What sports did you play at school?
Were you spoilt for choice? Or was the only activity on offer: Dodge the chunky bully and keep hold of your dinner money?
The answer to this question is likely to vary depending on a few things like background and location in the world, but I'd be interested to hear about the options that were available to you during younger years.
All pupils in the UK have to do PE, or Physical Education, at school until they are 16 and the most popular sport at school is football, played by girls and boys. 1 I can't remember if that was the case 30 years or so ago, but I consider myself quite lucky with regards to the options I had from 6-16.
![footy.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcAompprzJAe9US5wq4VPVxz9Wv6mZvjMe4VLSFGdeMrK/footy.jpg)
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Throughout school, and as suggested above, football was my go-to activity of choice. Rain or shine, blizzards or a heatwave, I'd be out in the playground kicking a ball around. Sometimes it would go in the net, and sometimes (ok, once) it would go through the staff-room window, right where my form tutor was sitting with his morning coffee.
I'd also play for the school team (captain for a year or two in fact!), after school, and whenever it was daylight - and occasionally when you could barely see a thing. Not that you care about these things so much when you are small, but I'm grateful for being interested in a sport that has helped (for the most part) to keep the pies off me for many a year.
Physical Education (PE) at junior school (ages 7-11) was a bit basic and mainly due to the school not having either dedicated staff or decent equipment. One game we'd play was football cricket, which was a case of smack the ball as far as you can (but not on the roof) and run back and forth - I enjoyed that one I have to say, not so much the majority of the girls. Another game, which I forget the name of, would involve two teams trying to throw a sponge ball over the net and opposition to a team member standing on a mat. If your team member caught the ball then you went over to the mat to be a receiver also. That one favoured taller people, or at least people who could 'loop' a throw - some would be on the mat after one throw, others may take 20... or more.
There was of course Sports Day at school which involved such acclaimed sports as the Egg and Spoon race, but think I'll save that for another post :)
At high school, the options increased dramatically as their were trained staff and much more facilities available. I had a choice of high schools and went for the one offering football over rugby - posh egg chasers, pffft. And so the football continued at break-times, lunch time (usually with a bag of chips and pigeons trying to steal them or shit on you), and for the school team.
The school was fairly close to a leisure centre which had a reasonable pool, and I do distinctly remember getting better at swimming and moving up the levels. I'm still pretty pathetic if I look at how good my thirteen year old daughter is, but it's never been a major interest and I find it a bit boring to be honest.
Other games at school I enjoyed were Softball and Rounders. These normally took place with mixed teams, and the playing field was much more level as far as the sexes with some of the girls being pretty damn good at hitting and catching. Being a left-handed was pretty sweet for these sports. The bowler would call out 'left hander' and the fielders would move round leaving a gap where a right-handed person would often hit the ball. And so I'd just stand facing that way a little more and hit it that way. It didn't always work but when it did I enjoyed it a lot.
Occasionally (a week before sports day!), we'd get a go on some of the field athletics equipment. Discuss, Shot-putt, and for the kids without the crazed look in their eyes, Javelin. From what I can remember, the biggest lad won the Shot-putt, but the other activities involved more skill and technique and produced surprising results -e.g. non-members of the football team would be the best at times.
There would also be options to run - sprinting or longer distances but neither of those appealed to me at the time. I didn't see the point if their wasn't a game (ball) around the activity, although did go on to just run much more in later years. There was also a Table-Tennis club, a couple of Tennis courts, and even a small gym if you fancied climbing up a rope (I didn't).
I can't really think of any sports I missed out on that I was really desperate to do as a child, which could suggest either a small mind, or just being fairly lucky with the choices I was given. If I was being picky, a local Velodrome would have been nice!
![velodrome.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQafSC2q5jxYWHoThk1rLmWpsJwL93BKQ3qwP16ep8SFE/velodrome.jpg)
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What about you? Still playing your favourite game?
Cheers
Asher
Field hockey (I was very good at), basketball, taekwondo, badminton (pretty good at) and then the random school and lunch type sports. Pretty much as a kid though, when it came to sports - I could play whatever.
Well I wouldn't have guessed :P
Badminton is really tough, i hate that sport but only because I have a couple of friends who are pretty good and they just stand centre court whilst i do 10 km and still lose handsomely.
A game of Pool next time then? You can team up with @blewitt
Isn't @Blewitt the one that sunk the black and the white together?
Yes. Which is normally quite amusing, except when its a simple finish and they are your teammate!
Never gonna live that dud of a moment down...am I?!? Lol
I was all confident and feeling myself. What a tool.
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And there it is, finally the truth as to the shocking pot comes out. He's holding the wrong cue he is!
The trip got lonely and you weren’t paying it the attention you did early in the trip. I had to take matters into my own hands.
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This conversation had me spit my coffee onto my screen. Thanks guys! (in a good way)
It’s like the thing of legend. This tale is told across the globe.
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I liked badminton, used to play some tennis and ping pong as well so it was easy to get into and the sweat just poured as it was so fast paced.
I always had the idea of playing tennis, but it was always more of a bit of weekend fun kind of thing. When I was a kid, my brothers would tease me because I was into sports, they were into music.
I can't remember getting a choice in PE... we just had to do what the teacher felt like that day. Fortunately, I was good at (and enjoyed) most things, except for long distance running. Sometimes we had to run every PE lesson for weeks. I simply refused to do so.
Since I was good at everything else, my refusal did not affect my grades. :0)
(It's about the only 'rebellious' thing I did in high school, lol)
I was good at sprinting, but could see no use in long-distance running. I still don't. Running is only good when you have to run away from something, and even then, sprinting will be more useful than jogging your way out of there....
I did hate the fact that sexes were separated for PE. Those girls were all big cry-babies and never wanted to play soccer, which I liked. (Now, maybe they were not all cry-babies... maybe I was a little fanatic when it came to sports, lol. I was like: if you play, you play to win. And if you're in my team but are keeping me from winning, I'll take you out anyway, lol.)
We didn't have any 'clubs', either. One year, we had a volleyball team and I remember going to Denmark to play against a school team there - but that's about it.
We had to take care of our own physical health. School didn't want to have anything to do with it. It's still like that - at least, in the schools I have been teaching over the years. Except for PE, nothing is offered.
I used to be a gymnast, back then. But once I discovered partying, the dedication was gone :0)
During the last 10 years, I used to be a dedicated climber and snowboarder, but the back trouble has made me completely inactive...
Thanks for the comment here! :)
I never understood distance running either and was much better over shorter. I do like watching the 3km and the 10km at top level though - lots of tactics there (as well as amazing lungs etc).
Weird that the schools don't really care - if they are seen slacking on PE in the UK they would be in serious shit.
Partying got me at 18, but then I found the gym and have done pretty well up until... Steem, lol :)
If you're not studying something that is sports-related, you have about 2 hours of PE/week (less, actually, more like 100 minutes), which is pathetic considering the entire 'healthy mind-healthy body'-thing.
LMAO
Hurling where we used to beat ten shades of shite out of each other with sticks , football and rugby were our 3. Badminton would you believe was another one. I quite liked badminton and the old shuttlecock! We did gymnastics as well. That bloody horse. Bad memories .
I'm sure you meant the horse in gymnastics right @blanchy? Oh man, hurling and camogie (yeah, yeah, the girlie version) I LOVE watching that. And I wished they would have had that in the Netherlands when I was growing up. I would have loved to play. Instead of knocking people out in field-hockey...
I've seen Hurling on the tele - looks pretty brutal but quite good to watch!
Badminton is tough - I have mates who play and after going once it wont happen again.
A horse, at school? Posh git :P
Strange thing about horses. Only the really rich or the really poor own them! 😂😂. Yup Tonto!
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That is a strange but true statement. Everyone else has no need for one?
Did you see https://www.facebook.com/joshpraycomedy/videos/479993336085193/ ?
(tl;dw an American guy freaking out about seeing hurling for the first time ^_^)
Currently not playing any game but growing up I used to play football. Can\t deny I had a dream of becoming a great player one day but then my interest in playing football faded away.
I had that dream also. Un/fortunately, I realised I wasn't that good :)
Ummmm...Im not a sports man!!! Im Sorry
Wrong tribe! :D
I used to play football, but sadly I can't do it anymore due to a back injury. I really miss those days!
Damn injuries, they really got to me - If i couldn't sport i wasn't happy. Nowadays the desire is less, unless i could be 20 again :)
Football and basketball
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Nice :)
Good question! We even played football at the volleyball club's training night if the coach allowed us to. Our favorite football game, both at the club and at school, was a kind of battle royale where everyone defended their own bowling cone or block of wood.
My parents considered the football club to rough for me, which was a misunderstanding of the kind of nerd I was. I wasn't interested in the social aspect of team sports, and cycling eventually became my favorite sport. Or exercise - it's a team sport if you want to win.
I was interested in the social aspect of hanging out at the public swimming pool, which involved wrestling with girls if I was lucky.
Once I became the 100 m sprint champion of my high school year when no one else showed up. My friends didn't understand why I was interested in something as pedestrian as sports. Again, the teachers tried to make us play something different and more middle-class than football, like softball or field hockey. Softball was just standing around, while field hockey on gravel could be pretty intense. Teenagers will relish the chance to swing sticks at each other.
But the worst injury I caused in high school happened the one time we were allowed to play football on a real football field. I tripped up the best player so that his unprotected shins landed on the pavement next to the field. I swear it was an accident!
I did see a bunch of spears laying in a shed, but I don't remember ever getting to touch them. Maybe it was better to keep them out of the hands of us savages.
Cheers for the reply, some entertaining stuff here :)
Ahh, you're the guy the 'no petting' sign is for? :)
Was the 100 m sprint after the football game where everyone was hospitalized due to 'accidental ' trips?
We did play a bit of hockey, but that was no fun for me as I am a bit of a soft-lad and sticks in the shins hurt.
Spears in the shed, preserved from the neanderthal era and deemed too unsafe for today's 'youth' :)
My school was a rough school and we only tried hockey once and there was blood and at least 3 broken noses and I never saw the sticks come out again. Not for the boys anyway. As for Javelin.....just no!!
Lol!
Blood is okay but broken noses? It seems like you guys had no ball to play just each others and hockeys! 😁😁
You wouldn't believe it now, but I was quite the athlete back in the day (not that far back either). I played basketball for years, from when I was about 11 till 15 or so. I had my height going for me for a long time as I was one of the tallest in our team (mixed). In school they'd fight for me when chosing teams LOL, because I was the female Shaquille O'Neil. Only had to stick my hand up and I had the ball, and on top of that I could score too (unlike Shaq). This changed, of course, when all of a sudden the boys came back to school after the summer and had somehow all had a huge growth spurt.
I absolutely hated gymnastics though, and wasn't good at it.
I always loved softball and even played some football too. Then my sister's friend, who was the field hockey coach for the girls begged me to come and play with them because his team just wouldn't fill up, only to kick me off the team 8 weeks later because I insisted that hitting the ball high up in the air was much more fun than pushing the thing along on the grass, and in doing so I ended up smacking the ball into some girl's precious face and broke her nose... I loved field hockey aside from that and wished there was a more brutal version of the sport. Little did I know that in Ireland, they had what I wanted. When I discovered hurling and camogie here, I wished they would have had that in the Netherlands too.
Other than that, outside of school and team sports I would take on anything on and in the water. From sailing, windsurfing to kayaking and swimming... One day the kids and I will sail...somewhere...It's the dream at least.
Now? Other than my work-out videos (on a not so regular basis) all the sports I'm doing is called: 'run after the children.' Which can be fun too actually. Unless it's in the shop...
You have been a busy lady at times eh :)
They should label running after children as a sport!
Yes they should! And make it into an Olympic sport too!!
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Football during the summers mostly. Finn's always got their dicks hard for some floorball during the winters but I sucked at it so played as a goalie instead most of the time and without proper knee protection you walked as if you were an old man afterwards. Oh and also loved it when the ball hit you right in the inner thigh that was always fun and didn't trigger you at all.
Other than that I liked shooting hoops but used both hands for some reason and never got rid of that habit when I realized later how big of a disadvantage it was.
LOLinfinity
Triggered from inner thigh ball connection! Yeah the cold weather really didn't help when that happened I bet.
Never heard of Floorball... oh, it's indoor hockey with mini-goals, meh.
Basketball, I'm not a fan. Practicing lay-ups when your are dominantly left-sided did not please my PE teacher at all - he gave up on me quickly!
Footy wins again :D
I'm still pretty pathetic if I look at how good my thirteen year old daughter is, but it's never been a major interest
Hmmm.
Why'd you downvote him, lol
Copied my text from the post!
Oh lol wtf xD
creepy fucker eh? Totally took that line out of context.
Footy ftw, was on a good track of becoming good at it too but after a winter break I went hard on shooting and something went wrong in my leg which hurt like fuck whenever I shot at 70% and above or ran fast. Doc said a muscle was dislocated and on top of another or something and it kinda never went back, lol.
Sounds rough - those Finnish winters last about 2 years though so you probably needed a good warm up :)