h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Do you remember school sports? I do. I remember changing in the cloak room, with coats and gym bags around us and a scent of sweat and urine. Going out in shorts and a sports shirt to play hockey in the middle of winter, when the air was full of cold rain and the ground was deep in mud. I was never good at hockey but in fact, I didn’t mind it as much as other games. My strategy was simply to run up and down the pitch and hope the ball never came in my direction. I rarely got anywhere near the action.

Other sports were worse. We did hockey in the winter, tennis in the summer, with netball, rounders and Physical Education (gymnastics) and dance all year round. The headmistress banned athletics, on the ground that it damaged our internal organs, although I don’t know what the basis of this belief was. I was hopeless at tennis and rounders: I would usually whack at the ball in an unco-ordinated fashion and miss. In dance, I often seemed to get stuck with the man’s part and never really learned the steps.

My worst experience, however came during a netball lesson. For some reason, the teacher was called away. She told us to form into circles and practice throwing the ball to one another. For a while we complied with this instruction but one girl, knowing how clumsy I was, threw the ball at me extra hard. She must have assumed I’d drop it. In fact, I put my left hand out to catch the ball, it hit my little finger hard, I felt a sharp pain and saw my finger sticking out at an angle. I didn’t need telling it was dislocated. At least the other girl apologized.

Running up and down the pitch while staying away from the action is a good tactic – I did pretty much the same when doing and Rugby at school. (I had a similar experience with school sport: F22152412?thread=8318663 )

I suppose a badly-thrown javelin could potentially damage someone's internal organs…?
There's an interesting article about that sort of thing* here: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/rise-modern-sportswoman-180960174/

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* To clarify, I mean the article is about the belief that athletics was bad for women, not pictures of people hit by javelins – I don't want to see that.

Ah yes, I remember it well. Much of what you say resonates with me, too.

At least we were at a mixed school and the girls danced the girls' steps and the boys danced the men's steps!

The best part of sports was the house run. This was only for the boys and we girls were piled into any large room whilst they were out, battling through the rain and mist across the heath. The best place to be was the biology lab where there was a television and we watched "Tales of the River Bank" or something like that. Whatever was on TV at three pm on a Friday.

No doubt some girls would have loved to do the house run, and they probably either scrapped it completely or included the girls, too, after I left.

I remember once when I was backstop in rounders, and standing in that position, forgot which team I was supposed to be on. I was cheering the girl who was getting a rounder, till I noticed she was wearing a blue sash and I was wearing a red one! Oops! (I don't think the ball had come my way, though, so I wasn't exactly shirking fielding duties.)

Nothing wrong with being sporting and cheering on the other team when they're doing well.

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School sports. (faints)

Hockey was horrendous.

Although I like watching ice hockey these days, in the Olympics and things. To be an Olympic hockey player was not my destiny. To be any sort of hockey player was not my destiny.

Lacrosse was the most pointless game ever invented, and should never be played by man, woman or beast. Actually I think boys and beasts were spared lacrosse. I don't know though. We had no boys or beasts in my school.

Although there were a few monsters, but no boys. .

Unfortunately I wasn't spared lacrosse. Some girls liked it. I think it might be an extinct game now.

My husband always says that being good at football saved his life at school.

We never did lacrosse. The only sport I enjoyed was one we didn't do at school -swimming.

I never did lacrosse, but I can say I did see some girls carrying lacrosse sticks/racquets/bats (whatever they are called) on the train last week, so either they'd been playing it or doing something St Trinian's.

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Lacrosse is not extinct http://www.englishlacrosse.co.uk/

I was fortunate to be spared it, and hockey, at school because of being disabled - to me as an outsider, Lacrosse looked like hockey, but instead of hitting people on the shins with the stick, they hit each other on the head! Not my idea of fun...

Oh! Lacrosse is still out there! This is a revelation. See these pictures! Everyone is wearing crash helmets! We didn't get crash helmets at school. And guys seem to be playing it also!

How did your school cater for disability, SashaQ, both practically and emotionally?

I think it's still big in Pakistan.

Yes - it was a revelation to me, too, when I somehow found out that Lacrosse was not just a sadistic school sport, but there are actually men's and women's adult leagues!

My schooling was a bit mixed, but overall I was very lucky. My local primary school wouldn't accept me because of being disabled, but a very good school a few miles away did take me, and they were brilliant, that they took me on all the school trips and even helped me to climb Moel Famau in Wales, as well as allowing me to enjoy the academic subjects! In terms of emotionally, it was a bit difficult, that I was very academic so I went in the class with older children and they were a bit confused by me, but I muddled through while my age group caught me up.

My high school was also very good, that they were happy to make a few physical adaptations to enable me to get round the whole school. I missed out on Computer Science because the labs were upstairs with no lift, but apart from that they were able to jig things round so that my lessons could all be in the downstairs rooms, and I even did woodwork as well as the sciences. I went on a couple of school trips. In PE I was allowed to do table tennis instead of hockey and lacrosse, which I really enjoyed and I had to do multigym physio instead of athletics, but that was OK. I made good friends there as there were a few of us who were outsiders in one way or another, so we were all outside together

That's really an inspiring story, SashaQ, thanks for sharing! And its overall a really positive story as well, which is so heartwarming!

I was interested, because in your previous posting your mentioned your disability and the term outsider.

I'm very interested in peoples' lives, and the world around me. I have the curiosity of a kid. If I ever ask questions and the answer is personal etc, just send me off in the opposite direction, with a bag of donuts .

My older brother is vulnerable, aspergers, has a different kind of brain. In the 60s, aspergers wasn't recognised or even spoken about, so the poor chap was sent off to boys' public school, which by all accounts is tough to survive even if you're a strong male who can play rugby and be part of the pack. Anyway, he was brutalised. Fortunately my parents took him out.

It's an interesting area of life, being an outsider, I think.

I'm sensitive about outsiders who feel very alone, too alone sometimes.

Its wonderful that you found friends at school who were also outsiders. I'm an outsider in my own way, always felt different, I live in my own world though, which makes me smile.

I think there must be a lot of folks here on h2g2 who feel an outsider, simply because of seeing the world in their own way, and being original and unique, rather than following the herd.

Once again, mvp's writings lead to interesting conversations, and get me thinking!

I was an outsider at that school I wrote about, because we moved from Rugby, Warwickshire to Chislehurst, South London.

Interesting mvp. So moving to a different area can create outsider feelings. Not from around 'ere. Not a local.

Quite scary really.