School Soccer and the boy

Something that was hard to avoid when I was at school was team sports cos you'd know before even getting as far as picking the team positions if anyone was missing and there was spare kit about so the old rouse of leaving your stuff behind wouldn't cut it.

 Team sports are one of the most gendered activities in school which amounted to if you were a boy you HAD to play soccer which had a full kit that you needed to change into which is taxing if like me you have dyspraxia struggling with pull over, fastening and tying things.

First on over your vest would be a thick red football jersey with long arms and white ribbed cuffs which is different than most today and did help keep you warm in the winter months.
Next on were your shorts which were next to your skin to prevent your school ones from get damp and muddy.

It was always taken by our headmaster.

 Our shorts in the 70's and especially early 80's were short being  cut high in the thighs with contrasting ribbing along the hip seams and my last pair worn for soccer were just like these.

Personally I preferred them cos it was it more easier to move in than the longer ones which started coming back from the mid 90's onward.

Then came on your thick stripped socks cos you just NEVER wore your regular socks cos again they'd soon get damp and muddy which is no good for regular lessons afterward.

 Then came you dedicated football boots with studs to help deal with muddy fields like our school ones but were laced up so I had to beg other boys to fasten mine up for me and in that era we didn't have elasticated laces that could be pre-tied and you were inspected before team selection.

Team selection if like me you were physically disabled always had the potentially to be very humiliating  as one of two teams of  boys first of all had to have you - and often they'd sooner not -  and then find a position in whatever team formation they chose to play and usually they put me in defence and the odd time in goal so you'd hope you didn't let anything in you could just about stop.

Defence could prove a taxing cos they'd long periods of nothing much happening when my attention could drift off to passing aircraft or traffic as the school field corner passed a major road with trucks passing along it that interested me more and that was when my tackling didn't result in a yellow or red card being issued that is if there's didn't leave me on the ground for minutes being unstable on my feet at best.

Afterward we had to clean ourselves up as we had no proper change facilities, just a cloakroom with water and towels and get changed for regular classes.

Looking back on it I do sometimes wonder just what my attempting to play the game was about as later on I moved to school that played disabled sport which while taxing was more suited to me.

The conclusion I came to was it was about learning to have a go at anything and about trying however imperfectly to integrate me in non disabled gender norms for boys, to give me a space I might let boyish things out and join other boys doing the same.

While I was more open to playing sports across the genders and of preferred to chosen sports I felt more at one with, ultimately I believe in its own way it was another example of my headmaster caring for me by treating the same as all the boys providing an identity which while not being perfect was at least an identity and a space 'to be'.

For that I'm grateful.