British Bulldogs was frequent dinner time activity on the school yard. Fencing and Riding...I have been depraved deprived!

We did a bit of pony trekking in final year at school, on Icelandic ponies named after the dwarves in The Hobbit.

My pony trekking career ended when the instructress turned her pony a little too soon and it's head knocked me half off my pony which bolted dragging me along a barbed wire fence,, lacerating my jacket but thankfully not me, before dropping me in a patch of mud and then standing on my foot as I got up.

QuoteYou had fencing at school?! 

We had fencing at my High School in New Zealand and I continued part way through University

Got to attend a fencing training camp and a couple of tournaments at the Australian Institue of Sport in Canberra

Also managed to really annoy three of the more experienced fencers who were competing hard for the provincial Master of Arms trophy. They each won one event; Foil, Sabre or Epee but did poorly in the other two. I placed well, but not spectacularly, in all three, scoring enough points to take the title

Hi

I guess I was pretty lucky regarding the school I went to in Fulham from 1966 to early 1970's. We had alternate Friday mornings of 'big games' and 'small games'. Big games were either football or cricket (no choice) for the boys, depending on the season and I think hockey for the girls. 'Small games' were a choice of cricket (indoor nets in the winter), judo, more football, rugby, horse riding, rowing (my school was about 5 minutes walk from where they start the annual Oxford/Cambridge boatrace), tennis. badminton, ice skating, cross country running, athletics, archery and probably several more sports that I have forgotten. You had to 'sign up' for which 'small game' you wanted to do at the start of each term.

We also had a choice of learning French, German. Italian, Spanish or Russian for languages. Not bad for a comprehensive!

Cheers Paul

My state boys grammar school in the midst of a grim Yorkshire pit and mill town in the 1970's did fencing, taught by the the local cavalry regiment KAPE team, 4/7 Dragoon Guards. I ended up on the junior county team, sabre and foil.

The past is a different country...

I have never been Sports or fitness minded. I dreaded High School Cross country Run. I would complete... but ALWAYS 3rd last in... bescause the other two stopped for a smoke ! lol. 

I did go on School Group Skiing Holidays and an Activity week down Devon which had 1/2 days Absailing, Kayaking, Pony Treking, Diving in pool, etc.

Mid 60s
We never as far as I know had a fencing team.
We had a boxing team which the school doctor said I was ideal for - b*****d -it (the boxing not the doctor) was phased out not too long after I arrived - apparently being punched in the head might be bad for you   might explain a lot come to think about it. I remember it hurt.

My dad played Fives at the school but it died out just before I arrived I think. We did squash and badminton and table tennis instead.

Canoeing, bit of sailing, swimming, rock climbing.

All the usual athletics stuff - sand pit era landings so no poll vaulting or Fosbury flopping. Cross country was 'orrible, always raining and windy and always included crossing a river which told you what day of the week it was by the colour - dye works upstream used to process different colours each day. Carried on running after school though. Last competitive race when I was 40.

Cricket, loved it but hopeless at it. Last competitive game I played I bowled 3 overs, no wickets for 8 runs and was not out 4. I took the hint and stopped.

Hockey- I tried it for a term and went back to rugby - too frustrating, all that skill stuff.

Rugby, Sevens, Rugby, bit more rugby - spot a theme? Played until I was 39.

No Association Football on school grounds allowed.

All the gym stuff was good, sixth form you were allowed to use free weights, like heroin but heavier. Only gave up heavy (for me!) lifting at the start of the pandemic.

Quotealways included crossing a river which told you what day of the week it was by the colour - dye works upstream used to process different colours each day.

I my case it was weird coloured froth on the stream that ran past the paper mill. Didn't change colour but did make me wonder how good it was for us as we splashed through it!


Cross country? Cross country! Don't talk to me abaht cross country, in my day we 'ad ter run thirty mile out and forty back, oop'ill boath ways, in't snow in us bare feet. Tell young folk that these days they'll not believe thee!

 

PE - hated it, bunch of...

I was at a comprehensive that had only five years earlier been a grammar school
Sports were football, hated it. Football, which I hated, or football. Cricket, when it didn't rain for two weeks in the summer (2for2 was my best bowling record). Gymnastics, basically vaulting on fifty year old equipment that the wooden horse escape crew would have rejected for being too shoddy, hated it. Football, honestly, hated it. Swimming, we were allowed to walk unescorted the mile and a half to the pool, and sometimes staff would appear at the pool, fun when you already swim at county level (never successful, but regularly beaten by Greg Davies). Basketball, not for me. Football, hated it. Athletics, enjoyed, still held the 400m school record when the school closed in 2019. Cross country along the River Severn, often in spate, hated it, but came third most times, even when you fall down the riverbank through nettles, no staff to be seen. Football, hated it. Trampolining was banned the week before our rotation,after the teacher lost a ball in a bad bounce (witnessed by friends). Football, hated it. Badminton which I really annoyed the team at as I could deal with their smashes and lobs, but refused to join the team. Football...

I was county champion in epee, even fought at national championships, never even acknowledged by the school.

Rugby a strict no, but would you like to try football?
School next to the River Severn, no rowing as it's the preserve of Shrewsbury School...

Yeah.
Football. Best thing was my form room overlooked Shrewsbury Town's pitch, so we got to watch reserve games for free!

QuoteSports were football, hated it.

You'd have done well at Aireborough Grammar then. When I was there it was a punishable offence for boys to play football on school grounds.


Boys played cricket in the summer and rugby in the winter and that was it. The girls played hockey. I watched the annual Boys vs Girls hockey match once. It seemed to be a cross between rugby and kendo. Naturally superior skill, strength and aggression told ... and the girls won hands down

My own recollections of PE summarise an antithesis of sport.

5 minutes getting changed.
5 minutes rolling some obscure bit of equipment out of the "cave".
5-10 minutes of our former drill instructor telling us what to do.
Line up
Take turns hopping over the bit of equipment (You might get two goes if you were near the front of the line).
10 minutes putting equipment back in the cave and getting changed.

An awful lot of standing about getting cold, and one or two 5 second busts of activity.
I'm sure we burned more calories walking to the gym than we did inside it.


And yet some of the money raised at the school fete always went to buy another hated bit of gym equipment.

Best thing at Calday Grange Grammer - all boys, 28 in the 5th and 6th form signing up for Rugby - so not enough for two teams. 2nd best thing - we got a Chipmonk flight every 3rd week.

Quote from: Ithoriel on 29 April 2023, 12:41:37 AMYou'd have done well at Aireborough Grammar then. When I was there it was a punishable offence for boys to play football on school grounds.

I am sure I remember that as a plot from a "Wizard" comic story

Perhaps written by a former pupil? I remember Brian Close, himself a former pupil, who had come to talk to us commenting that former pupils had careers that were many and varied and that we should not let the plans of others deter us from from following our own paths.

Quote. . . I remember Brian Close, himself a former pupil . . .

My only vague claim to fame is that when I started secondary school I had Mike Rafter - rugby player for Bristol & England - as my PE teacher. The head would grandly intone at the start of week assembly that "Mr. Rafter had been selected to play for England at the week-end.".