soft bigotry of low expectations, we seemed to take other teams by surprise, and we started to win.

Round after round, we managed to score more than our opponents, even against the teams of vicious girls (we had mixed classes for this final term) and the sporty types who had the teachers on their side, and could therefore foul as much as they like.

Somehow, we won the tournament.

I like to think that we amazed the PE teachers so much that they looked upon the indifferent, asthmatic, scrawny and weak in a different way in future - realising that they need only inspire us in the right way, and we could go on to greatness.
( TheAlmightyBeev, Mon 23 Apr 2012, 12:32, 2 replies)

I coach kids rugby
Ages 8 to 13. This year we lost one of the better players as his Mum was worried that it was too rough and he would get hurt.

He took up hockey

So far 2 broken arms and 3 missing front teeth

Mental game
(LetsGetDownToIt, Mon 23 Apr 2012, 11:19, 2 replies)

Glorious Goal
At school I was pretty good at footy and got picked for the u15's school side when I was just 13.

One game was against our fiercest rivals - College Heath, and it was 3-3 with little over 5 minutes left to play.

I was a right winger, so picked the ball up close to half way line and ran at the defense, skipping past players like an even shorter Messi. I got through one on one with the keeper and he came tearing out of the goal towards me.

I coolly slotted the ball underneath him to put us 4-3 in the lead. He landed on my knee until it actually went about 45 degrees in the wrong direction.

Did I hobble up and celebrate the goal like the school hero I was? Did I run it off like a true warrior and race back to the centre circle so I could try and score again? Did I race to the crowd to be met by screaming girls all wanting a piece of this newfound school legend?

No.

My Mum came running onto the pitch to abuse the (admittedly smug) opposition keeper, and I cried like a little bitch and had to be carried off.
(Galahad is out of his gourd on yellow bentines, Mon 23 Apr 2012, 10:58, 4 replies)

Loosing the race
Back when i was attending boxing, i also did a lot of running. (I was quite in shape, as opposed to the meat ball i am now.) But i was getting cocky and decided to join a 12 km run, when destiny decided to teach me a lesson. Everything went fine, until people started to overtake me. A lot of them. Including:

A dad with his baby jogger

A 70+ years old dude

2x 10 year olds (while they were talking with each other)

A dwarf

Countless women of all ages.

I was quite in shape, but a very slow runner..
(Robotnik, Mon 23 Apr 2012, 10:57, 2 replies)

Scrawny but fast.
Ran 1600m so fast I finished 1/2 lap before everyone else. Teacher didn't believe me and sent me to do another lap, until the kids behind me arrived and pointed out that, yes, I had won. I was already 100m into next lap.
( Pope Shax XIII uses Visio for picture editing, does it show?, Mon 23 Apr 2012, 10:51, Reply)

I was going canoeing with some group or other, and we had to do the preliminary training at an outdoors pool
I was about 14 and a very experienced canoer at this point, so I had little trouble demonstrating that I knew how to do all the turns, bring the canoe to a stop and all the other things the instructor wanted to see before taking us out onto a real river. However, the final test was showing you knew how to deal with a capsize. I knew this pool from old - the water was pumped from at least 500ft underground and was as close to freezing as possible without actually having lumps in it. I said that there was no need for me to capsize, I'd done it loads before and not once had I accidentaaaaaarrggglubglubglubglub

The bastard instructor had reached over and capsized the canoe for me and caught unawares, I'd let go of my paddle, so instead of flipping myself back over I had to get out of the canoe and swim. The cold was breathtaking but worse than that, it was thoroughly emasculating as well. Half an hour later I was in the changing rooms, frantically trying to massage some life back into the shivering flap of skin that was all that was left of my once-proud gentials after they had retreated wholesale back into my body. Wondering if I'd ever see my penis again. And all the while my mum was waiting outside asking if everything was all right, and could we go home now? Even now the memory of it makes me shudder.

I drove past that outdoor pool recently, it's been filled in now.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Mon 23 Apr 2012, 10:20, 10 replies)

Pissing
Myself at the start of the county championship 200 meters qualifier, wearing a pair of lycra shorts was not one of my finest moments. Not sure why I did it but it could have been something to do with the fact I was a late developer in the hair on legs department and had the build of a 400m runner. I.e. less muscle and was surrounded by what looked like, at the time, ten fully grown, hench and hairy beasts.
(bROKEN aRROW PUA HVI Master, Mon 23 Apr 2012, 9:46, 1 reply)

Getting "Koshied" and beating the whip.
Alt: A Tale of two "Hitees".
At school we had an old Hungarian gymnastics/PE teacher called "Kosh", he was a gnarly old so & so who loved to regale the class about how he had escaped the Nazis after watching them kill his family. Good solid schoolboy fare.

His favorite form of discipline was a camelbite (a kinda slap with a rigid cupped hand) usually delivered to the thighs or buttocks - called a "Kosh" or "Koshy". Trust me when I tell you, when you got koshed - you knew about it. Aside from the distinctive "pop" sound, it usually took just a few seconds for the welts in the shape of the outline of his hand to come up on your leg. This guy was a gymnast so his hands were like old, salted leather.

Koshie's fave MO was to sneak up on you while you were jabbering with someone & not paying attention in class and he would kosh 1 or both of you for your trouble - much to the delight and hilarity of the rest of the class who would have been watching his approach silently waiting for the coming "koshy".

Bottom Line: you very quickly learnt to pay attention and not talk out of turn during Koshie's PE lessons. And if you didn't your mum usually ended up ringing the school to inquire about the large, red welts on your legs. Ahh, corporal punishment thou art missed so.

Which leads me to my next tale.
I've always been a loner.
I used to practice my tennis against a large wall in the grounds of my boarding school often used for tennis or handball. There were many large walls to practice against (including down at the tennis courts - ooh, laa dee daah!).

One day I was having a hit when the housemaster's son (a year below me) came down with his racket and balls. I breathlessly told him to nick off and continued playing. As soon as I hit a wild shot & went to retrieve my ball, there he was. Playing on my wall. Now a better man would've walked away. But oh no, not me it was the principle - I had been there 1st & he had clearly poached my "court".
I told him to fuck off and in the spirit of "siblings fighting" I stated that I was going to continue hitting my ball against the wall and if he happened to get in the way that was his problem, not mine. Which of course eventuated in him getting sconed on the side of the head by a scorching forehand by me and running off, crying to tell his dad. My housemaster.

That evening I got called up after prep (homework time) to the HM's office. He told me that his son had told him I'd deliberately hit him with a tennis ball. I gave him my ver. which he appeared to ignore and then he told me to bend over his desk and lift up my dressing gown in preparation for getting "6 of the best". I informed him that since the government of the time had passed a motion forbidding corporal punishment very recently he really shouldn't hit me 6 times with his cane.
As it should be very clear by now - I was very au fait with this type of information - & with good reason too! He did hit me but it gave me great pleasure after being belted by him (often with good reason) that he would never be able to punish me this way ever again.
He broke the cane across my arse. It fucking hurt.
It was piece of bamboo about 1200 mm long and 50 to 70 mm odd in diameter.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Mon 23 Apr 2012, 8:16, 40 replies)

The ultimate betrayal.
A while ago I found out that when Morrissey was at school he was good at sport.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Mon 23 Apr 2012, 4:14, 5 replies)

Summer of 1995
Some friends of mine decided it was a great day for kicking a bit of synthetic inflated leather around a local park, I thought it would be great to join them.
A few minutes into the game the ball was flying though the air and heading my way, I could see that it was going to be at my feet in a few seconds, it was going to be an easy goal.
The ball bounced awkwardly on the uneven grass of the park and I stuck my leg out at an angle going for the goal.
I must have passed out for a fraction of a second because I ended up on the floor in huge amount of pain looking at where the pain was coming from I found my kneecap was in the wrong place and now at at the side of my leg.
Moving the leg popped it back into place, nearly making me pass out again, an Ambulance was called and the trip to hospital confirmed a dislocated kneecap.
It was three months before I could walk without crutches and two years before I could walk without a limp.
( Terry Oblong There's nobody here but us chickens on, Mon 23 Apr 2012, 2:07, 1 reply)

miss match
My Ex-girlfriend was (being generous here) a bit dim, she also got quite aggressive with the addition of alcohol... hence Ex.

During one of her beery/shouty nights, at a friends BBQ on a lovely summers evening in the middle of the world cup.

She interrupted a group chat about the England teams poor performance with something along the lines of :
"well, if England were playing Man United ...."
I'm not sure what she said next, I'd spotted someone at the other end of the garden and left her to it!
( DanGleeballs Moist people don't notice spelling errors..., Mon 23 Apr 2012, 1:50, 2 replies)

We had a fire drill...
During the end of one Secondary School P.E lesson. I was exactly at that point in the changing room where you can't see which hole in your T-Shirt you're supposed to put your head through. I panicked and ended up running outside in my bra. The teacher sent me back inside to sort myself out! It would have been less embarrassing if I wasn't a fried egg chested 13 year old. Most fun I've ever had in P.E though... Except the time when one poor kid got KO'd by a flying trainer.
(Fat_Lenny, Sun 22 Apr 2012, 22:04, Reply)

Sub (unused)
Remember the advert from a few years back about how you always remember a certain teacher from primary school?

---wavy lines---

May 1976. The football team from my primary school, which had only been founded a few years earlier, had made it to the borough cup final against the team that had won it every year in living memory. Which wasn't that long to be honest. We were 11 after all.

Now, I wasn't in the first team for football, but I did captain the second team. And so it was that I found myself named substitute for the final, held at a neutral school somewhere in the depths of the borough.

While we may have been young, we knew no-one gave us a chance of beating the other team, and the giants versus minnows aspect was reinforced by the fact that the other team wore all white, while we wore red and white striped shirts, black shorts and red socks.

Football fans amongst you may already have made the Leeds vs Sunderland connection. Except while Sunderland won 1-0 thanks to an Ian Porterfield goal and great saves at the other end from Jim Montgomery, our mini version of that cup final was never a close contest. We wiped the floor with our supposed betters.

With ten minutes left, we were 5-1 up. There was no way we were going to lose. It was exhilarating to be part of it. Except I wasn't. I was stuck on the sidelines watching, waiting for the teacher who ran the school side to decide that with the clock ticking down, it might a idea to give the substitute a few minutes on the pitch to enjoy being part of the day.

True, I got a medal, as did everyone else, but I felt a fraud in assembly the next morning when we were all up on stage, knowing that I hadn't played any part in the match whasoever.

So, Mr Adams of Southlake County Primary School, 1976, it may be getting on for four decades later, but I remember you alright. Not even five minutes, you fucking bastard.
(Capo, Sun 22 Apr 2012, 21:25, 3 replies)

the shame
A few years ago I was taking my fitness pretty seriously (training for an ironman). I happened to be in a queue with my brother filling out disclaimers prior to a kitesurfing lesson, when my elder brother snorts derisively at my ticking the 'excellent' box under 'fitness' and 'swimming ability'...

If you have older siblings, you'll know that the only thing you can do under this kind of provocation is act like a 5 year old... I think I started my sentence with "well ACTUALLY..." as I rattled off my amazing health stats, resting pulse, recovery rate etc and generally told the world what a super athlete I was.

Which was kind of embarrassing as the next guy in the queue was James Cracknell, 6 times world champion, double olympic gold medallist and all round super hero. And he was being filmed for a documentary, with a TV crew and a sexy interviewer and everything.

Even 6 years later I still hang my head in shame...
(pounana Slept well, and dreamed of large women, on, Sun 22 Apr 2012, 21:15, 4 replies)

The Devil and the Idle hands of young men

Working at the tip over you summer holidays at uni isn't everyones cup of tea. The job entails sweeping and tiding up and making sure that some old duffer doesn't kick off when told he cant put his asbestos in with the glass recycling. Like the trenches this sort of work leads to long periods of boredom, followed by short periods of headless chicken like activity.

In a lull in stuff to do myself and one of the other lads came up with a new game to pass the time:

MAGNET CHICKEN. The rules are simple, climb inside a empty skip and take it in turn to throw magnets at one another.

you average tip is lousy with discarded stereos, a swift toecap to the speakers yields a collection of magnets. As your empty skip is basically a 5m long steel corridor a thrown magnet will vear off and stick to the wall with a wonderful 'SPANG' noise. The aim of the game is to see how hard you dare to throw a magnet at your friend.

One fine yet dull day me and a workmate decided to take up potions and begin a game. I tossed the first magnet, pitifully it slammed into the left wall whole feet away from my opponent. He retaliated by overarm bowling a 3lb monster from a car subwoofer at me at lightening speed. 'WANN-NNG' the whole skip reverberated as this thing slammed into the wall next to my head after missing my eye by mm.

"you cunt, have some of..THIS" I replied wrenching the magnet from the skip and hurling it back at him. I throw underarm and am quite cack handed so something different this time happened. Once the magnet had cleared the top of the skip, It shot over the side as if guided by a lazer and landed out of sight with an almighty reverberating KER-SPANG.

Leaping out of the skip we were confronted by a horrifying sight. A middle aged man, pale faced and shaking with terror was frozen to the spot halfway through the process of removing an oven from his boot. An oven with a crater sized dent centered around a speaker magnet, in it.

Quick thinkingly I came up with "errm, sorry its our job to look for the magnets cause sometimes they repel one another and it acn get quite errm dangerous" The man mumbled a hasty "oh I see" and hurried off. After that the game of magnet chicken was no more.
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Sun 22 Apr 2012, 20:11, 5 replies)

Ball Girl
As a fatty, obviously I never liked PE at school. While the actual games themselves didn't bother me so much (except for Athletics ["Miss, how about I just walk the 400 metres, because I'm going to be last anyway?"] and the dreaded dreaded Cross Country), the whole humiliating rigmarole of getting changed into awful grass-stained t-shirt, little shorts and netball skirt, being forced to get sweaty and muddy, then having to frantically get dressed again before the next class, lugging bulky and unpleasantly damp PE bag along with me were all just hideous parts of the school week for me.

While my school had showers in the changing rooms, they didn't actually work and even if they had, we wouldn't have had time to use them, and even if we had time, NO ONE was going to get naked and have a shower in front of everyone else, so they whole plumbing oddity was entirely pointless.

Nevertheless, good girl that I was, every week I'd drag the PE bag to school and go through with whatever sporting torture the games mistress had decided to amuse herself with inflicting upon us that day.


Year 9. I am 13 years old, it is the first PE lesson of the new academic year. We are - astonishingly for girls in a state school in the UK - doing netball. Today it's drills. Form teams of two at either side of the court or pitch or whatever the netball arena place is called, jog to the cone in the centre, pass the ball to teammate in a two-handed throw, wait for her to chuck it back, put ball down on cone, jog back. Simple.

I wobblejog to the centre, make a decent effort at throwing the ball, teammate actually manages to catch it (astonishment!) she lobs it back with deadly accuracy. It whacks me straight in the face.

BOOF! I'm down, fortunately landing on my well-padded arse. The ball sproings off my face, incidentally bouncing off the shoulder of the girl next to me - a double hit. Grins, titter, and open laughter and pointing all round. I shake off the phenomenal pain and spinning in my head, smile (because you've got to be a good sport, right?) and carry on.


Little did I know, that this was to be the first day of an entire year of ball-related PE misery...


Next week, and our games teacher mixes it up with hockey. We're playing a mini-match, Jessica Kyle makes a daring pass to a teammate, missing her entirely though managing to smack me with spectacular accuracy on the shin. I was not a sporty person, and wasn't going to waste my pocket money on silly, unimportant things like shin-guards. It hurt. A lot. Four weeks later, I still had the bruise to show for it.

Two PE lessons. Two ball injuries.

As it turned out, my PE lessons for the academic year of 1999 - 2000, Year 9 for me, continued in this vein unerringly for the ENTIRE YEAR.


The school year is 190 teaching days long. That's 38 weeks, and as I had PE on a Wednesday, therefore 38 PE lessons for me. And in every single one of them, I got hit somewhere by a ball of some kind. Every one.

They ranged from being boinked in the glasses by an errant ping-pong ball or tapped on the shoulder by a shuttlecock to twice, TWICE, being outright knocked unconscious whilst playing rounders, both under exactly the same circumstances: I'm batting, I miss the ball but run for first base anyway, the backstop lobs the ball to the first post to get me out, it smacks me right on the back of the head, I land up facedown in the dirt.

The first time, i was out for just a few seconds, coming round to the sound of the games mistress screaming "Carrie, get up and RUN!!!". The second, I was out for nearly two minutes. Teacher's response? You're out, go and sit down til it's your turn to bat again".


The being-hit-by-a-ball theme held strong whether I was actually taking part in the lesson or not. On three occasions, I had a note excluding me from PE, but the school policy was that students had to go and watch their classmates suffer. So even whilst on the sidelines, not even taking part, I got hit in some way or another with yet another fucking ball. I even got hit when we were doing non-ball sports. Once with a football from the boys when we were doing Athletics, and once with another rounders ball from the fucking Primary school next door during Cross Country. ARRRRGH!


"Oh ho!", you might say, (or not, because perhaps you're not a total twat), "surely you didn't have perfect attendance for an entire school year?" Well no, I did have one PE day off sick, so I wasn't actually in school that day. In fact, I was sent to the doctor. And it was while sitting in the doctor's waiting room, minding my own business, that a small kid playing at the Activity Table managed to break one of the bead-strung wires and catapult a bright yellow, spherical wooden bead - straight at my head.

Even when I wasn't even in school, the PE-day ball-curse remained unbroken.






(TL:DR? In Year 9, I got hit with a ball of some kind, in some way, every single PE lesson of the year, even when not taking part, or not actually in school.)
( Seventh is somewhat subdued, Sun 22 Apr 2012, 17:08, 25 replies)

Many thousands of years ago when I was young
we did cycling at 'ern 'ill in sarrfeest lundn.
On the third term the powers that be decided we needed to use helmets to protect our young brains.
First race out that day I crashed, flew head first toward the tarmac and missed the helmet, taking part of my cheek off down to the bone.
Had to use my own t-shirt to staunch the blod.
Sods didn't even take me to hospital.
(Captain Spacker I lick windows, Sun 22 Apr 2012, 16:36, Reply)

Last night my husband didn't get to use the golf club
We keep by the side of our bed for the noble purpose of defence.

Having been up with the little one teething from 2am to 3.15am, when i lifted my head at 4.30am and saw a figure outside my bedroom door (a mere foot from my baby's room) using a phone for torchlight, I first felt behind me to see if my husband is still in bed or whether it was him getting up for our little one (fuck knows why he'd need to use his phone for light when he knows the place, but it was 4am and i was very much half asleep). Having felt my husband's warm body in bed next to mine i quickly raised the alarm by repeatedly shouting (in a panicky sort of way) "There's someone in the house, there's someone in the house". The figure was immediately gone - so quickly i actually wondered if i had a bad dream. My husband in the meantime had flown out of bed, grabbed the club we keep next to it for this express purpose, and given chase roaring loudly down the corridor. Getting to the front door he heard noises outside and, not being aware i had actually *seen* someone inside, merely thought they were still trying to enter. By the time he spotted the open lounge sliding door and realised they had actually been inside, they had made their escape down the road.

Turns out they'd rifled through the neighbour's cars, our Nissan (presumably easier to jimmy the lock than our Mazda), stolen some jewellery, my computer wireless mouse and our internet wifi dongle thing (seriously, this takes stealing someone's internet to a whole new level). My husband's wallet, tablet, phone, bottles of liquor on the counter from the night before, and my work laptop was sitting untouched - i reckon we had interrupted them not a moment too soon. If I hadn't opened my eyes at the exact moment he was silhouetted in the doorway (an image burnt into my mind) i probably would have rolled back over and gone to sleep.

So yeah, a woeful tale of good sporting equipment going unused. My husband is still pissed off he wasn't able to use his 2 iron.
Don't know how much sleep i'll be getting tonight - we're having a security company come by for a quote on an alarm system tomorrow.
( Tiffany Aching 's bowl of oatmeal tried to stare her down and won, Sun 22 Apr 2012, 10:32, 9 replies)

The Kids Who Were Shit At Sports had to set athletics stuff up for the Kids Who Were Good At Sports.
We used to make all the hurdles different heights, and random distances apart. It was fun to watch from the sides.
( Pope Shax XIII uses Visio for picture editing, does it show?, Sun 22 Apr 2012, 4:00, 1 reply)

SPORT ARE TROOPS

( Dr Preference AjcuiVd289, Sat 21 Apr 2012, 22:01, 2 replies)