Race and Relations

It must be school sports day season.

The clues are there.

Playing fields are neat and pristine having been recently cut with a Corporation mower and the faded white lines on the impromptu running track have been refreshed.

There are more than the usual number of badly parked vehicles in the streets close to Junior Schools as not only mums and dads but grandparents, aunties, uncles and other supporters congregate for the annual competition.

I hesitate to use any word that suggests a degree of adversarial sporting activities for the simple reason that under the political correctness in the last two decades or so there has been a determined effort to eradicate any element where there can be a clear winner and, heaven forbid, any losers.

That is in stark contrast to the Sports Days of my own junior school days back in the late 1960's and early 1970's.

The victors earned the right to the glory and I am not ashamed to say that I did capitalise on that on the rare occasions of carrying off a trophy. There were also tears and upset at coming second or, let me think of that now almost banned word....ah, yes failing. Failing to get anywhere near a prize placing. I had more than my fair share of victory and perhaps more humiliation in defeat.

We did proper events as well. A good 100 metre sprint, the bean bag race, hard boiled egg and wooden spoon race and relay, long jump, hurdling over low benches and throwing heavy things as far as possible.

I took it seriously and even at the age of 7 or 8 as the end of the summer term approached I regularly ran around the housing estate where we lived to get fit.

There was a certain excitement and anticipation about waking up on the morning of Sports Day. The warm air seeping in through an open bedroom window, the smell of fresh grass and flowers, a faint heat haze coming up from  the pavement on the walk to school, a breeze on bare legs and arms from warm weather uniform.

Early lessons were meaningless as all of the school was nervy and unable to concentrate. Tests and assessments had been completed in the previous weeks and Sports Day would mark the beginning of the end of the academic year.

On driving past a school site now, in my 6th decade, I experience those very same feelings.

I find it reassuring but also a little bit emotional knowing that those times were so very long ago.

I made it a priority to attend the Sports Days of my three children, all now over the age of 20.

The noise and chaos were still there as I recalled but something was always missing.

It was of course the absence of competition.

It is a very British thing to coach youngsters to just go out and enjoy themselves in any aspect of sport. I do not wholly condemn this approach but feel that it sells them short when their peer group in all other countries are tutored to go out and not just win but win well and humiliate the opposition.

Another national trait is to adopt the position of the underdog although I strongly feel that this is just an excuse for those who cannot be bothered to train or commit.

I saw my children participate in such events as an obstacle race, throwing soft foam javelins, an egg and spoon race with a tennis racket and tennis ball replacing the traditional items and other non adversarial games with the emphasis on, oh, yes, fun.

The highlight of my own junior years was the parents race. It was a chance for my mother to show her sprinting prowess and year on year she trounced all-comers as though returning as an Olympic Champion and in bare soled feet as well.

It is one of my biggest personal regrets that in all my years as a parent of school age children I have never had a chance to take part in a Dad's Race.

Something must have happened, something unsavoury and unnacceptable on a school field in the period from me going to upper school and having my own family that caused competition between parents, either sexes, to be shelved, axed and confined to history.

I always held out a hope to race as a Dad and to make my children proud (rather than the usual embarassment) and made sure that I was in reasonably peak condition for any date in July that was set aside for the sports day. I even kept in the boot of the car , for a few years, the pair of old running spikes that I had used when I represented my college in my early 20's. If you intend to do something then you should be serious about it.

The chance just never came.

I may just have to keep myself fit, healthy and fleet of foot in case I get called up by my children as parents themselves for, let's say, the Grandad's Race at some Sports Day in the future.