Ethical Companies – The Blog

Are Scots getting soft as they consider kicking school scrums into touch ?

It is an integral part of a sport that has turned boys into men for generations.

Is that so ?  Does Mike Larkin (the journalist responsible for the article have any evidence to support this ?  I suspect that many successful “men” of today were ardent rugby dodgers when they were at school.  Sounds like a spurious connection to me, with no basis in fact.  PLUS, some of the rugby “lads” I met at university were anything BUT proper “men”.  Don’t get me wrong I’m not suggesting Duncan (who lived in the same shared flat as me) wasn’t a man in many respects, but he certainly wasn’t a gentleman (and still isn’t) and I don’t think rugby had anything to do with it one way or the other.

But scrums could be axed from school rugby matches under a proposed health and safety shake-up.  A report into the sport found that secondary school players have a 12 per cent chance of getting injured over the course of the season.  The paper’s co-author, Professor Allyson Pollock, claims mild knocks can lead to brain damage in later life and has criticised schools for failing to warn parents and pupils of the risks.

Well Professor Pollock is right, but there again knocks and bumps are part of everyday life.  I’ve certainly had my fair share of them over the years, and was forever grazing knees and/or banging my head as a kid (I had a penchant for climbing trees, maybe I was a monkey in a former life).

High tackles and scrums were the reason for around two-thirds of the injuries, and Professor Pollock wants them to be eliminated from the game.  ’We know most injuries occur in tackles and the scrum, so there has to be much greater safety measures in these areas,’ the director of Edinburgh University’s Centre for International Public Health Policy said.  ’You’re probably saying boys shouldn’t be in a scrum and tackles should be made much more safe. It may change the game, but it’s better to have a safe game than a dangerous game.  ’Concussion is being under-reported because it is not being monitored properly. Repeated concussions may have serious long-term consequences.’

The Scottish Executive-funded study, which is to be published in the Journal of Public Health, tracked injury rates for the first half of the 2008/9 season.  It followed 470 rugby players in five schools, with 37 injuries recorded over 193 matches.  More than 78 per cent of injuries occurred among children aged between 14 and 17, while 21.6 per cent were sustained by 11 to 13 year-olds.  But former Scotland rugby star Scott Hastings insisted: ‘You are always going to have accidents in sport, but there are more accidents in sports like mountain biking and horse riding than in rugby.  Kids are also coached on how to tackle properly and any time a high tackle is made it is punished on the field.’

Fair comment.  Accidents happen in all sports.  Just ask David Beckham

A spokesman for Scottish Rugby said the safety of players was of the ‘highest priority’ and that safety measures including ensuring only players of similar age, height and weight play each other, had been introduced.  The rules of the scrum were also changed in the mid-1990s to cut the risk of serious injury.  A Scottish Executive spokesman said: ‘We initiated work around this study and we will look closely at the findings. While we are supportive of school rugby it is important we have accurate data about injuries sustained on the pitch to ensure that young people are not being exposed to disproportionate risks.’

I saw this story being reported by Obo this morning (do not click Obo link if easily offended by bad language).  Obo’s argument (not surprisingly knowing his particular perspective) is it’s “health and safety gone mad, stop trying to wrap the kids up in cotton wool etc”.  However, I’m not convinced, based on my own experiences at school (albeit a while ago).  My own experience was that rugby was essentially “forced” upon you and you were expected to take part, regardless of how you (or your parents) felt about it.  I personally consider the sport to be deeply unpleasant, tedious and overly aggressive and had no desire to take part (I don’t like boxing either, which I consider to be tedious, pugilistic and brutal).  My sport ?  Well my PE teachers thought I was a lost cause, but then I discovered cross country running ….  I could outrun virtually anybody (including the teachers) in the school and went on to join a running team post school and compete for my county.  The strong legs thing continues on, I have the bottom half of Linford Christie and the top half of Bernard manning, lol  I can still do hours on a treadmill without too much effort.

No matter how it is presented sport at school is not as vital as mathematics, English, history etc.  I consider the best approach would be to give the kids SOME CHOICE.  Rugby isn’t for everybody and if you’re a bit weedy (I was a very skinny child) it’s not really appropriate in my opinion.  Obviously, it’s been a while since I was at school and things may have changed but I reckon the reason so many schools are football and/or rugby obsessed is obvious:  it’s cheap, compared to offering swimming, snooker and other various sports which need special equipment.  All a school needs for rugby or football is a field and an obnoxious PE teacher, and boy were my PE teachers obnoxious ….

Steve

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Secret of ‘mile high club’ revealed.

A philosopher has unravelled the mystery of why randy plane passengers can risk everything to join the mile high club after a study at Heathrow airport.

Alain de Botton spent a week observing passengers passing through the airport and discovered that the fear of death makes them shed their inhibitions.

Because subconsciously they accept they might die while flying, it arouses ancient animal survival passions that sometimes cannot be quelled, he explained.

“Airports bring us closer to the possibility of death.

“Such an idea makes us free of inhibitions, so we make love in airplanes. Feeling our mortality, we feel more free towards sex than usual,” he told Croatian newspaper Jutarnji List.

“The possibility of a plane crash can perform miracles in a relationship where there is no passion,” added the London-based writer.

I rather like Alain de Botton, I think he’s an interesting character and writes some very accessible philosophy books.  However, I think he’s wrong on this one ….  Why ?  Well I reckon people do it because it’s sticking two fingers up to regulations.  We live in a world where you can’t do this, that or something else, it’s “against the regulations” (often due to “health and saftey” Nazis.)  Having it away half away over the Atlantic Ocean in a Boeing 747 toilet is getting one over on the “regulations”

What do you reckon ?

Steve

PS no I haven’t joined that elusive club.

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Not living in London I don’t know a lot about Boris Johnson, except the fact he has a lot more hair (and money) than I have.  My weekly reading list usually includes Jeremy Clarkson on the Times Online site and assorted other social “commentators” but I’ve never read the Telegraph and therefore not come across Boris Johnson’s mutterings.

So it was with some interest that I read Boris’s comments: “We are now so spineless, I will never see a man walk on Mars”.  He comments on how our society has become safety obsessed and averse to risk.  I think he has a point.  Our society simply doesn’t have the inclination towards great exploration that we once had.  Now in the case of space I’m sure that a manned space trip to Mars needs some serious funding; and a “whip round” down at the Nag’s Head isn’t going to “cut it” but he’s right, maybe we’re more excited about comparing Meerkats than we are about space exploration.  Whatever happened to the human race’s sense of adventure ?  Heck if NASA calls me up I’ll go to Mars, I’m game.

Steve

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