Ulster Rugby trial -continued

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New thread.

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Yes Methody is mixed (I went there to do A levels). But boys' rugby is far and away the most important extra curricular activity there. Everyone is invited to worship at the altar of the 1st XV. On the school's wikipedia page, there is a little bit of history about the school, one paragraph about how famdabbydozy they do in academic league tables, then it tells you how many times MCB have won the Schools' Cup Final and the Medallion Shield (junior boys' rugby trophy).
I got a very good education there and the school has good drama and music societies (they've won Choir of the Year about forty million times) and they are good at some other sports such as rowing. But nothing matters as much as the rugby schools' cup final.
Check out the school song on the wiki page, it's hilarious.

Everyone is invited to worship at the altar of the 1st XV.
Oh my goodness. Was ever a truer sentence spoken?

Not just Methody although being a big successful school they are the Billybigbaws of schools rugby. Most of the other traditionally-Protestant (they all accept Catholic pupils too though these are in the minority) grammar schools are very into rugby too. I went to a grammar school down the country until the end of my GCSEs and boys' rugby was the most important thing, girls' hockey less important, everything else more or less irrelevant. The day the boys qualified for the schools' cup final you'd think they were going to pass through the gates of heaven. I remember being loaded onto a coach and sitting in the freezing cold applauding the team playing a sport I didn't know the laws of and didn't care much about. IIRC the school got stuffed by Methody in the match.
I think there is a similar culture in Leinster and probably bits of Munster. I went to uni in Dublin and a friend attended a wedding with her boyfriend, who had gone to one of those schools. During his sermon the priest made some reference to how much he was looking forward to Blackrock winning the Leinster Schools' Cup Final that weekend, to much rah rah-ing from the assembled congregation and a few cries of "Can't knock the 'Rock".
When I read about the WhatsApp group I was put in mind a bit of the Ross O'Carroll-Kelly books, with added nastiness.

Interesting, Power. So as a girl did you feel a bit like a second class citizen, or is it more that everyone who is not a rugby player is second class? Did you find the rugby players to be mysonginist?
I had a friend at university who went there and she spoke very highly about it, although my impression from her was the primary focus was academics - she said there were more than 20 from her year at Oxbridge.
We are talking nearly 30 years ago so appreciate the school may have changed!

Just looking at the alumni list, there are a lot of rugby players, although there are a few non-rugby players on the list that I have heard of such as Jamie Dornan!

Thanks OP.

Echoes of Steubenville...

Placemarking

TBH I didn't give much of a shite Why and found it vaguely amusing. I didn't know the rugby players. I was there to get 3 As in my A levels, which I got thanks to the excellent teachers. I was a bit square I suppose. I stayed in girls' boarding, which is now closed. I have never been among such a high concentration of anorexics, bulimics and self mutilators (nice people but high achievingly stressy, some of 'em).. God forbid you should appear for breakfast 2 minutes' late with your tie not straight though. Priorities hey. I don't think the girls in boarding were completely representative of the whole school though.

The glorious Hadley Freeman is talking about the trial in The Guardian today - “What does the Belfast rape trial tell women?” It is a fantastic, angry piece of writing. www.theguardian.com/fashion/2018/apr/04/what-does-the-belfast-trial-tell-women-make-a-complaint-and-youll-be-vilified
(Don’t think I’ve linked correctly but please read!)

power that was my experience too.

Great article. So depressing tho

Came on to post a link to Hadley's article. Yet another great bit of writing.

Another ex Methody pupil. It's been surprising to read other views as before this anyone I knew was fiercely loyal to school. From my point of view this trial has been painfully close to home.

Thanks for the link old

Love Hadley and am convinced she's a mumsnetter - something about the style.

She is angry.

Chaosandchocolate, I hope you don’t mind me asking but was there a culture of misogyny within the school or is this all a surprise to you?

I don't have the fierce loyalty as I parachuted in at the age of 16 to do my A levels; I didn't grow up going to Fullerton then through the younger years at Methody so always felt a bit of cynicism at the Methody Uber Alles stuff.

Thanks for the Hadley Freeman link. She is indeed angry. I'd say irate.

In the South we have the same thing with rugby schools but the big ones/ones that do well in the various Cups are all single sex. How many pupils per year in Methody?

NI is a complicated area at the best of times, is there any possibility there could've been a slight sectarian element to any of this??

I'm completely speculating by the way but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a factor. I saw some scrote on twitter saying something about republicans that got me thinking.

I went to to school with Olding at BRA- he was three or four years below me.

We didn’t have the same kind of rugby culture- it was the most important sport at the school, but there was a massive importance put on what was acceptable behaviour. The headmaster at the time put a lot of store in raising gentlemen (and ladies...) and punishments were dished out when anyone could have potentially brought the reputation of the school into disrepute.

Placemarking as on the old thread...😊

That guardian article is spot on and so terribly sad.

Chaosandchocolate, I hope you don’t mind me asking but was there a culture of misogyny within the school or is this all a surprise to you.
Unlikely as it is, i'm slightly unnerved by the chances I may have gone to school with other posters. God knows what some of my peers thought of me then. Other posters sound like they were much wiser in terms of how they viewed the culture.

Thank you for the new thread. Hadley Freeman’s article is really important this long after the case. I am very happy that the anger is carrying on about this case and what it shows about the appalling system we have which is so stacked against women.

About 250-300 pupils per year, Twixes.

Really wouldn't think there was a sectarian element to it. I think Methody is pretty mixed (think it was 50/50 in my day). There was never any sectarian undercurrents that I was aware of. I think, given the socioeconomic status of the majority of families that attend the school that it would certainly consider itself well above that.

Chaosandchocolate I understand completely. There is an uneasy air of something accompanying all of this and I don’t blame you. Norn Irn is very small at times.