Steven Baxter

Patrolling the murkier waters of the mainstream media

"The death of competitive sports" is the right's favourite Straw Bogeyman

There's nothing wrong with having fun while getting fit, as this picture of David Cameron playing Badminton demonstrates.

By Steven Baxter Published 08 August 2012 17:39

David Cameron in a tracksuit. Photo: Getty

David Cameron has been wearing a tracksuit top. Think about that for a moment. David Cameron, a man for whom a white tie and tails probably makes him feel a bit chavvy, has been dressing in a tracksuit.

In this, the year that the John Terry meme gained so much traction it began turning up in a Chelsea football kit ready to accept the glory awarded to other memes, our Prime Minister has taken a leaf out of the loveable Chelsea captain’s book and decided to try and claim the Olympics glow as his own.

Since we’ve become accustomed to ‘medalling’ and ‘podiuming’ as verbs in recent days, why not ‘johnterrying’ too? One could say: “David Cameron really tried to johnterry his way to a boost in the polls by wearing that Team GB tracksuit”.

Sure, he might look as comfortable in that tracky as William Hague did in that baseball cap all those years ago, but he’s going to give it a go. Not so much the Iron Lady as the Polyester Chap, Cameron has gone further, too, and pressed a few Tory buttons by demanding that there should be a ‘competitive ethos’ in school sports.

It’s a favourite strawman of the Right, this idea that somehow children are kept from competitive sport at school, that somehow the Namby-Pamby Laughless Liberals and their PC Brigade are squashing the joy of splintering a fellow pupil’s shins with a cricket bat, all in the name of Anti-Fun Egalitarianism.

It’s not true, as parents can testify from the mass of muddy debris coming home in sportsbags of an afternoon, and pupils can testify from the lumps, bumps, grazes and bruises they sustain in trying to get a bladder over a line or into a net.

Yes, there are other, less competitive activities now being offered in schools as part of physical education – but no, it doesn’t mean that our cotton-wool-clad babes are being BANNED from WINNING at games because it might hurt their FEELINGS. Some children just prefer keeping fit by activities that require a different kind of discipline, concentration and skill. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. What’s wrong with sport for the purposes of enjoyment? Fun?

There’s something of the “Never did me any harm” attitude about all this, as there is about so much of this Government’s education policy. Let’s face it, this is hardly a cabinet of Jocks who were first to be picked when it came to making teams; these were the losers who got told to stand at silly mid-off in the hope a stray cricket ball might shatter their skulls. Because they suffered, and succeeded (if you deem success as ‘not quite winning a general election despite spending vast millions of pounds’), children today must suffer in order to succeed.

But wait a moment. Who’s this joker, prancing about the gardens of Number 10 Downing Street in his shirt sleeves, wafting a badminton racket around as if he’s trying to swat a fat, asthmatic fly? Why, it’s a pre-tracksuit David Cameron, having a laugh and a joke while playing sport.

Look, that’s a fine and praiseworthy thing, but... well. Odd. It’s almost as if this person is playing sport not with a “winning is everything” attitude in his mind, but for the purposes of... well, enjoyment. Fun. There doesn’t seem to be that ‘competitive ethos’ there at all. What a terrible example to set to children!

That’s the problem when you try and johnterry your way into things that you don’t really know enough about: you’re going to end up looking rather silly, sooner or later. Let the kids have their fun, and not worry about victory or defeat. They don’t want to end up the kind of real loser who wears a tracksuit, just to try and steal a little glory.

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Tags: olympics

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11 comments

Thu, 2012-08-16 11:44 — christof_ff (not verified)

As PE is now commonly a GCSE subject, schools can boost their league table positions by getting as many kids as possible to do well at it.
At parents evening, my daughter's PE teacher was very proud to inform us that they'd scoured the available exam boards and found an unfailable GCSE that involved such modules as 'ping-pong refereeing'.
My daughter isn't particularly unfit, but anyone who knows her will testify that PE isn't one of her strong points - she can't catch, bat or run and is a mediocre dancer, yet she emerged from school with an A-grade at GCSE PE.
I'm fairly indifferent on the competitive vs fun argument, but I do feel strongly that PE shouldn't be used a tool to boost a school's academic ratings. It's not fun, it's not pushing yourself to your personal limits - it IS teaching kids that it's OK to blag your way to undeserved results.

Mon, 2012-08-13 18:50 — George Dreahing (not verified)

Good points.
It is a myth that state school is non competative. It is very competative. The schools love to win against local schools or county competitions. Name a school whose PE department does not have that ethos.
The problem is two fold in primary schools.
1. Not enough male teachers to run clubs for boys
2. Resources to give opportunities for plenthara of sports. This includes the training of teachers by the relevant sporting associations.
Also any one who puts in an article or comments " I am not a Tory,I find usually is"

Sun, 2012-08-12 10:43 — hugh markey (not verified)

Excluding Olympic events where the entry cost is astronomical, by way of example -equestrian and dressage events where £50 to £110 K for a suitable mount is the standard asking price, not to mention up-keep, how do the UK's PM, the Mayor of London and the Tory front bench measure up.
Did those two hours of sporting endeavour work? Naw.
Not an athlete among them.

Obese - that's fat you know

Thu, 2012-08-09 16:34 — one night in bangkok (not verified)

Cameron is apparently quite good at tennis (or was in the past). That was how they knew he was serious about Samantha, because he played with her despite her lack of ability. See the 8th chapter of his biography, "Practically a Conservative", by Francis Elliott and Jaames Hanning.

Thu, 2012-08-09 15:15 — Davidaslindsay (not verified)

I was a very fit child and teenager who was no good at sport. Pencil thin, I even had a primary school teacher who would berate me in front of the class, by no means only in PE lessons, for being overweight. It was beyond me then, and it is beyond me now, why the obvious need for physical exercise had to be met in the form of competitive sport.

As for the lesson usually said to be learned from such activity, has it ever occurred to those who come out with that argument that academic work might have been a more appropriate way of teaching that lesson? After all, it is not at all as if they themselves were the types that they glorify. Politics and the media are not exactly replete with people who look as if they were always picked first for sports teams. Is that how you picture the adolescent Michael Gove or Boris Johnson?

Yet somehow, even when made a Secretary of State or Mayor of London, they remain convinced that they have failed at life because they were not like that, and desperately pretend to cultivate the impression that they must have been, since no one else would possibly wish to inflict the whole process on anyone else. Would they?

The slavering public school commentariat's insistence that school uniforms, of which I am a staunch defender, were given up in state schools some time a generation or so ago (when the Conservatives were in government and exercising far tighter control over schools than hitherto, but never mind) is totally false in my experience and in that of everyone whom I have ever met. So, too, is the slavering public school commentariat's insistence that competitive sport was given up in state schools some time a generation or so ago (when the Conservatives were in government and exercising far tighter control over schools than hitherto, but never mind).

What we do all remember, however, is the flogging off of school fields. When the Conservatives were in government and exercising far tighter control over schools than hitherto. The academies so beloved of Michael Gove, his "free" schools being a form of them, are already being built with no outdoor space whatever, on the grounds that people are there, at those places of business, strictly in order to work. And remember that every school is eventually supposed to become one.

Thu, 2012-08-09 12:16 — MightyBlackout (not verified)

Oh dear lord, that's Cameron's sex-face, isn't it?
*cries in corner*

Thu, 2012-08-09 07:10 — Red Rain (not verified)

No other government created more loser than the last one. Labour failed to understand we live in a competitive world. Competition is the nature of the beast. The world doesn't owe us a living and either does the nation state. Enjoy the games!!!

Thu, 2012-08-09 03:17 — AAMVN (not verified)

The trouble with competitive sport is it's only good for the good kids. All the average and less than average just stand around and get in the way.

I remember athletics lessons in PE at school. We got ONE go at throwing the javelin or discuss and only the best 3-4 got to practice more while we ran round the field (again) or just sat and watched.

Kids need more choice in schools sports and that should include a large range of non-competitive or at least individual sports activities. Dance is sport too BTW. So is aerobics.

BTW - keep on bashing Cameron - just cos you've won hands down is no reason to stop.

Thu, 2012-08-09 00:47 — George Perkins (not verified)

What a bitter article. I'm no Tory (far from it), but this is ridiculously biased writing, complete with tabloid-like pictures of the subject - no doubt painstakingly chosen over other less embarrassing pictures.

Honestly, I think you must either be content preaching to the converted or hoping to stir up controversy.

Wed, 2012-08-08 21:44 — dominno (not verified)

The news make me happy. Plz clik the links bellow

Wed, 2012-08-08 19:09 — matthew fox (not verified)

How does Cameron think we won all those medals in Beijing and Athens. He should look at Team GB medal performances during the 80s and 90s when you could count the gold medals on one hand.

Cameron's plan for the future of British sport is a cut in funding, which will be less facilities, less coaching staff, and back to the bad old days of really on a few individuals to bring home the bacon.