Secondary school without Rugby

Pebbles, can you not see that’s the institution and not the sport? I’ve never seen those attitudes where I’ve played, but then I’ve never been to public school.

Should of added DS2's school is one of only a small handful not to have a major sport(s) every term and also uniquely I suspect offers cerebral activities or music/drama as an alternative to sport, some boys do no sport.
Maybe you're right rugby does create Neanderthals and this accounts for the exceptionally civilised atmosphere that pervades the school!!

Pebbles you have successfully demonstrated how no independent school is the same. Mine went to traditional boarding prep from 7 frankly they seemed totally obsessed with cricket.
At his senior school boys only full boarding rugby was not played. School news included academic musical art trips etc and sporting success and usually consisted of one line. Reports were always brief, academic success usually got a whole line maybe 2 usually detailing success at Olympiads etc, sports news was usually sparse we played Y and score.
You just need to find the right school.

noughttimesnought
I think it was me who first said rahrah I am no middle class person. I milked cows from 14 and now work shifts. It is what rugby league (very working class sport) called rugby union. Or kick and clap. Plus many other rather rude names. Urban dictionary says someone born with a siver spòon in their mouth.
Rugby League spent a century been attacked and undermined by Union links with the wealthy and privledged. Thats why it is still seen in league heartlands, as a game for toffs, though there are many more lower classes playing it. Like my elsest. HTH

Tell your kid consistently from the age of 7 onwards that he and his team are demigods. Are there really people out there like that?

Happy - yes, I'm afraid there are!! And to be fair to the OP and Evelyn it sounds as if they and I have come across the same types!
Our DSs went to a private prep and go to an independent school and the obsession with sport, and the rugby team in particular, is my biggest bugbear.
So much of the school news is dominated by news and pictures of the rugby team, the 'rugby calendar' takes priority over everything else. Every parents evening there is some bloody reference to the 'sheer determination and stamina, resilience etc etc' of the players and comparisons are made with every other aspect of school life
e.g. Revision? It's a bit like successful rugby training - regular coaching, commitment, marginal gains...
When the 1st rugby team won some (very minor) national competition the whole school had to applaud them walking on stage while they were given 'special' school colours. That's the demigod status thing right there....

Never the same fuss made over the students who are in the UK national ski team, or play Hockey for England, or are the youngest members of a National Youth Orchestra, or achieve academic success/Oxbridge etc.

It depends very much on the Head and the senior staff at a school. Our school wasn't like that when we joined, but a new head came in and brought in his whole 'sport performance elite' ethos with him. Unfortunately that's what a lot of independent school parents seem to want.
Not us, and thankfully we'll be out of there next year!

(and definition of 'Rah' here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rah_(slang))

“Tell your kid consistently from the age of 7 onwards that he and his team are demigods”
Are there really people out there like that? I’ve lots of experience of RU in independent schools and I never heard or saw anything like this. Evelyn the more you write the more convinced I am that you need to find yourself a new circle of friends! In fact I have never seen or heard any parent from any sport behave in the way say, and trust me horse parents in general are pretty ghastly.

Sorry posted to early. Both his league and union teams have given them talk from local woman's refuge, local white ribbon cause( charity against male violence to women) and talks from rape crisis about consent and non consent. I don't if this is because rugby has a bigger problem than wider society or not. But I'm trully grateful that he has had these talks because he may one meet a girl/lady and have his own daughter(s) and hopefully he can be one of a new breed of men who truely see women as totally equal. By the way he does then again his footballl playing friends.have had similar talks. Maybe sports are realising they are part of the wider culture and need to help sort out Britains problems..Lets hope so. The less Ben Stokes and the like we see the better in my humble opinon. Which ever sport or education sector those males come from
Finally I hope all kids find a sport thay can enjoy and take part. We need healthy kids. Good night

evelyn we come from Holderness and my Ds1 played footy from 4 to 9 years old. Ds2 just started playing footy again at 15. Ds1 also played cricket for school, high5's(type of netball) won player of year(only boy ever to do so) he play anerican football. He convert to rugby league at 9. Then to union at 15. Many people don't talk to him because he doesn't give a toss about the premier league or whatever the latest football thing is.
He is no better then anyother child, but isn't a.misgionist neanderthal either.
All his teams exept high standards from their players. From league and

often with especial reference to football playing "fairies"

Again no other sports do that no?

I've seen footballers say nasty things about rugby players, etc.In fact my DBIL was called a upper class cunt the other day by a football 'supporter when it couldn't be further from the truth, for simply saying he had no interest in the sport.

Working class background and normal state comp.

Curious as to why you are so blinkered.

What the hell is rahrah? is this some special speech uttered only by the middle classes?

Evelynismyformerspyname

As many posters have said, you can equate any of what you have said to any sport.

Whether you want to admit it or not you do have a chip on your shoulder with regards to rugby.

happy the former applied to both the school and the friends part, but they are people I can't help crossing paths with when catching up with nicer people, in person occasionally and often on Facebook, where they are FB friends of people I actually like. The utter crap about them being respectful especially is always spouted, as are claims that they are tougher, more loyal, more charitable (though the charity is usually themselves - fund raising for their own club trips is a very dubious form of charity) than non rugby players (often with especial reference to football playing "fairies" - all kinds of utter nonsense. When it's online there are sometimes memes... When you've experienced how those boys grow up it's even more toe curling.

Tell your kid consistently from the age of 7 onwards that he and his team mates are demigods compared to anyone who doesn't play their transformative sport and he'll grow up to be an arrogant, entitled tosser.

I have former school friends who are rugby mum's and they shoe horn the superiority of the rugby playing boy in at any opportunity
Evelyn I think you need to find yourself some new friends. I have no more interest in rugby than I have in astrophysics (luckily neither do my DS's) but I know lots of friends who's DC's are enthusiastic players not one has ever shoe horned the superiority of the rugby playing boy or any other sport for that matter.

user I grew up in the area you refer to - Driffield and Barrow might be the kind of towns you're trying to paint them as being, but York is packed with private schools which serve Malton and many of the other towns you mention and there are very expensive areas in York itself and surrounding villages - it most certainly isn't the "arse end of Yorkshire", and even "sunny Scarborough" has at least two prep schools and a private secondary and very expensive surrounding villages. Pocklington has a 500 year old very well known independent school.

My "chip" isn't anything to do with money, but with the attitude that everyone emotionally invested in rugby has that it has magical properties which make players better people, in contrast to my real world experience of older teen and young adult male rugby players, who when not under the coach's supervision are most certainly in no conceivable way respectful superior humans - your first post was the embodiment of that nonsense about rugby making your kid god's gift to the world.

I have former school friends who are rugby mum's and they shoe horn the superiority of the rugby playing boy in at any opportunity in the way nobody who's kid plays football or swims does, and generally try to take a pop at kids' football in the process. That coupled with the rugby playing young men I knew and encountered in my late teens and twenties, who were so deeply immersed in the mythology that they are better than people not involved in rugby that they universally behaved like entitled, unpleasant, arrogant tossers especially when in packs, gives me my opinion of rugby.

Being respectful in front of your coach doesn't transfer to wider society ime.

User1471 you're right anything involving horses is expensive but these addictive animals are not only by the wealthy upper classes but by people from all walks of like.
Hunting is expensive but again its not only the upper classes. In my grandparents village it was farmers scratching around trying to make a living out of 20 cows and 30 sheep dressed in wellies and oilskins.
Its so easy to make generalisations be it rugby players, horse riders or I guess even DM readers.

Ok maybe not the latter.

Sorry but if you want elitest sports can I suggest the following
sailing bloody expensive equipment and lessons
shooting I used to beat on local shoots, talk about haves and have nots
hunting sorry happy but anything involving horses is expensive and no hunting on council estates either.
polo horse again game of princes i beleive.

But to be fair when I grew up rugby union was the game of the posh and privledged. Rugby League was game for working class. But since union went professional, many league players like Ds1 now play union, half our 23 man squad comes from league.
Many people we know don' t acknowledge that Ds1 plays rugby anymore because he plays the toffs game.
Like I said rugby is a great game, but it can be let down by idiots. happy please note I accept they can come from either sector state or private, one of the reasons he no longer plays league, was because he thinks.many of his old school mates(state) where complete tossers
So happy you are wrong I don't think all.independant school kids are "rahrah" and sadly we know many state educated kids can be just as bad or worst. Luckily Ds1 takes fellow humans on their own personalities. So he friends with just as many private educated team mates as he is with state educated ones. surely thats a great postive of rugby I hope you would agree
I only want to defend rugby of both codes.

happy you make me laugh. Ds1 was at 1st teaining after christmas. Due to frozen/heavy pitches was in sports hall of local college. 15 boys aged 16/17/18 all playing football, rugby netball and then 5 aside football. Out those 15 kids two go to one of 2 local independents, but you wouldn't know which two. All keen to know who'd past their tests(driving) if they had a car and what type. Others been given tips on what you needed to pass theray and practical tests. At end these neanderthal lads help caretaker(female) set hall up for WI groups flower arranging lesson. Then helped the WI ladies carry their equipment in.
someone said my Ds1 played an elitest sport bollocks we usual play on shared pitches, often after picking up dog muck, glass and needles off their pitches. Around us if we have to train indoors wr are always below football, hockey, althetics and netball.
I think many mumsnetters live in a bubble, our ru team is top of its league, just 1 defeat this season. The elitest teams we have played in the 2 and half seasons Ds1 has played union, are Malton, Driffield, Bradford, Selby, Middlesboro, Scunthorpe, Grimsby, Castleford, Morley, Pocklington, Settle, Barrow and Finally sunny Scarborough. I sure most on this site won't even know these places exist, yet alone have been there.
So just because rugby union is the chosen sport for most of the famous boys boarding schools and RG universities it and rugby league are also played in rough arse end of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. These kids.wether private or state educated are no different to the other kids playing football, netball or hockey. Certainly no elite kids insight

😂😂😂
Some serious chips here.
My dc train at a local park where rugby and footballers train. Hell would have to freeze over before I would allow any child of mine to train with the footballers. We are in the south-east.
The head injury protocols, graduated return to play over the course of three weeks are strictly adhered to.

I couldn't agree more, HappyGardening. Quite normal to have a hobby and be committed to it and spend most of your time doing it.

I was simply explaining to Flyingflipflop what I meant by a 'RugbyFamily' in one of my previous posts!

"The 'rugby families' in our area seem to live their lives centred around the rugby club and its associated activities

You seriously don't think other sports are the same?"
Ok were a "horse family":
Both DS's with us attended the marches against the hunting ban.
Children had a pony from an early age.
Children were around horses from a. few weeks old.
Weekends -every spare waking moment-- spent round horses.
Kids wore wellies, dogs de rigour, no rahrahing about money as its all gone on the bloody horses.
As a family we attends local meet some follow on foot.
Would like to attend pilates but no time to busy caring for horses.
Mix with other horse people no one else understands what commitment it is and you can all bore on together about endless ailments, which rug your just purchased and which supplement your now using.
No money to drink alcohol.
I guess to those on the outside we could be viewed as horse obsessed bores.
I think its fairly normal if you take any hobby fairly seriously i.e. not once a week, that in your spare time you'll mix with others doing it.

We've friends who sail very seriously its the same for them in fact they make horse people look positively interesting and even a friend who does quilting very seriously (writes books etc) spends her spare time with other quilting types, probably drinking tea rather than alcohol!

Flying - I guess we got swept along with the belief that we were doing the 'right thing' as parents to help our sons engage in competitive sport. There's so much written these days about how competitive sport is 'the thing' to ensure teamwork skills, resiliance etc blah, blah, blah.
We were amateur parents and didn't know any different.
There were a couple of families we got on with and we hung out with them and avoided the 'rugby lifestyle' otherwise.
The tour was the final straw for DH and he said 'no more'.

When we stopped the DSs said 'thank God, we hated it!' and we said 'then why were you still going?' and they said 'because we thought we had to/ you wanted us to'

Thankfully they have grown up perfectly normal and found their teamwork and resilience skills elsewhere.

(And I now get a lie-in on a Sunday morning)

i think Pebbles is embellishing to support her prejudices.

If it was so bad, how did it take you 3 or 4 years to work out how horrible it was?

I was just explaining what I meant by a 'rugby family' as they are very much in evidence around here!

OK - The bit about the personal training might have had a whiff of GF-ery about it, I admit (But also very true to type around here!)

Oh I do love a mumsnet thread for sweeping generalisations.

DS2 plays rugby union at county level and is so far from any of the stereotypes here. His team actively discourages tackles just to hurt and if a player is seen as unnecessarily aggressive/rough then they are removed from the pitch.

Yes some teams/players are 'dirty', so based on seeing one team play not very nicely I could say that all opposition are horrible. The same could be said for many of the football teams that DS1 played against, some especially when losing will resort to unlawful tackles and studs up etc.

I believe its the same for many sports, there are some good well trained players and some well trained players that think the rules don't apply to them. For me its about choosing a team that is well trained, supports the players to paly fairly and has staff trained in how to deal with injury quickly and effectively and also train the players to tackle safely and will pull them off if they aren't doing as instructed.

The 'rugby families' in our area seem to live their lives centred around the rugby club and its associated activities

You seriously don't think other sports are the same?

However after these little gems, I think you are being a deliberate GF

tend only to mix with other families whose children play rugby as most of their weekends are spent down the club coaching/ playing matches
the clubhouse is the epicentre of their world - the RugbyMums do Pilates and Yoga there on weekday mornings (or have lovely 1-to-1 personal fitness sessions with the charming and muscular gym coach, who is usually called Rich or Josh)
Dads and lads spend Fri/Sat night in the bar