Secondary school without Rugby

[westwood2016]

Happy new year! We are looking for a high level academic and sporty secondary school WITHOUT Rugby. Our two DS are currently in a prep school where rugby is dominating their lives, which was ok until they probably both got mild concussion following a knock on the head. We have been worried about them since they started contact rugby 3 years ago, now we have seen the consequences first hand, which could potentially be desastrous. We are ready to put a stop to Rugby, although they both live and breathe for the sport, which makes it very difficult. We live in Buckinghamshire but would be ready to move within the county or closer to London, should we find a school which offers other sports as well as having a high academic level. Many thanks in advance.

So what we’ve decided is that if you’ve been to an independent school and play rugby you’re an entitled mysogynistic arrogant rahrah overprivildged Neanderthal who you cross the street and you are likely to suffer a significant head injury whilst playing.
On the other hand if you’re state educated and playing rugby you’re a jolly decent chap and not likely to suffer a head injury.
Unelivable talk about rampant inverted snobbery unfounded stereotyping and prejudice at its worse.
Come on everyone can’t we do better than this.

OP - be careful about schools who currently offer rugby as a choice and it isn't compulsory because that can change. It has happened at DS1's school when only about 25 opted for rugby in Autumn term Y11 which isn't even enough for two teams so the football option was withdrawn, although it was obviously available for the Spring term as that is the official football term.
Rugby does seem to have become less popular in his school probably because there have been so many bad injuries including one boy who after concussion lost a whole terms work and knowledge in his GCSE year and had to re-learn everything. If a school offers rugby as an option you can't stop your DS from choosing to play.

If you want to avoid risk, avoid cycling too. My mum fell off her bike, hit her head on a rock and despite wearing a helmet, sustained a head injury which then went on to cause a specific type of early onset dementia, from which she died 5 years later only positive is that her well documented brain may be have helped with some of the concussion research

The SRU protocol is that all Junior rugby players (ie all those under U18) have to have 3 weeks (at least) off if they've had a concussion. Anyone even suspected of concussion has to come off for a Head Injury Assessment. Ds (now 17, been playing since he was 5) knows to take it seriously (we have never stopped him cycling or playing rugby - in fact, have encouraged him to be active).

No contact for all U9s and thereafter there are Age Grade Law Variations (as has already been mentioned: no ripping or hand-offs until cU13 different school years in Scotland, so in practice it means S1, 1st year at secondary ; smaller teams and smaller scrums, gradually building up to the "full" laws in senior rugby).

All the usual shit stereo types coming out about Union. I played for 35 years. Rugby players are just like any other section of society. I went to a comprehensive in the arse end of Croydon.

If there is an elitist attitude at some institutions then that’s not the fault of the sport but of the institution. I’m sure the very many players from the welsh valleys don’t see themselves as elitist!

Pretty sure nobody's said that pretty

My personal observation is that pretty much all older teen and adult men for whom playing rugby is a part of their identity have a nasty superiority complex not to be found in anything like such a universal way in players of any other sport. Women's rugby is probably different, as are most women's sports.

Certainly parents of boy rugby players constantly try to set themselves apart and claim that playing this sport makes their sons superior, for some half baked but constantly repeated reason to do with expected behaviour on the pitch. Constantly being told throughout childhood and adolescence that you're a superior being due to a sport you play must contribute significantly to the arrogant, entitled attitude of young adult male rugby players.

All the usual shit stereo types coming out about Union. I played for 35 years. Rugby players are just like any other section of society. I went to a comprehensive in the arse end of Croydon.

Yep.

Good handful of international and professional players from our area. Only 2 went to public school, the rest were/are from run of the mill state comprehensives.

My personal observation is that pretty much all older teen and adult men for whom playing rugby is a part of their identity have a nasty superiority complex not to be found in anything like such a universal way in players of any other sport.

Well as someone who myself who was very involved in sport and a DH who is extremely involved professionally in numerous sports I completely disagree.

You seem to have a chip on your shoulder tbh.

My personal observation is that pretty much all older teen and adult men for whom playing rugby is a part of their identity have a nasty superiority complex not to be found in anything like such a universal way in players of any other sport.

I would have to agree. Also all the 'rugby families' we know are also the ones with alcohol abuse problems e.g. 14 year old girl unconscious on vodka because she's seen her older brother and dad do it...

What’s a 'rugby family'? Do you mean a family where they might play rugby? It seems odd to define a family by the preferred sport of a few individuals?

Is your family a 'mumsnet family'? Does that mean your whole family is middle class, judge andwears Boden? Or is that just another poor stereotype?

I would have to agree. Also all the 'rugby families' we know are also the ones with alcohol abuse problems e.g. 14 year old girl unconscious on vodka because she's seen her older brother and dad do it.

I know of no 'rugby families' with alcohol problems.

I know of football patents that have been banned from the touchline, another that been banned from our local professional teams ground and an alcoholic that is part of a 'hockey family'

Oh and DSD friend mother's sister likes a drink and apparently a huge netball fan.

Seriously, can you hear yourselves?

*parent

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

• kids all start RugbyTots etc from a young age at the club, the progress through U7s to first team over the next decade
• 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
• Sunday morning EVERYONE is down there for training - spectators in wellies, toddlers and dogs in the adjacent field and there's lots of rah- rahing about money, houses, cars and schools.

We did it for about 3-4 years but then couldn't stand it any longer. DH took the DSs on the annual rugby trip and came back shocked having witnessed the most appalling alcohol abuse on the trip - Dads unconconscious, incapable of taking care of their kids (some as young as 7or8) and just generally vile and disgusting behaviour in the hotel towards staff and other guests.

Yes, of course everyone will now pile in and say how their club isn't like this, but a shocking number of them are, especially in the South East.

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

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.

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!)

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?

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)

"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!

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!

😂😂😂
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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.