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.