No, you don't need to know Maths to be a footballer

[Ronbo]

"NSPCC Number Day" at school again. 🙄

The letter says "children are invited to dress up as someone who uses maths/numbers in thier everyday jobs". Lots of girls dressed as engineers, builders, astronauts, chefs. Well done to them.

Of course, just like every single previous dress up for school day, all the boys turn up in full football kits.

"Coz there is a number on my shirt, and err, u need maffs to count the score."

It was depressing when the same thing happened at "dress up as your favourite character from a book day" but for me this is a new low.

Exactly 😂
Also, I think parents might be bit sick of those dressing up days.

I take it you are only talking down about male footballers and not the Lionesses ?

The classism in the OP's post is pretty fucking repellent.

So the girls dressed up "properly", while all the boys wore football kit. All of them. Every single one.

I must admit that it used to really annoy me when kids showed up to world book day in football kits. Now that I'm older, and a mum, I cringe at the memory of me confidently expressing this opinion. Costumes are expensive, time consuming, many kids feel uncomfortable and upset at the idea of dressing up, etc. If a kid is happy in a football kit, then let him wear it, it might be that it's the only non-uniform, non-everyday clothes they have or can afford, it might be what they feel good in, it might be that family is busy and it's all they had time for. What of it.

The football for maths at least makes sense.

When I was a kid, the football league tables were a big part of persuading me that maths had real life applications. What position is my team? How many points do we have? If we win on Saturday, how many will we have? How many rivals could we overtake? If the two teams directly above are playing each other on Saturday, what combination of results (if any) means we can go above both of them? How does goal difference fit into all this? Today, with fantasy football, my 10yo self would probably be even more buried in stats.

And I still use it today. I work as a sports journalist and, very often, during tournaments, I'm piecing together the permutations to determine the results and probabilities of teams qualifying for the next stage, winning the group, getting demoted or whatever. And then writing articles that explain this to readers who may have a hazy grasp of the tie-break rules for the competition in question, and / or the arithmetic that drives the teams' standings. Then I need to understand (and sometimes calculate) player and team stats - goals allowed per game, percentage of shots saved, face-off win rates, shooting accuracy / effectiveness stats, success rates in power play or penalty kill situations (I don't often work in football, which doesn't have all of these stats).

(Related note: my grasp of international geography owes a huge amount to a career in sports - in the last decade, I've worked with the global governing body of an Olympic sport reporting on more than 25 international tournaments in 15+ countries from Kazakhstan to Chile. This probably wouldn't have happened if 6yo me wasn't obsessed with pretending to be Sunderland's star striker Gary Rowell while chasing a ball around the school yard at every opportunity.)

I imagine they need some maths skills to keep track of their obscene earnings.

I hated dressing up days and so did the DC. They both had football kits so while the other parents were getting the sewing machine out or buying expensive dressing up outfits from ELC thwey went in their footie kits. No big deal.

What a vile post- classist, sexist and sneery.

I absolutely agree and would die a happy woman if ALL costume-specific school days came to an end.

My kids school teach so much about waste prevention then demand kids come in wearing a specific colour or outfit. Ludicrous

Probably because they’re better at sports than her kid so classism is the only card she has to show (pun intended)

Why don't parents just boycott this nonsense?

Urg. The amount of dress up days in primary was unbelvable and expensive. It got the point where I just said wear something you already have. From year 5 all my kids refused to take part. Thankgod they don't have this in high school.

My eldest has gone in in a football kit because I haven’t got the fucking time to be arsing about with yet another costume for dress up day - I’ve been in work all week as an accountant where I use maffs every day!! Guess what OP - my children are not thick. They are read to every day, hundreds of books in our house, I’m invested in their education. They do music lessons, sports clubs and can sit beautifully at the theatre yadda yadda. But yeah, write us off as chavs basically because I sent one in in a football top 🙄

Just to add my son is a maths genius, he would have still worn his footie kit.

Calling kids dressing as footballers for stupid school theme days ‘a new low’ makes you look like an idiot OP. Not all of us have the time and money to magic stupid costumes for these themes. Footballers, like everyone else use maths, none of the kids have gone dressed as drunk football fans have they?

I think the OP thought we’d join her revelling in her anti-poor people stance.

I love it when people forget that MN is full of smart, non judgmental women amongst the odd loon

Our school just said to wear something with numbers on 'like a football shirt'. DS doesn't own a football shirt. Luckily DH spotted that his Mario Kart top has numbers on the sleeve. You need maths to play Mario Kart to...erm...keep track of how many times you've lobbed a red shell at Donkey Kong?

I think the OP has a point.

If the school is going to do dress up days, then it needs to consider what it thinks the point is and the response it gets.

If the boys 'en masse' just turn up in football kit, then they should consider why this is and adjust accordingly. The girls engage and have a variety of costumes, so the boys could too, it can't be financial if it is split like this.

So can the boys just not be bothered, or is it uncool, or are they all so one track minded that football is the only thing that springs to mind. Why are parents not encouraging boys to extend themselves?

I don't think 'maths' as such comes into the kicking, even though trajectories are bounded by physics. But I do think probability for which way a penalty taker should go etc does.

(Just like WBD is meant to be about books and reading, not your favourite Disney Character which has been back made into a low quality book).

You are absolutely right @Ronbo IMHO

What a classist and thoroughly unpleasant post.

I think you are the one here who needs to brush up on their maths skills.

Of course being a footballer requires maths. There’s a lot of skill involved whether you want to acknowledge it or not.

@Ronbo you obviously don’t like football.
Being a drunken football hooligan is a minority of supporters you know.
Also only 25% of the population would pass for a grammar school so 75% of the population may struggle with maths.
Why do intelligent people, which tbf is a luck of genetics, look down on those who have different skills.

Oh come on!! You’re right, but footballers don’t know the maths/physics behind it - it’s just extremely good spatial awareness and it’s automatic. I mean, you could say there’s physics involved in every single thing anyone does.

Parents going for an easy ‘not another fucking dressing up day’ win.
oh god yes, this- dress up days are bloody difficult!!