#1
Just seen on the Beeb website and article about rugby in school and suggesting it is too dangerous a sport for children. In particular they want to see scrums stopped! I c&p part of the article below.
"Rugby scrums should be banned in schools to protect children involved in a sport which is "not safe enough" for them, an expert has warned.
Professor Allyson Pollock, director of Edinburgh University's Centre for International Public Health Policy, called for the ban after research into child injuries."
I suggest the government could do worse than close the CIPH unit and save some public funds!
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
#2
Agreed...... nutters
Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
#3
Although I agree with you both there has been a tendency in recent years for the deliberate collapsing of the scrum which, as I'm sure you both know, can result in serious spinal and neck injuries. So in some ways I fully understand some schools reluctance in participating in these type of contact sports.
The forms I have to complete and sign for Natascha to have a day out at the local Durrell Zoo is unbelievable so God knows what they are like for these activities!!
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#4
not nanny state at all, the professorial person attended 190 schools matches, resulting in the following injuries from the scrum.
37 with 20 going to accident and emergency, viz the post from marek.
the lady person did not advocate banning rugby, just the scrum.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
#5
Howard - they are nutters, people who play rugby know the risks, even the kids. Ban the scrum! these idiots will try to ban boxers from punching next. In this case, yes it is not the State, but some obsessive fool of an academic, none stupider than academics.
I have no interest in sport at all yet am outraged by this cotton wool wrapping stupidity.
Marek - you are right and this red tape must be a leading candidate for the cuts...... So much expensive work is created to just tick boxes for people to cover their backs.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#6
barry
i am not disagreeing over the nanny state bit, but a long while ago before health and safety took hold, parents were withdrawing their kids from rugby because it is a game for grown up blokes with bull necks.
other sports are more aggressive, such as boxing, cricket and football but they do not normally result in children ending up in wheelchairs.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
#7
There is no boxing done at any schools now, and some of our best boxers came out of school boxing,you can start to box at the age of 9 and go into your first fight at the age of ten.I think they should go back to boxing in schools it is avery good sport and why stop it in schools when they can go to a boxing club anyway from the age of 9. I first went in the ring at the age of 12 and was still doing it at the age of 40,and then a trainer for about 15years after that.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
#8
this allyson pillock needs to get her? head out from her nether regions as soon as.
Guest 693- Registered: 12 Nov 2009
- Posts: 1,266
#9
Collapsing the scrum is nothing new; I played Rugby Union to a very high level in my younger days and collapsing the scrum was a fact of life even then, in the prehistoric days of the 70s when contact sport was permissible and even actively encouraged.
The scrum collapsed on me when I was playing for Rosslyn Park in 1982 and crushed the coccyx at the base of my spine when enforced early retirement from the sport I love. That injury still affects my body today, and I cannot run the risk of surgery on the injury as it's very close to my spinal cord, and any error in the surgery could have serious consequences.
That is as nothing next to my school friend Chris Burns on whom the scrum collapsed in our final year at school, leaving him wheelchair bound because on that occasion the injury did sever his spinal cord. Despite a lengthy stay in Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Chris was left a paraplegic for life. After coming to grips with this catastrophe, he started up a charity for many like himself with injuries that left people disabled for life. Last I knew that charity had raised millions of pounds and helped many.
Chris would never advocate the banning of Rugby, it's a game that embodies the spirit of togetherness that forms lifetime friendships, and a lot of that stems from the fact that it is such a tough physical sport. It's also a lifestyle message - life is tough and you have to learn that. Running away from difficulties, or having a nanny state ban anything that is difficult, is no answer because the difficulties never go away.
True friends stab you in the front.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#10
Schools should do more cross-country running. We did it in Dover, once a week, but three times a week would have been better.
#11
Vic, Andy, BarryW, we are as one.
I too played rugby as a lad at school and trialled for London Irish back in the '60's. We didn't hear about the esort of injuries bing talked about on here. Maybe we were lucky, but then not everyone gets stung by a wasp either, and there aren't plans to exterminate wasps and bees!
Academic bullsh1t which we the taxpayer are probably heavily subsidising if not paying for totally.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
#12
It makes me think by five years time no school will be doing any sports.
#13
Vic, don't forget it was a Labour government that tried to remove competition from school sports; aoparently some kids (losers) were being traumatised by not winning. I often lost at school sports but appreciated taking part was important. It also made me much more determined to do better next time.
My school used to have a thriving boxing section with proper training, ring, equipment etc.,but then a politician decreed it was too dangerous. 800 boys, denied the chance to experience a sport, shocking. Strange how that sport still exists and many make a decent living out of it. Sure there is the odd terrible accident, but is anyone trying to stop Formula One? Of course not, and we all know why.................
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
#14
I can only agree with what you are saying,to be the best in the world at sport we need to start very young and at schools.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#15
formula one does not have 12 year olds participating, football. cricket and boxing have injuries.
collapsed scrums in rugby lead to some youngsters being crippled for life, hardly character forming.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
#16
Crossing the roads you can have injuries as we see in the papers each day to start playing football,boxing, and cricket,rugby,at 18 is to old,and sport does just what you are saying Howard ,it does build up the characters of the child. As you know I was a boxing trainer for 15years and I turned out some very good boys who today are good men with familys.
#17
Well said Vic. Life is a risk, a life without risk is no life at all.
#18
Did not only want to ban the scrum but high tackles as well. What would be left? It is a shame, because to my mind Rugby is far more interesting to watch than football. And I am not talking about the amount of muscle on show! Is it really possible to legislate against all risk, or even desirable? What is life without a little risk? Nowadays there is an obsession against risk - even to the point that now, after we have been told we must not use soap as it is germ ridden, we now have to use a self-dispensing liquid soap pump in case the pump is dirty! It is ridiculous.
#19
Too right Sid - my Thought for the Week May 31st on my blog (www.berniemayall.com) sums it up for me........
"Will Rogers said: "Why not go out on a limb? That's where the fruit is".
Life without risk is hardly life at all. We risk assess and risk manage, but in the end, we risk. That is what makes us Human."
#20
Very apt Bern, I like it a lot.
I don't know much about Will Rogers, but his Yankee namesake Roy once said, "What's a butterfly garden without butterflies?