Originally Posted by Tuerto
That first day up Lady Mary still rankles with me. On the back yard by the hall being told what sport you were going to be playing. The bully was holding court, he starts with ‘Who played for Cardiff boys rugby last season?’, my hand goes up in all innocence, I’m still excited that after my years of rugby at St Albans I was actually going to play the sport of my choice (which we’d been told would happen).
Anyway, he says go over there lads, next words ‘Who played for their school rugby side last season?’, more hands go up, ‘Go over there with the Cardiff boys players’. He turns to the boys left with a ‘You lot can do soccer and cross country’ and marches over to us rugby ‘erberts smiling and ready to map out our comprehensive school next few years of sport. The soccer and cross country lads were just left staring at the ground until a few of us moved out of the rugby ‘scrum’ and joined them.
I’d heard of this teacher’s temper tantrums and boy did he show one then, you’d have thoughtwe were nipping up Calvary to make sure Our Lord was dead. I’m still proud of how we stood our ground, he wasn’t used to being challenged, obviously. His compromise was he’d give us a letter each to take home regarding our ‘mistake’. Fair play to a man our parents gave us a letter to take back to him confirming that they wanted their sons to play whatever sport they wished....football.
The twat marked our cards that first day, the times he caned me for things like walking down the stairs on the right hand side instead of the left, bringing an iconic Wembley plastic football to school to play with, moving a desk an inch out of place in his classroom so it didn’t match the floor tile pattern. He hated football and certainly turned a few of us against his beloved oval ball.
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