Things that piss you off that shouldn't

[Rds1983]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

I was a Hooker before I got too tall and became a wing forward

I suspect you and Penguin may be from different eras, back in the 70s and 80s before the Union game was professional the scrum was nowhere near as well managed as it is now and lessons in school really didn't teach you much about how to do it safely. It really was horrendous, the headbuts as the two front rows came together for example were often just ignored, the biting the gouging and all the other "dark arts" were just "part of the game". Raking someone one the floor in a ruck or maul was fairly standard

Different game these days (and for the better)

 

Front row is still ridiculous. I've done a few uncontested ones when we've been without props and seen all what you said. One of the reasons I quit as my coach kept moving me further forward in the pack and I could sense what was coming. 

[Chindie]

Rugby was the sport i was best at school, but a combination of 2 things meant I never truly got into it.

Firstly, the moment I said I was doing rugby in PE my nan went mad and told me that her old boss was apparently a good rugby player, played at a decent level, until he ended up being paralysed during a scrum. After that she wouldn't hear anything about rugby being anything but a dangerous waste of time.

And secondly my school ran a system where different sets did different sports and they changed it so my set just didn't do rugby anymore. So I got left doing stuff like hockey, which I **** despised.

[Mark Albrighton]

With the exception of football and oddly enough, basketball, I disliked playing every sport in PE. 

On the rare occasion we played it, hockey was particularly unpleasant. Although my abiding memory of it was seeing this lad, who wasn’t particularly good at any other sports, he was a bit more studious, absolutely run rings around everyone, all the sporty lads couldn’t get near him. It was like the ball was glued to his hockey stick.

Obviously it later transpired that he played for some junior club, but just seeing him stroll past everyone really came out of the blue.

[sidcow]

Being Welsh my Dad was a keen rugby player till he did his knee in, so them he took up hockey.

I'm trying to see the logic of giving up one sport where you've destroyed your knee to take up another one where people are swinging a lump of wood around your knee area. 

[HanoiVillan]

7 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

I went to a school where the punishment for not getting in the rugby teams during PE was to be sent off to the tennis courts to play football without supervision.

It was bloody tough, week in, week out, trying to be in the shittest 5 or 6 kids that don’t make the cut.

Every now and again I’d end up selected and I’d have to put in a real special stand out performance so the next week they wouldn’t go anywhere near me again.

At my school, we would be made to do laps after class if we were perceived not to have 'got stuck enough' during rugby-in-PE, so my friend and I had turned 'jogging around on the edge of things then diving headfirst into the muddiest part of the field when the teacher's back was turned' into an absolute art form.

[sidcow]

Christ almighty. Is VT a hotbed of ex Public Schoolboys or something? 

I attended 2 different comprehensive schools in Birmingham and I doubt I played more than 3 hours of Rugby in both combined, and the vast majority of that was with a temporary sports teacher we had who was a definite rugger bugger. 

Edited December 31, 2021 by sidcow

[chrisp65]

3 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

At my school, we would be made to do laps after class if we were perceived not to have 'got stuck enough' during rugby-in-PE, so my friend and I had turned 'jogging around on the edge of things then diving headfirst into the muddiest part of the field when the teacher's back was turned' into an absolute art form.

The point of my school was a rugby first 15. Jobs, decent humans, education were a distant second. So as soon as you weren’t interested they took their eye off you and concentrated on the keener rugby fodder.

[villa4europe]

Just now, sidcow said:

Christ almighty. Is VT a hotbed of ex Public Schoolboys or something? 

I attended 2 different comprehensive schools in Birmingham and I doubt I played more than 3 hours of Rugby in both combined, and the vast majority of that was with a temporary sports teacher we have who was a definite rugger bugger. 

I played a fair bit at middle school but hardly any at high school despite my PE teacher being a rugby man

Middle school had the county cross country track and my teacher was a moody prick who if a kid looked at him funny in the changing room whatever was planned for the class was scrapped and we ran for an hour, maybe on a plus note we did use for orienteering which was fun

High school was loads of basketball which I hated, tennis and athletics in the summer which I hated, swimming in the winter in an semi open pool (KW) which I hated cos of the cold, badminton, table tennis, hockey and rounders every now and then, I loved hockey 

Don't think I played football in a high school PE class once, from memory they knew we were all football mad and did it all the time anyway so didn't bother with classes 

[HanoiVillan]

9 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Christ almighty. Is VT a hotbed of ex Public Schoolboys or something? 

I attended 2 different comprehensive schools in Birmingham and I doubt I played more than 3 hours of Rugby in both combined, and the vast majority of that was with a temporary sports teacher we had who was a definite rugger bugger. 

Grammar, not private (and I mostly hated it and wish I went to the local comprehensive instead).

[mjmooney]

15 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Grammar, not private (and I mostly hated it and wish I went to the local comprehensive instead).

State grammar here, too. Comprehensives didn't exist until the year after I left, and I certainly didn't want to go the local secondary mod, which was barely one step up from borstal. However, football was banned, and rugby compulsory. I hated rugby, but I'd have been just as shit at football. Despite all that, I kinda liked the place, and for every negative there were plenty of positives. Mostly happy memories, tbh. 

[bickster]

Comprehensive School in Great Barr, played Rugby for the School Team for 8 years (three years VIth Form), captained the side for a few years. Also played for Handsworth Rugby Club as did half of my School Teammates, the other half played for Walsall. Our School Team was actually really good, we used to take great delight in beating the King Edwards Schools. Going back further, the nucleus of that school team was formed in our Junior School, we played 7 a side against other schools nearly every week

As well as playing the King Edwards Schools we also used to play plenty of other schools that were comprehensives, including one that was somewhere in the middle of Chelmsley Wood. Another we regularly played was possibly called Shenley Court, somewhere near King Edwards proper and of course our "local rivals", Great Barr Comp plus quite a few others I forget

The point is, back in the seventies, comprehensive schools had big playing fields, they also had teachers who were prepared to run teams (not just Rugby) in their spare time at weekends and stay after school to do training, unpaid. There were lots of Comprehensive schools with Rugby Teams. Another reason for that, back in the seventies they used to reckon that about a third of the regions teachers were Welsh (my own Mother was one of them). There were two PE teachers in our School that ran the Rugby Teams, one was Welsh, the other was a current England International (because of course the game was still staunvhly amateur)

Times have changed and the person to blame is as you've all guessed.... Thatcher

 

[mjmooney]

55 minutes ago, bickster said:

There were two PE teachers in our School that ran the Rugby Teams, one was Welsh, the other was a current England International (because of course the game was still staunvhly amateur)

Our PE teacher was Barry Corless, Coventry, Moseley and England international. Hired, I'm sure, purely because of his rugby prowess, as he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer (they let him teach first year geography, but that was about his limit). That said, unlike many a PE teacher, he was a nice enough bloke, and didn't persecute those of us who were hopeless at games. 

Edited December 31, 2021 by mjmooney

[bickster]

4 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Our PE teacher was Barry Corless, Coventry, Moseley and England international. Hired, I'm sure, purely because of his rugby prowess, as he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer (they let him teach first year geography, but that was about his limit). That said, unlike many a PE teacher, he was a nice enough bloke, and didn't persecute those of us who were hopeless at games. 

Played in the same Mosely team as my PE teacher, Les Cusworth. Corless was ending his "career" and Cusworth starting to make a name for himself getting the occasional game. Back then, Moseley were one of the top sides in the country and had a number of England players in the squad. The Tragic Sam Doble (also a teacher - went to his memorial game, Cusworth and Corless both played) and Martin Horton (who was keeping Cusworth out of the team despite being inferior). The Reddings also hosted County Championship games, iirc Bill Beaumont played his last ever game there, getting injured in a Lancashire vs the Midlands CC Semi Final.

I used to go down quite a bit. Amazing how I remember all that to be honest

[Chindie]

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

Christ almighty. Is VT a hotbed of ex Public Schoolboys or something? 

I attended 2 different comprehensive schools in Birmingham and I doubt I played more than 3 hours of Rugby in both combined, and the vast majority of that was with a temporary sports teacher we had who was a definite rugger bugger. 

I went to a Birmingham comp.

PE had a structure. Each year was split boys and girls (obviously), then split into 4 groups, ostensibly based on skill and physical aptitude, which got decided at the start of the year in a special PE lesson where you basically got rated by the staff. Top group was the best sporting kids, next was a mix of second best and an overflow from the top group really, next was crap but tried and bottom was crap and didn't care. This was repeated for each house, and every year they would blend the groups from 2 houses together on a rotation.

They then decided what sports each group would do in each season, but after my second year iirc they changed it so in winter the top 2 groups only did rugby and football, bottom 2 did hockey and basketball iirc. In summer bottom did gymnastics and badminton, top did cricket and athletics. In the final couple of years everyone not doing a PE GCSE did athletics at the end of the year. Oh and everyone did a term swimming for a couple of years.

The problem was you'd end up with kids who were good at football but didn't give a **** about anything else in the bottom 2 sets, which only sapped the enjoyment of any of the sports you did even more. I was alright at rugby, wasn't a great footballer but could just about play at centre back, couldn't do gymnastics for shit, hated hockey and basketball, was a good swimmer and athletically was only good at jumping and throwing events (and even the former I got bad at when I hurt my thigh one lesson that meant I never ran quite right since). Which meant thanks to the rota they had PE was a never ending parade of shite that I hated increasingly. And the same was true of 90% of anyone not on the top 2 sets.

[Xela]

Never played rugby at our school. It was football, cricket, hockey and basketball. I made the school cricket and hockey teams but was never good enough for the football. 

The girls had netball, hockey and rounders/softball

[sidcow]

28 minutes ago, bickster said:

Played in the same Mosely team as my PE teacher, Les Cusworth. Corless was ending his "career" and Cusworth starting to make a name for himself getting the occasional game. Back then, Moseley were one of the top sides in the country and had a number of England players in the squad. The Tragic Sam Doble (also a teacher - went to his memorial game, Cusworth and Corless both played) and Martin Horton (who was keeping Cusworth out of the team despite being inferior). The Reddings also hosted County Championship games, iirc Bill Beaumont played his last ever game there, getting injured in a Lancashire vs the Midlands CC Semi Final.

I used to go down quite a bit. Amazing how I remember all that to be honest

I used to live on Moor Green Lane, the far end by Highbury Park.  They were always a top flight club then. I can remember cars parking down our street miles away from the ground and temporary stands being built.  Even had England Internationals in the 80's. 

Their fall from grace has been spectacular. Even dropping into National League 1 they have immediately become perennial strugglers. 

I'm pretty sure Doug Ellis had something to do with selling The Reddings and leaving them homeless which is the downfall of most sports teams. 

 

[villa4europe]

Sure I've said this before my sixth form hockey team included the Wales youth GK, a Wales youth outfielder and an England youth outfielder 

And then I'm sure it was a back 3 taken from the football team of which it was me my best mate and then another mate 

We just **** about, those 3 were incredible and absolutely mental in equal measure, it was mixed and the England International was a girl called Laura with a complete disregard for the skin on her knees 

I enjoyed playing for that team more than the football team, it was just more fun 

Edited December 31, 2021 by villa4europe

[Brumstopdogs]

3 hours ago, sidcow said:

Christ almighty. Is VT a hotbed of ex Public Schoolboys or something? 

I attended 2 different comprehensive schools in Birmingham and I doubt I played more than 3 hours of Rugby in both combined, and the vast majority of that was with a temporary sports teacher we had who was a definite rugger bugger. 

It was football, football, football and more football at my school - didn't even see anyone do 1 minute of Rugby.

We also did small bits of athletics and cricket too but both were OK in general.

[Xela]

Those Maxwell/Epstein 'finish each other sentences' memes. Yes, I know its funny, but i've received it 304 times today. 

[il_serpente]

1 hour ago, Xela said:

Those Maxwell/Epstein 'finish each other sentences' memes. Yes, I know its funny, but i've received it 304 times today.