School bans real footballs from the playground

[Chrissie]

This is nuts:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...layground.html

A SCHOOL has banned proper footballs from the playground — in case kids get hurt.

Instead, youngsters will have to kick soft sponge balls during playtime.

Parents are furious at the ruling — but the school said it follows "a number of incidents" involving the leather-style balls.

Mum Kirstie Davies — whose son Harvey James is among the 300 pupils at Harewood Junior School in Tuffley, Gloucs — branded the move "stupid".

She added: "They've never had any fatal accidents because of a leather football."

One dad of a six-year-old boy said: "It's health and safety being stupid. My lad's a bright little player and he won't learn if he's not kicking a proper football."

A mum with two kids at the school added: "There's more important issues than rules like this."

And Tam Fry, chairman of the Child Growth Foundation, said: "George Best and all the football stars wouldn't have made it if they were kicking sponge around.

"No one wants a child to be damaged by having a football kicked at them, but it's just unbelievable to prevent our children learning things."

And Nick Seaton of the Campaign for Real Education said: "It's ridiculous. Sponge balls do not behave like leather balls so it is not going to help young footballers."

Head Andrea Mills said pupils and staff were consulted on the decision. She added: "It's about having children able to play while keeping everyone safe."

She said the school still use leather-style balls for organised games and PE lessons.

[LDG]

And they wonder why we're so shit at anything sport related.

This country is fucked arse upward.

Can't wait to move to China.

[Marc Overmars]

We had exactly the same rule in middle school, sponge balls only on the playground. To be honest it made sense at the time because our playground was not big enough for the amount of students the school had. There were a lot of cases of people being leathered with footballs before the ban as well.

[Chrissie]

They're probably not too bothered about the kids, more worried about being sued for an accident.

[PGFC]

And they wonder why we're so shit at anything sport related.

This country is fucked arse upward.

Can't wait to move to China.

If you wait a while, China will move to us #westernresourcecentreno1(island)

[Niall_Quinn]

Same rule in my primary school when I was a kid, some 135 years ago.

[Master Splinter]

Same rule in my primary school when I was a kid, some 135 years ago.

Did you let the teachers know what you thought about it?

[Niall_Quinn]

Did you let the teachers know what you thought about it?

Nah, it was cool anyway. We only had a concrete playground, not a scrap of grass, so a proper ball would have been a waste of time. We used to get a tennis ball and wrap layers and layers of old socks around it and boot that around. It was a lot harder to play with and when we'd play on a proper pitch against other schools (using a proper ball) we'd beat the shit out of them and then beat them at footy too. We had some mad bastards, a GK who broke his arms more times than I can remember diving for that fucking sock ball on concrete.

[Letters]

Makes sense in a Junior school IMO.
Dunno about sponge only, the plastic ones are OK and don't hurt as much if you get hit.

[Arsenal Fan]

been around for years...when i was in school some 8 years ago...

dont know why the sun are running this story, mind you, boring news is good news