One sunny day in June
I was one of the chosen few who were made to compete in School Sports Day. I missed out of getting in the 100 meters and the bloody 400 because my mates were too quick to volunteer. So I gave the 800m my best shot, came in 6th of about 12 runners, not a bad effort all things considered. When I crossed the line I saw an official walking towards me with his hand outstretched, wow, how decent, thought I, he wants to congratulate me. No, he didn't. He slipped his palm out of my sweaty mitts and said "get off the fucking track, there's other people still running you muppet."
Still burns to this day.

Spare a thought for the last friend in our group, he got saddled with the 1400m. After a promising start he dropped further and further behind and on the last lap, to our joy, was overtaken by the school spastic. No kidding, this guy had a haystack where his hair should be and was so poor the teachers had to have a regular whipround to buy him a uniform.
My friend's excuse?
"Yeah... I...I felt sorry for him, I let him win!"
Bollocks mate.
(Suddenly, zebras Safe and sound for eternity, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 18:22, Reply)

'Tennis Racket' carnage
We had a tubby lad called Martin in our school who didn't take losing too well. The fact that he was totally inept at any of the 'sports' on offer meant that every sports day was a happy one. He, like me got lumped in the 'Egg and Spoon' race. Our school, being one of the poorest in the town was never very good at sports days. Sacks with holes in the bottoms, split bean bags etc etc. Too put it in short - the equipment was shoddy. They couldn't even afford Eggs and Spoons so they made us race with oversized ping-pong bats (called Tennis Rackets by the teachers but they were fooling nobody) and bean bags. The Egg and Spoon race is usually one that requires a steady hand and a quick pace but all this one required was the pace as it was virtually impossible to inadvertently knock the bean bag off the tennis racket unless you had Parkinsons.

Fast forward to sports day as me, Martin and several other children lined up. The gun went (Our school was again so poor that the gun in question was the deputy head shouting 'GO!') and we all ran like mad to the end of the field. It ended in seconds. I came nowhere but I was way ahead of Martin. Once it dawned on him that he had lost another race he let out a scream of frustration and flung this heavy, wooden tennis racket into a crowd of onlooking parents. Unfortunately Martin had threw his racket not only into the crowd but at the Head who was doing the whole caring teacher thing to the parents.

The Head suffered a broken nose and a tarnished reputation (he swore like a docker at Martin) and Martin didn't suffer that much at all, infact he became some what of a legend around these parts. Shame he got expelled like.
(Peter Sutcliffe's Right Bollock, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 18:12, Reply)

High Jump
Sometimes in life people's cards are marked from the get go. Like Alex.

Before going to high school, we were given 2 induction days at what was to become our school for the next 6 years. All of the local primary school were invited, so on the last afternoon of the 2 day visit, they held an inter-school sports day.

Being quite lanky (even then) i was the natural choice for the high jump. Well, i say high. The bar was actually only 2-3 foot off the ground. The crash mat came up to about half of this giddy height, and as such most people were arsing about and generally stepping over the bar. Until alex pitched up.

After taking what seems like an eternity to focus, he begins his run up and jumps. Not so much the standard high jump technique of the fosberry flop, but instead opting for a distinctly klinsmann-esque dive. what happened next defied the laws of physics.

Somehow, alex had managed to jump under the bar, depsite there only being about a foot's worth of space between the top of the mat and the bar. This, as im sure you'll understnad was fairly embarrassing for him, so he ran off to cry behind a nearby tree (later christened alex's tree). I'd like to say the story stops here, but it never does at school. As the high jump was the last event of the afternoon, virtually every pupil across three schools was loitering about watching the high jump. Cue approximately 300 total strangers surrounding alex's tree to point and laugh.

This was well remembered 6 months later when we actually started school there properly. Until he left in 6th year he could often be seen becoming near-apoplectic at being asked "remember when you jumped under the high jump, alex?" As such he was pretty much ostracised from day 1 because he was crap at high jump. Like i say, some people's cards are marked..."
(Rushy, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 17:56, Reply)

Shit Put
When I was a youngster I, by dint of being the first group to do it and slightly taller than everyone else, was asked to represent my fine school in the shot put at the local posh schools inter school tourney thingy.

Said yes - I was rather chuffed that I apparently had the necessary beef to lob a lump of iron further than everyone else (important to a pubescent boy, believe me).

got there and went and found the shot put bit at the relevant time and then it struck me. Thats it : My school is fucking tight, and subsequently had decided that to save money they'd only get one weight of Put. Thats right - the GIRLS weight.

So I'm stood next to these cannon balls - they were HUGE - like the testes from a long extinct prehistoric dino-monster. I was bricking it.

Then I noticed my competition - turns out that the reason that these prehistoric dino-monsters were dead was probably becuase these guys ancestors had MURDERED them, cos they were bored on a sunday afternoon. they were fucking HUGE too (And I was a 6' tall 13 year old so fuck only knows what their folks had fed them).

Anyway - I'm thinkg I can still at least save face, my best being a hard-to-the-core 6.5 meters (girly weights remember). But oh no - first guy steps up - lobs this cannon ball about 9 metes, next guy 10 meters,8 meters, 12 FUCKING METES, etc etc

Yeah - 5.8meters was my best on the day.

Bastards.

Plus point later though - I did get to see a young lass get knocked-the-fuck-out buy an imaginatively thrown discuss that appeared to defy physics.
(Shifty weeeee, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 17:48, Reply)

It was a perfect day: a throbbing sun beat down but a stiff breeze lifted the fringes of the sixth-form girls' skirts.
The air was thick with the heady waft of fresh-cut grass. An ice-cream van parked up beside the tennis/netball/hockey/football/bulldogs court was selling off all its Orange and Lemon Sparkles for 10p each because there were so many smiling parents and red-faced, sticky-chinned (behave!) children to cater to. Groups of lithe, lanky girls wearing bust-enhancing sashes fanned themselves with entry forms and exercise books, while squint-eyed boys lolled flushing and bed-haired in the acrid white dust that lined the pockmarked footy pitches. Year 8s swung from the crossbars, year 9s tried to knock them off with rubber coits. Teachers pretended to scold them, but they too were really more concerned with loosening their ties, slipping off their brogues and grabbing a lolly with their respective forms. Every now and then a lazy bee would streak by, too chuffed with the wholesome spectacle to bother stinging anyone.

And then some monger chucked a javelin before the whistle and it went through this speccy kid's neck. Fucked everything right up, but it did make the front page of the Sheffield Star. The word 'HORROR' was involved, as I recall.
( grey kid is breakdancing to save a community centre, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 17:42, Reply)

Hurdles training
We gathered around the start line, every one of us daunted by the impossibly high looking hurdles ahead of us.
Never ones to give up, our PE teachers hand picked a young guy called Christian from the crowd, rather infamous as 'the weedy one', subject to some pickings-on and such.
Nevertheless, he got up, took a run, and made it. The teacher said,
"Come on, if he can do it, so can all of you!"
I've never heard a more convincing argument in my life.
(The_Epitome, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 17:35, Reply)

Shotputting.....
Forced to do the shotput when i was 13, with the PE teacher ignoring the fact that i was/am weak as water.

I seem to remember my best throw being significantly below the guy in second last's worst.
(Viscous Fridge Magnet Used To Be A Cha-Cha, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 17:29, Reply)

Makng a point of being last ,
When I started at school everyone got split into forms to spell out our school (Walney),anyways, i was put into form E 9(btw there wasnt enough for a Y form) our first years sports day my form were useless and came last, in the second year we came last so it was decided that we would make a special effort and finish last for the rest of the annual sport days. The last two sport days i will never forget the look of our form tutor near enough crying as we came last by a long long way not sure if he was embarressed by coming last every year or our complete lack off care (toss) at any of the sports on offer

Apologies for nothing i dont hang around long enough to let them speak !
(Factorypilot This,Now,Before,After, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 17:24, Reply)

I was a stupid kid...
I was pretty thick in that I just didnt get the concept of sport.

Even now im really uncompetitive,and im a pain in the arse in PE,but back then i was even worse.

I would scamper along in a tiny-legged way (still have tiny legs actually) then look behind me and waited for my friends.

Then,in year 6, i won a race against a group of fat kids. What an achievement...
(Miharu, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 17:19, Reply)

daniel cooper
this kid i went to school with wore some shorts that were too big for him on sports day. his twig and giggleberrys kept falling out when he was sitting down with legs crossed. no one not one person had the guts to tell him what was going on. but then after school everyone had the guts to rip the piss out of him. constantly for the next couple or three months. thats all i can really remember from sports day at my school as i was fairly shit and still am at all sports.
(fwack bang on it, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 17:01, Reply)

Running that extra mile
When I was at little school, in the youngest year, I ran in a race.

As we were the little 'uns, at only 5 years old, we didn't have to run the whole running track. They marked out a start and and end point. We were meant to run to the end point and then stop running.

I didn't stop. I just kept on running for another 10 metres or so before a friendly adult told me I had to go back.

I bloody lost too! And, a few years later, someone sent it in to You've Been Framed, and THEY got the money, not me! Bastards!

My first ever answer of the week. Exciting, innit?
(jade, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 16:40, Reply)

Stockport Grammar School inter-house sports day...
if you went there you'll remember:

Mr Cross (aka Hitler), press-ganging people into signing up for events just to fill the quota.

i'm sure he was on commission.
(nappy rash, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 16:31, Reply)

On a Cross-Country run...
I had some new pants on under my shorts that were a bit big, and I was seriously worried about my willy falling out. Thankfully I got a stiffy on while thinking about the girl's race and the problem went away.
( Biggus Dickus , it was like that when I found it, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 16:26, Reply)

Skiving in the Posh Style
Ah... going to school in Hong Kong had many advantages for young boys, including huge snakes on the cross country track, never being cold in shorts and having pocket money larger than many locals monthly wages.

However, the downside was that one of the main sports was swimming. Swimming is *f-u-n*, when its after school in your apartments' pool and you're cooling off and mucking about. The fun rapidly disappears when somebody is timing you and making you do it at a fast pace in front of the rest of your class, especially when you are Sport Billy's retarded brother that they kept hidden in the basement.

Occasionally, for school swimming day, this involved the entire school. As the school pool wasn't big enough we'd get carted off to a local public pool, with concrete grandstands and no shade whatsoever. Now, much as I loved watching the popular kids swim around and recieve yet more undeserved adulation, doing it in the baking sun strangely lost all its appeal.

Now, my mate and I both happened, by dint of parental membership, to have access to the exclusive (i.e. no poor people) Aberdeen Marina Yacht Club. Which was about 100M from the concrete hell pit where the school swimming gala was. Not being good at sport, and thus not stupid, we realised in the confusion of unloading buses of schoolkids, two lads could slip away pretty easily.

As we sat, lounging in the far nicer, cooler and more relaxing pool at "The Club", sipping diet cokes, having a nice lunch and occasionally popping off to maybe play on the video games or a spot of ping pong, we spared a moments thought for the popular kids, baking and swimming, baking and swimming. Silly tossers.

Length is nothing without the membership card to let you in.
(incrediblemonkeydoctor www.rantatsomeone.com - go on, have a rant, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 16:10, Reply)

Two Instances really - One of pleasure, the other of Pain
I've never been good at sports. Never have done, never will be. The only thing I was even REMOTLY slighty, dusted-with-a-spec-of-skill-in, was swimming.

I used to go to North Staffs Lifeguard Club - mainly because my mum thought it was a good way of teaching me about CPR and the such, while also getting a good swim in afterwards. This was all fine and dandy - I could wobble about with my 9-year-old puppy fat and no one ever really cared. That is until the Regional Competitions.

Yes, ok, I know this isn't a sports day story but meh...I wasn't good enough for sports day - I had to get my shame some where voulentarily.

So anyway, the competitions. I was entered for the retieval race. A simple race where a hoop and a brick are placed on the bottom of the pool and a swimmer has to swim - pick up the brick and swim through the hoop and then race till the end. Now, in my home pool this was fine as the depth was practically nothing. In this new pool however the pool floor scraped satans celing. Nevertheless I gave it a good go, only to get stuck at retrieving the brick. So much so that I was still attempting to duck down to it 5 minutes after the race had ended and they were resetting for the next one. The audience who were sitting in the pool balcony had become restless.

I was actually asked to leave the pool so the next race could start. Ive never felt so humilated in my life.


Oh and the good event - I once came third in a sack race. There was only 3 competitors tho, but I dont care. I came third! I got a sticker!

*beams*

(appologies for length)
( Grinned2Death knows what Willis was talking about, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 15:55, Reply)

Get off me, Mums!
I went to a not a particularly posh school, but posh enough to have inter-house events and Arabs. Every year, I'd look forward to the inter-house rugby sevens tournament - probably my favourite day of the whole calender.

I thought nothing could make this event any better until a lanky streak of piss called Ahmed, who rather fancied himself, got laid out in an almighty head on tackle, not to get up.

That was pleasurable enough to watch, but not nearly as good as the sight of around five of his mums running on to the pitch waving their hands and making funny noises.

Better still, one of them peeled off from their ululating formation to chase the guy who'd tackled him.

Cherry on the cake was our loathsome geography teacher finally coming good, and screaming in the sheepish looking father's face to 'Get those bloody banshees under control and off my bloody pitch!', before adding that his son is too soft as it is.

I think he went gay after that.

Happy days.
(Hampton St.Roker (has probably had your mum), Thu 30 Mar 2006, 15:46, Reply)

Rubgy
Not a school sports day. but a lunchtime rugby game between anyone who wanted to play. Not sure what I was doing playing as I hated sports at school.

As i was small, slightly fast and a complete wimp I was dumped on the wing, where I never had to do anything. So I could pretend I was involved without actually being so.

Anyway the team I'm on were winning by the proverbial mile. So the teacher decides to make things interesting, by making me the only person who can score a try for my team.

It ends up with half of my team being in the opppositions in-goal area passing the ball around trying to get it to me so i get a try. Managed to even fail at that, after about 5 minutes of this I think even the teacher gave up with the idea.

Couldnt score than, cant score now, so whats length got to do with it.
(loquis, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 15:39, Reply)

The 100m
When I was younger I was ace at the 100m & held the school record for fastest time. But then I discovered boys and spliffs. Fast-forward to when I was 17 on sports day and had gotten out of competing in everything, gorgeous sunny day, great big skive with pals. I snuck off and toked a massive skunky bifta and on my return discovered that whoever was running in the 100m had gone home poorly. So yes, I had to run it...totally boxed. I came 2nd last and only just beat the fat girl who came behind me.
(saddelinquent, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 15:33, Reply)

When I was in primary school I once took part in a very special event in the Caretaker's closet.. there were no other participants though for some reason...
But, who cares? He said I'd won.

Proudest moment of my life.
( Naive Amoeba Bored Cig, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 15:19, Reply)

I never really competed in school sports days
but my last company had a day in St. James's Park where we played rounders and stuff. Despite drinking a few* cans of Stella and smoking skunk in front of my boss I still kicked all their arses, knocking it out of the park every time so I could saunter around the bases at my own pace. Then I went out clubbing to Fabric and didn't get in until 8 the next day. Awesome.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 15:13, Reply)

One of the teachers at school...
...Saw me as a potential Hockey player for the school team... I wasn't too bad apparently... She decided to try me out as a goal keeper and I was happy to give it a go... Not 3 seconds after stepping into my position in goal she hit the plastic practice hockey ball with such a whallop that it sailed up and hit me square in the forehead. I've never seen a teacher so apologetic. I've never played hockey since.
( beefandcheese, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 14:59, Reply)

porn!!!
At one of the annual school sports events this one was the winter "track and field" event. I somehow became a volunteer for helping out in the canteen selling drinks and nibles at the oval/sports center up the road from my school where the event is held.

To my surprise while mucking about I discovered that in a pile of newspapers in the corner of the canteen was hidden a playboy book (it was a special issue featuring just the full-page cartoons). I devised a sneaky plan to smuggle it out without anybody detecting it involving my jacket (later transferred to my bag).

I still have that book to this day! :)

/edit: I was crap at the events too by the way. Even though my town brought up a couple of sporting heros such as Melinda Gainsford (Olympic Athlete) and Glen McGrath (Aussie Cricketer).
(Mad_Nashy WHEEEEEE!, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 14:55, Reply)

Jolly Hockey Sticks
We had hockey at our Winter Sports Days, a strange and unnecessarily cruel event. And despite being quite good at hockey compared to most sports, the PE teacher (or enforcer) still hated my guts. The fact that he had played for England at this wonderful sport helped his arrogance along a treat. So in this competition, in which he'd put me in the first team, he decided to berate me continuously from the touchline as we were playing. We were winning! And as the final 5 minutes came round, cruising to a 13-1 victory, I was still on the receiving end of 'You shit bastard!' in front of parents and the whole school. Understandably, I raised my hockey stick and smashed it into a nearby teammates knee, shattering his leg in two places. After the unfortunate victim had been taken to hospital, the sergeant major came over, not to bollock me, but to tell me that 'We all get a little angry from time to time.' Useful.
(Waspard has your wank bank account details, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 14:43, Reply)

Mono-theistic
I got glandular fever in year 9, and didn't do another PE lesson after that (to be fair it still affects me but not in the way they thought). My sports days were spent idly sat on the field, watching people run about, or sitting in the IT rooms, idly watching naked ladies running around (disabling proxy settings= not difficult, Mr.... er... Mr.... bollocks. He looked like Jack Nicholson if he was a paedophile).


Hang on. Edit. Bit of background. I'd have done PE if it weren't for these factors.

- Despite being a girls school, they didn't understand how jumping up and down can hurt, especially at the wrong time of the month.

- Despite having 3 bulldykes (and I'm being complimentary) for PE teachers, we never did anything but sodding netball, dodgeball and jumping around like knobends over sandpits. I want rugby, but no. I know I'm a girl but they didn't need to rub it in.

-the piece de resistance (bollocks to punctuation, can't find it anyway) was the uniform. I may have played netball on the cold, wet winter days had it not been for one thing.

You want to wear your shorts for netball? That's fine- under the netball skirt please.

You want to wear jogging bottoms? UNDER THE NETBALL SKIRT PLEASE.

Thick trousers. Pleated mini skirt. Both bearing my fucking name and 'Aylesbury High School Physical Edication' for pete's sake.
( Captain Wow currently being a cunt in Infamous, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 14:17, Reply)

So I was only about 8
And was at a new school, had only been there for a few months, and sports day rolls around. And naturally I didn't know many people, so I was wandering around by myself, and I see my mum and my sister across this field eating ice-cream. So I decide to join them, taking the shortest possible route, not noticing the fact that this included the main race track. And so I nearly get trampled by some large chaps in singlets and shorts, and the headmaster, through loudspeaker and tannoy, bawls "YOU BOY! YES, YOU WHO JUST RAN ACROSS THE TRACK! COME OVER HERE RIGHT AWAY!"

Cue everyone looking at me and little tears starting to appear in the corner of my eyes.
(HectorProtector, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 14:11, Reply)

Blue Team
Coming from a very competitive family, sport days at school were something of a do or die moment for myself.

In my teachers never ending wisdom they made me captain of the Blue Team. I did not take failure to lightly.

I was stripped of my captaincy after punching a young lad that had finished 3rd in his 100m sprint, chucking the baton at the teacher for calling the relay a draw and basically berating everybody in the other colour houses.

PS: My team ended up winning the day by a huge margin, which I took full credit for.

PPS: My brother captained the Blue team after me. He also was stripped of the captains role.
(Slatts If you cant remember it didnt happen, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 14:10, Reply)

800m
I was forced to do the 800m (2 people from each house had to compete) against my will. I hate running. I'd already done shotputt, javeline and longjump.

I faked an asthma attack after the first lap and dropped out.

Oh, and one of the girls in the year above me was doing the steeplechase (lots of times around the running track, but you have to do the water jump as well). She jumped over the barrier, into the water, slipped over in the murky depths and broke one wrist; as she was lying there in agony, someone else jumped in and broke her other wrist.

About 2 weeks before her GCSEs. Ouch.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 14:08, Reply)

Rampaging Teacher...
Oh yes - I remember one school sports day in the Danish school system. This school was for students aged 15-18.

Every year we had a sports day to welcome the new pupils, and in order to show the teacher's "human side" they would also have a team joining in.

We were playing this stupid game called "Tjuck Ball" - like handball but instead of having a goal each team would have a small angled trampoline - one would score by catching the rebound.

One of the new pupils - a young, nice-looking, shy girl - accidentily stepped across the line marking the area which one was not allowed to enter.

One of the teachers saw this, and threw the biggest fit: "What the fuck are you doing? You're not supposed to be inside the marked area, that's what the line is there for! How would you like it if I started cheating? Like if I started pushing you around?!?"

The 40-year-old teacher then proceeded to push the horrified 15-year-old girl around - with the look of a madman on his face.

The teachers team won the match - we didn't really feel like competing anymore.

(The same day one of my friends broke his arm in our no-contact, no dribbling version of basketball. The wimp! We still laugh at the story... we laugh, not him.)
(crazy-c, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 13:43, Reply)