Back off, pushy sport parents

On the news this morning they were talking about how parents have been banned from children’s school football matches. And, you know what?  I’m not surprised.  When James used to play football (not at school but at the local club) I was often appalled, nay disgusted, at the behaviour of parents on the touchline.  These were children of…what?  Seven? Eight?  And parents were bawling and screaming; yelling at their own kids to be more aggressive; taunting other kids when they lost the ball or missed a goal; bawling out the ref for ‘lousy decisions.’  

It was revolting.  It wasn’t supporting; it was mean…like bear baiting. 

And it’s not just me being a wussy woman who doesn't understand sport - Adrian was horrified too. In fact, both of us were mightily relieved when James decided football wasn’t for him and he took himself off to play rugby instead.

Not saying, of course, that rugby parents are all saints but there is usually a bit more of a sense of ‘fair play’.  People still yell and jump around and get overexcited.  But generally you clap and nod (albeit with a pursed lip) when there’s an amazing run or an awesome tackle from the opposing side.

The other day at school I watched my boy taken down in a quite spectacular fashion (which will have hurt his pride, as he’s usually the one who does the taking down) and muttered ‘Oh bloody good tackle’.  

The woman walking past stopped and smiled. ‘That’s my son,’ she said proudly. 

‘And that’s mine, underneath him, eating mud,’ I said with a smile.  

‘Oh god, I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘Nah,’ I demurred. ‘That was one awesome tackle.’  

She smiled again. ‘Well, he’ll be pleased.  Last time he played your side, he broke his arm, so it’s always going to be a bit of a grudge match.’  

And we chatted a bit and watched the game, and applauded good work on both sides.

But then, as Adrian often says, I don’t *get* sport.  Sure I support my son’s side; sure I want them to win but nah, I don’t get the screaming and yelling. Apart from anything else, the boys simply can’t hear.  I went through a phase of trying to make an effort, to enter in the spirit of it.  Taking my hint from the people around me, I’d yell out, randomly, ‘Legs! LEGS!’ or ‘Heave!’ or ‘Ruck over!’  But James said, pityingly, after the match. ‘Mum, just stop it, huh?  We can’t hear you. We don’t need your advice. And, frankly, you look a bit nuts when you jump around.’

Fair enough. 

So really, parents.  Stop it already. Get a grip. Think of your children and put them before your pride.  I think the main problem is that parents (particularly the men) live vicariously through their children. Listening to Adrian talk, you’d think he had had an illustrious career as an All Black.  He verges on the obsessive when it comes to rugby, picking apart the team, each match, the opposition.  It’s great, to a point – it shows he’s interested, that he cares. But it can become too much and sometimes I see James' head go down. ‘Sometimes I just want to play, to enjoy playing,’ he says with a resigned sigh.

And that’s the bottom line, isn’t it?  Yes, sport is competitive but it’s also supposed to be fun, to be enjoyable. When parents push and yell and degrade, that’s not fun any more.  Is it?    

The Ashes

There’s something that’s been bothering me for the last…how long? Two and a half years probably.  My mother.  Well, more accurately, my mother’s ashes.  She died nearly three years’ ago and at first…well...  Her long cruel illness, her awful death…I simply couldn’t think about it.  I buried (except…but no...) all memory of it. 

She’s been residing at the funeral ‘home’ (Home? Really? Surely not?) Funeral 'parlour'? Interesting. An ‘audience chamber’ – where we talk with the dead? Anyhow. Whatever. It wasn’t right. I hated the idea of her there, sitting on some shelf with the rest of the dispossessed, like baked bean cans in the supermarket. 

My family is small and far-flung.  We got as far as deciding that we’d scatter (rest act) her at Cerne Abbas, where she’d lived as a child, on Giant Hill (which she loved). Which bit, exactly, we hadn’t decided. I rather favoured his erect knob (as that would have amused her).  But anyhow, we didn’t agree a date and months passed and then (time flies) years.  I started getting perturbed, a vague psychic wrongness. 

I asked Adrian if he would go to pick her up.  He said yes but forgot. Again and again and again.  

Why didn’t I go myself? Well, because the place gives me the willies.  I’m not squeamish, not remotely, and I don’t get spooked easily, but there’s something about the suburban banality, the tin-tacky denial of a funeral home/parlour that sends shivers down my spine. Anyhow, it had become a point of principle.  I don’t often ask Adrian to do stuff for me – I’m not the helpless type.  This was symbolic though.  A bit like the skirting board.  But that’s another story, from twenty years’ ago… Yeah, I have a long memory when it suits me. :-)

So you could have knocked me down with a feather yesterday.

‘I’m fetching your mother today.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve phoned them up. They’ll have her ready.’

Huh?

So he dropped me off at the health shop in town and reappeared twenty minutes later.  I had a large bag of muesli, soya yoghurt, tofu and a bar of Green and Black’s.  He had…nothing.

‘Where is she?’ I hissed as the guy behind the counter weighed the muesli.

‘Eh?’

‘My mother.’

‘Oh. In the car.’

The guy smiled benignly. 

‘What’s she in?’

The guy looked puzzled.

‘Huh?  Oh…don’t worry,’ said Adrian.  She’s in a bag.’

‘A bag??’  I held up the muesli.  ‘My mother’s in a bag?’

The guy hastily gave me my change and busied himself with re-arranging herbal cough pastilles.

‘Noooo.’  Adrian shook his head vehemently. ‘Not a bloody paper bag. It’s more of a pouch.’

A pouch? It was getting worse. I began to wish we’d never started this. 

‘Anyhow, if we’re going to watch James play rugby, we’d better go.  Look…’ He smiled reasonably. ‘…she’s coming too. She’d like that.’

I frowned. Was he really suggesting I stand at the touchline with my mother tucked under my arm…in a pouch?

Anyway.  We got home eventually and James sprinted off leaving Adrian and I to unpack the car.  Needless to say, neither of us had told our son that his grandmother was in the boot, in pieces, in a pouch.

‘Well?’ he said. ‘Are you going to look?’  He nudged his head towards the boot.

‘What?’

‘Your mother, for pity’s sake.’

Oh.  So I looked, eyes half-closed, squinting, wincing.  And there it was.  A sort of drawstring bag, a bit like one of those fabric doorstops.  Maroon. Velour. It looked vaguely Christmassy, in a sort of tacky way.  Who chose maroon, I wondered?  Is there a catalogue that funeral home/parlour people flick through, choosing colours, fabrics?  Could you get other choices?  Perky gingham? Jaunty Cath Kidston?  Conservative tweed? Why didn’t we get Timorous Beasties, FFS?

I picked it up. She weighed more than I would have suspected.  I undid the bow, opened it up like a present.  Inside sat a grey plastic container.  Like some kind of chemical container. Industrial.  Banal. That’s it?  A bald label. So you know you’ve got the right one, I suppose.

‘It’s not her, you know,’ said Adrian.

‘I know. Well…’

‘No,’ he repeated, firmly. ‘It’s not her. She’s up here…’ He pointed at his head.

‘What? She’s possessing…’  My eyes widened.  No.  Let’s not go there. My mother is most certainly not possessing my husband.

He frowned and shook his head. Dislodging the thought? Because, of course, you don’t need actually to speak the words for them to reach the psyche.  ‘I meant in our memories. By the way, do you still want her in the drinks cabinet?’

‘Absolutely. She’d like that. In amongst the spirits, of course.  Next to the gin, probably.  Up above the Knob Creek.’

And there she is.  In the Oak Room (made of pine).  By the fireside.  In the drinks cabinet with the weird carvings (which may be oak, come to think of it).  On the top shelf (of three – nearest to heaven?).  She’s living with me… as she always wanted.  And, you know what?  It feels good, it really does. 

Should children play rugby?

So, look at the picture and three guesses where I spent my Sunday morning? Bondage fashion show? Outdoor shopfitting workshop? Oh, alright, so we were at Sandyway, the rugby ground of the Exeter Chiefs.

Yup, it’s rugger season again and I’m resigned to giving up large chunks of my life to stand, shivering, at the side of the pitch, while my son hurls boys into the mud and is then duly hurled into the mud in return.

I have a love-hate relationship with rugby. It’s one thing when vast man mountain strangers brawl in gladiatorial fashion; quite another when it’s your own precious breakable eleven-year old who is somewhere at the bottom of a melee of writhing limbs and kicking boots.

I do sometimes wonder: should children really play rugby? Every atom of my mothering heart screams Nooooooo, don’t be so bloody stupid; of course they shouldn’t. Let me count the reasons.
#1 = visit to A&E for suspected concussion.
#2 = suspected broken wrist.
#3 = other wrist being fractured.
#4 = neck injury.
There may have been #5 and #6 but I have started losing track really.

Bottom line: it’s brutal and downright dangerous.

I’m the kind of mother refs dread. The kind who watches beadily, narrows her eyes and reproves: ‘That tackle was way too high, ref’ or who glares at small boys and mutters ‘get off his neck, you little toad.’ Yet, curiously, I’m also the one shouting ‘Rip it out’ or ‘Heave!’ or ‘Down the line!’ Jumping up and down with glee as James makes a break or fells some boy-tree hybrid. Punching the air in triumph when he makes a try.

It’s a game of strategy and speed as much as brute force and when the team works together, it’s a joy to watch, like quick-moving chess. I also love the fact that it’s a sport in which the most unlikely boys can shine. For once it’s not just the slim and speedy who get the breaks – there are roles for the solid and chunky too. When you want to move a maul, you need a bit of weight. Truly, I missed my calling.

Yesterday I was chatting to one mum who said she was over-the-moon when her son took to rugby. ‘He’s a solid child,’ she said. ‘The type who normally gets labelled as ‘non-sporty’. Yet he really loves that he can make a difference in the scrum, and be one of the team. It’s getting him fitter and healthier too.’

I once talked about it with the headmaster of James’ old school and he said that there are good psychological reasons for promoting rugby too. It doesn’t just get boys fit, strong and agile; it also gives them a safe outlet for their natural thuggishness; lets them burn off a bit of the excess testosterone.

‘Do you really enjoy tackling?’ I asked James after one match, genuinely puzzled.
‘Heck yes, I love it,’ he replied, eyes shining. ‘Sometimes you feel like you just want to thump someone but if you did that normally you’d get told off. In rugby, you bring ‘em down and get praised to the sky.’

I tell you, boys are an alien species sometimes.

There’s this weird preconception that rugby is some kind of ‘posh boy’ game but, actually it’s played in around 10,000 state schools and local clubs up and down the country teach rugby to children from all walks of life.  Discipline is tight on the pitch and in the club-house afterwards when the children change into shirts and club ties for their after-match tea. It’s a far cry from football’s yob culture and you have to wonder whether, if rugby were played in every school, we might have less problems on the streets?

Would be interested to see what you think. Is rugby the Right Stuff or Total Insanity (or maybe a bit of both?)


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And please don't forget that I also blog for The Lady as Mrs Muck (get me!) - have a butcher's here (and do leave comments if you feel so inclined.  Or, indeed, write to that august publication and demand more of Mrs Muck (that would be fab!).  Latest post is Mrs Muck's Guide for Lonely Hearts..  :) 

All out of sorts

Oh dear. All out of sorts today. Sobbed over the breakfast bagel. Grizzled into my coffee (not the usual decaf so this blog may speed up over the next few minutes and become unintelligible). Crying and low because I’m off on an all-expenses paid trip to Florida? Eh? Well, no. Crying and low because as I waved my boy off to school I could see him grapple with his emotions and bite back his own tears. He couldn’t wave because his arm was in a sling.
Why is it that something always happens just when you’re set to go away somewhere?
Yesterday I should have been packing but it was the last rugby match of the season and a tournament to boot. James loves rugby and is a hugely physical player. He tackles tough and hard and so often ends up at the bottom of a pile of boys. Boys who are getting bigger and heavier with bigger and heavier feet.

As a brief aside I’m getting really concerned about boys’ feet. A classmate of James’ has size 8s (he’s only nine years old). Having a chance conversation with the man in Clarks the other day he said that a sixteen year old came in with size sixteen feet. It’s getting a bit scary really.

But anyhow…..back to the rugby. Third game. Tough match. James took the legs of some massive child and thudded to the ground. Barrel of boys jumped on top. Eventually clambered out and came off limping with a line of stud marks across his thigh. But it was his hand that really hurt. St John’s Ambulance said take him to casualty so we shot off down the motorway and played tag with the various A&E departments. Went to Tiverton (‘it’s further but will be less crowded than Taunton’). Waited ages. Needed X-ray but not open after 4pm on Sundays. They put him in plaster and dispatched us to Taunton. Back up the motorway. Waited ages. They took off the plaster. Examined him again. He needed an X-ray (really?). X-ray inconclusive. Plastered him again and told us we needed to see the fracture specialist. In Tiverton.

Poor lad is distraught. While he had been quite sanguine about my going away when feeling well and with several cricket matches to look forward to, the prospect of my leaving when he was bandaged up and in pain was quite different. He sobbed. Came into bed with me and I sat and stroked his forehead. And felt like a heel. As I’ve said before, I never consider myself the archetypal maternal type but I love my boy to bits. So fiercely that it hurts and never more than when he hurts. It’s a cliché but I really would take on his pain and, while pretty cowardly in the main, would give up my life in a second if it meant he survived.
‘Get a grip,’ said Adrian, ever the pragmatist. ‘He’s hurt his thumb. You’re acting like he’d been given a week to live. At least he wasn’t stretchered off like that other boy, with his neck in a cast.’ True. More to the point, he wasn’t taken off with blood pouring from his mouth and a wobbling front tooth, like his team mate. Ever since I knocked out a tooth at a nightclub (don’t ask), I go cold at the thought of teeth flying. (I know, I know, this sounds like Hermione in Harry Potter - 'we could die or, even worse, be expelled' bit.)

But I live to worry and, having been ridiculed out of concern about his (possibly fractured) thumb, my ever-inventive mind turned elsewhere.
‘Mexican swine fever,’ I said, forlornly. ‘I’m flying to the US.’
‘Florida,’ said Adrian. ‘Not Mexico.’
‘Gulf of Mexico. Close enough. I could catch it and bring it back and infect the whole of Exmoor.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Go and pack.’
Half an hour later I came down wailing again.
‘For God’s sake. What now?’
‘Nothing fits. Nothing goes with anything else. It’s a disaster.’
He bit his lip and I could see him mentally counting to ten.
‘I don’t think I should go.’
‘What? Because the boy has hurt his thumb; because of swine fever or because you feel fat in what passes for your summer wardrobe? Honestly?’
Honestly? I’m tempted to be flippant for the sake of a cheap laugh but truthfully I will miss my little boy. I had been feeling like a fraud about this trip as I don’t think of myself as a ‘mummy blogger’ but hey, maybe I am after all.

PS – will miss Adrian as well, of course….(hi darling! Know he reads this from time to time). Pic is of my two boys whittling (how right and proper is that?)