Dominic Hobson reminds us of Orwell’s comments on sport. His tale is about his son who spent all day waiting to bat for his team only to be bowled out on the second ball. He reflects on the sense of failure that followed – and with it, George Orwell’s comments on professional sport.
Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence.
I learned at school – at a very early age – to despise sport generally and football in particular, closely followed by cricket. Indeed, anything that involved chasing a ball about.
Some are cut out for it, others are not. The assumption made on the school playing field is that those who are not are failures, or are incapable of working in a team. Team games are supposed to foster team spirit. It did none of these things for me.
That I could fell my fellows with a Judo throw, could cycle thirty miles when my fellows were left far behind puffing and panting at the first incline or could put an arrow in the gold at a hundred yards meant nothing. I had neither the ability nor the will to kick a ball between two white posts and therefore, I was a failure. Well, in their eyes anyway. In mine, I despised the lot of them and the horse they rode into town on and made little no attempt to disguise it. I wasn’t popular, but then, I didn’t much care about that, either. If being good at football or liking it was the route to popularity, then popularity be damned. I had my group of friends and we all disliked sports, so in my own way I was content enough.
Sports days, those dull displays of other kids trying to run faster than each other or jump further were treated with the same disdain as the idiotic ball games of the winter months. I would retire to the furthest corner of the games field with a good book and spend the day reading, cheerfully ignoring the goings on around me.
I recall a lecture two of us received from the head of our house because we had refused to volunteer for some event or other. I can see her now clearly annoyed that we weren’t sufficiently loyal. Actually, I wasn’t loyal at all. We stood there staring back at her with dumb insolence – I did a fine dumb insolence as a teenager – and let her ramble on before confirming that, no, we were not going to take part as the nature of voluntary means that we can say no if that is what we want to do and no was the answer she was getting for all of her bluster about loyalty to the house and the school. Her annoyance was fuelled by the knowledge that, actually, I could run faster than many of my peers as I was a pretty good sprinter and jumper, being remarkably fit through cycling to school each day and going for long cycle rides on my days off. Consequently my refusal was doubly irritating for her and a source of perverse amusement for me. I was a horrible teenager when I wanted to be.
So, yes, I’m mostly with George Orwell. I don’t hate every sport. I still like archery and plan to take it up again once my fortunes have changed. Now that I’m back in the UK I can join an archery club and am looking forward to shooting again. However, this is as much an individual sport as it is a team one. I have no plans to return to martial arts, although I will always have a soft spot for them. My utter contempt for football remains intact.
You have hit the nail on the head as far as I am concerned, especially about football, at 15 years of age I was smitten by motorcycles and have over indulged ever since, especially as it wound up all my teachers no end. As to archery I like those new fangled pullied ones, I can hit the bull much more easily than with a traditional bow. 😉
As quite a sporty person in my youth (especially cricket and rugby) I can’t identify with your experience, but was never in the ‘you’re useless’ camp for those who didn’t enjoy ‘games’.
Anyway, cycling and Judo are sports, so you’re a ‘jock’ just like us really. 🙂
My preferred sport comes with the shooting 😀
I need to buy a new bow when I take it up again – my old composite is getting a bit long in the tooth. I’ll be getting a recurve, though. The compound bows don’t really appeal to me.
I despised sports at school too. Recently I was told that my nephew had a “poor” report because he did not take part particularly in football, cricket ot athletics. It rather shut the blowhard PE teacher up when my nephew quietly pointed out he was canoeing at quite a high level and winning awards both for his prowess with a Kayak and rowing. He competes against adults but because he does not do the “approved” sports he was viewed as “poor”.
I always fancied a shot at tennis, but was not much cop at footie and rugger, so was not allowed. It seemed that the policy was that if someone was no good at one sport, then they could not possibly be any good at the others.
So rather than try and find a sport that someone was good at, they simply exercised favoritism on the good footballers.
Most unsporting of them.
In the 6th form we were allowed to choose from the “approved” sports, so I chose long distance running. Run round corner to sweet shop, sit in bus shelter munching away for an hour, then a 2 minute sprint to the final corner before the school and a breathless jog through the school gates.
Samick do a nice little fifty inch recurve that shoots fast, flat and hard (Their SKB 50). Mine cost me less than fifty quid twenty years ago and it still shoots well. Am sorting out a new bowstring tomorrow evening. Will be trying out some new carbon fibre shafts and see how fast it can put those down the range. 😎
That could almost be my story!
I still have a visceral loathing for the moronic thuggery of football.
I was fortunately able to escape “games” entirely at the end of the IIIrd form, as there was an opportunity for a fast-track “O-level” course – doing some subjects in ONE YEAR.
I cycled over 4 miles a day to-&-from-school, so I was fit, just not sporty.
The real killer cam in my fiorst year in the VIth form.
A walking trip to the Lake District was proposed. The only reason my name was second on the volunteer-list was because someone else got there first.
Several masters told me someone had put my name on the list as a joke – to be VERY suprised when I told then – actually no, that’s my writing!
Even more fun, when we got there …
I plodded on, on the first day – guess who got to the top first? The chemistry-master (who knew me anyway) had worked out what was happening, but he had to beg me not to go on ahead, once all the sporty types struggled to the top, out of breath.
Even more fun, only ONE pupil went out EVERY day – even the über-fit footy types gave in – guess who that was? Yes.
Since then, I’ve learnt to shoot with the long-bow (still got my two-part steel recurve, ride and fence.
Hopefully, once my ankle-muscles recover (recent injury) I’ll be able to re-start dancing.
I’m in the top 1% fitness for my age cohort, but “games”.
UGGGH
School sports are obsessed with team games. They lack the imagination and intelligence to realise that there are other pursuits out there that require different skills, individual prowess and greater intelligence and that people are individuals, not necessarily pack animals. Some of us don’t like the mind-numbingly tedious chasing a ball around for kicks nonsense. And as such, they write us off because we don’t fit their narrow little world view.
Late in my school career, there were a couple of rare occasions when a brief light shone in the PE teachers’ heads and we were allowed to bring in and take part in “our” sports as a demonstration of other activities. There were several of us who did Judo and we went into the gym with our kit and did that for the period. Not much was said about our lack of sporting prowess after that.
On the second, I took in my bow. I doubt they would allow that these days.
I’d also echo Greg’s point – being sporty isn’t necessarily the same thing as being fit. My cycling every day meant that I was very fit. Much more so than my class mates who thought that kicking a ball about made them fit. It didn’t. Not even close.
A school I attended, in fact all the schools I attended, were very keen on rugby. I honestly failed to see why, especially as the rules of this game were never actually explained to us as such. Thus is was that whenever any game started, it was played by two sets of rules.
The keen ones played by something approaching the real rules. Everyone else played by the Alternative Rules, which were “If someone wants the ball, give him it; you don’t want it anyway. Possession of the ball implies violence and pain, so let some other silly bugger suffer”.
It was not lost on the pupils of the school that there was generally a negative correlation between prowess at rugby and general intelligence, indeed asking questions of the games teachers which required a modicum of intelligence to answer were a common sport amongst us. Retribution and kicking a hated teacher in their one weak spot were our delight then, sadistic little shits that we were…
I don’t know why you hate football. I was never great at it but still enjoyed playing. Just watch Barcelona play for 10 minutes and tell me that it can’t be beautiful.
Each to his own obviously, but you do rather frequently come over as a rather bitter and miserable beggar even though I agree with very many of your opinions.
Orwell’s views on sport as quoted come over in exactly the same way as someone who regrets being crap at sport and can’t bring himself to admit it.
I freely admit to being pretty crap at most sports I’ve tried from Cricket to Rugby and triathlon, but I’ve always enjoyed it, and I further believe that sport is good for kids and in particular team sports, and football however much one may look down one’s nose at it is the game that floats more people’s boats than any other (no I don’t share that view it’s a statement of fact)
Timac – because it is mind-numbingly tedious.
Cuffleyburgers – given the bullying and not just from the other kids – it’s surprising I am not bitter and miserable. Actually, I’m not at all. I simply dislike team sports and in particular any that involve chasing a ball. I find them tedious. I would appreciate it if those who did like it didn’t think it okay to assume that the rest of us like it as well, which seems to be the case. Team sports are not good for kids if they find them dull, tedious or simply prefer individual sports. It didn’t do me one jot of good. If anything it reinforced my sense of rebellion and determination to go my own way. It did not make me a team player. If I was forced onto the football pitch, I took no part in the game whatsoever, avoiding the ball if it came my way. Just because lots of people like football doesn’t mean anything (other than lots of people lack imagination) and it certainly isn’t an excuse for ramming it down the throats of those who don’t like it.
Orwell was spot on, frankly. I see no evidence that he regretted not being good at it. I have no regret at not being good at football, because I am good at my chosen pursuits. Why would I want to be good at kicking a ball about?
I also hated all forms of sport – partly because I didn’t have the physique for it, but mainly because I simply didn’t enjoy it. I did, however, enjoy science, and particularly practical subjects such as metalwork. I frequently argued with the class teacher as to why I should be forced to do something I hated, and was no good at, when I could be learning something useful. I knew that they knew I was right, but couldn’t be seen to agree.
Towards the end of my school life I was often left to supervise the metalwork class, whilst the teacher crept off for a fag… Now, many years later, I am the “Old Fart” who gets called in to fix the unrepairable, and deal with things that today’s youngsters have no knowledge, or understanding of…
And I can’t kick a football to save my life!
For me it was language and the arts. Yet there is no subtext that these subjects should be forced upon people to build character. Forcing games on children who do not like them is not good for them. Forcing them to learn maths and English, well, now, that’s a different matter as both are essential life skills.
My favourite sport was target pistol shooting. Unfortunately possession of that 1 shot 22 target pistol would now get me 5 years inside. What a wonderful country. I even taught it when I was a teacher. But that was eons ago.
I still like archery and plan to take it up again
Bike riding too?
I’ve never been in the “you’re useless” camp but I know others that were. It’s something foolish to do things like that and bully other kids but it’s something childish. I practiced basketball when I was in highschool, I really enjoyed practicing sport.
Good article! I never liked soccer at all. Nor cricket. I did play rugby union for my House but not my school. I loved tennis and we had an Eton Fives court (no, it wasn’t Eton!) and that was a good workout. I was also a crack shot with my Lee Enfield in the school CCF. At uni I used to play lots of squash and also shoot 0.22 target pistol. You are right though, if you wren’t interested in the school’s top fave team game you were not of the ‘in crowd’.
“It didn’t do me one jot of good. If anything it reinforced my sense of rebellion and determination to go my own way.”
In which case, I’d suggest it did quite a lot of good, if unintended.
Well, yes, the law of unintended consequences. However, I very much doubt that is what the advocates of school sport really mean when they talk about kicking a ball about building character 👿
For a really apprpriate comment on the vileness of “Team Games” sports generally, and “compulsory fun” …
You could do a lot worse than this:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-mayor/article-23977850-boris-johnson-2012-ambassador-accused-of-rioting-is-not-fit-to-represent-city.do
Says it all, really!