Letter: Sponge ball for school games? Whatever next?
Wednesday 9th March 2011, 6:00AM GMT.
Letter: I nearly choked with disbelief when I read that a school has banned leather footballs in case a child gets hurt by one. They now have to play football with a sponge ball!
Just prior to that I watched that excellent series Human Planet in which a Tibetan father was taking his children to school.
The daughter was 11 and the brother a bit older. The school was 60 miles away and the only way there was to follow a frozen river.
It took six days and they slept in a cave at night.The father had to carry everything. At one stage the ice had melted and they had to crawl along a narrow ledge.
Having delivered them safely the father then had to make the journey back. The children’s pleasure at going to school was written all over their faces.
If Joanna Lumley starts a petition to try and restore some sanity, I will be the first there. Where are we heading?
T W Hillier
Llanymynech
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So just because somebody in Tibet risked his own life and the lives of his children to deliver them to school, you’re suggesting we should wantonly expose our own children to the risk of injury.
Where are we heading?
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When I was at school a ball in the face was just part of growing up. What next, a ban on all contact sports?
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Definitely not. I preferred rugby. It was safer than football anyway.
I was just pointing out the absurdity of the comparison between school activities and a one-off situation in a far-off land that the letter writer once saw on TV.
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Right…well that’s the vital grassroots hacked down which should ensure that England are now resigned to continuing World Cup humiliation.
Now I need to ask why are we letting these lawyer fearing imbeciles dismantle and destroy our culture and our national life under our noses?
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If you check the story you will find that the school has only banned leather footballs in the playground, which has a mixture of children from 4 years old upwards. The school has not banned footballs in organised games.
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Let’s hope that the school bans walking in case the children fall over.
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I too saw that programme Mr.Hillier and commented to my wife about it and this country comes to a standstill with just one inch of snow and as for the sponge football,in my day the football was heavy and gathered mud from the pitch but we still played and enjoyed the game,just shows what a soft nation we are becoming,even conkers are now banned at some schools,health and safety gone mad !!!
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Being reading the tabloid press again. The spone ball was only suggested for the playground, not a football pitch.
Most of the so called H&S stories in the Tabloids are usually untrue.
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Although a lot of the scaremongering and ‘health and safety gone mad’ stories conjured up by the Daily Mail are exagerated or untrue, conkers are banned in the secondary school i work in!
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Maybe if something was done about the claims direct ambulance chasers this rubbish would stop.
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Another triumph for the “Health and Safety Gestapo”. Yes folks the Fun Police will get you no matter where you are …
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Can you imagine just how badly affected your life would be without the H&S people? Which ever profession you work in your environment has been made much safer because of the ‘elf n safety brigade’. Think before you engage your brain.
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If you can’t take a joke … you shouldn’t have joined.
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As Martin states above, leather footballs aren’t being banned from proper matches but simply from the playground where they could injure unexpecting young children. When I was at school, we were only ever allowed to play football using a tennis ball if we were on the playground. PLEASE read the story before jumping on the “it’s health and safety gone mad” bandwagon – don’t just read the headline and go crazy (that’s what Daily Mail readers do)
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At a recent youth football tournament here in sunny Phoenix AZ a mother was walking behind a goal, not concentrating on the game, and was hit in the temple by an errant shot.
After 3 days in a coma she has thankfully recovered fully.
This is what they are trying to avoid.
Accidents are unpredictable and sometimes unavoidable, however, steps can be taken to mitigate the risk.
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Everyone seems to have missed the most vital point the letter writer has made, namely – Disbelief is a choking hazard. When will we ever learn and ban disbelief outright ?
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Yeah….down with disbelief! Put a ‘may cause choking’ sticker on it!
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I don’t believe you said that.
Uh-oh…cough, cough, splutter, thud!
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Oh my god! I don’t believe it….he…….he’s….Uh-oh…cough, cough, splutter, thud!
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I’m not really sure why the “story” about sponge balls was even considered newsworthy by the tabloid press.
In 1985, my primary school introduced a similar policy about sponge balls on the playgrounds at break times (because it couldn’t afford to replace any more broken windows).
Thankfully back then the headmaster could introduce sensible rules, without being vilified nationally by the tabloid press.
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how can some one walking behind a goal not be taking any notice of what was going on around her what was she doing texting fidling with her mp3
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My intention in sharing this woman’s misfortune was to highlight the dangers of being smacked in the head by a football, not to open a discussion as to whether or not she should have been paying more attention to her surroundings.
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