Are School Playgrounds Microcosms of Society at Large?

Are you aware that lunchtime football across many schools in Britain has been banned? Just ask around – lunchtime football will be being withdrawn from children you know. It has just happened to our youngest son, after being outlawed at the two different primary schools our older sons attended. Welcome to Episode #94 in the national demoralisation campaign. To a young child, lunchtime football is one of the greatest joys of school life. As Basil Fawlty would lament on behalf of all young footballers: “That particular avenue of pleasure has now been closed off.”

A huge mass of children, mostly boys but some girls, used to play enormous games across MUGAs, or on any scrap of empty space. Everyone who wanted to play did so; there was usually a bit of to-ing and fro-ing at the beginning when teams were worked out, but then glorious battle commenced. It was good-natured and often hilarious. The most incongruous goals were scored by the most incongruous of children. Students at the local secondary still talk about the unlikely hat-trick scored by the founder of the Warhammer club. In the words of a forlorn student at a large South London secondary now denied lunchtime football: “Lunchtime football is the most egalitarian activity ever. No-one cares who plays just as long as they play football. Fury is reserved only for those who deliberately kick the ball out of the pitch onto a roof or over the fence.”

The excuse generally given by school staff is that lunchtime football causes too many arguments and injuries. When the middle son had that particular pleasure denied, I wrote to the Head to ask why. She replied: “Can you put yourself in the position of a small child and imagine being hit in the face with a leather football?” I replied to say that I’d asked my children what this feels like, and they replied: “‘Oh, it stings a bit but then it’s fine.’ Please may lunchtime football be reinstated? The benefits outweigh the risks.” The answer was, of course, no.

What happens in primary schools instead of lunchtime football is an offering, overseen by the predominantly female lunchtime supervisors, of curated activities. Monday: skipping; Tuesday: handball (played with a foam ball); Wednesday: duck, duck, goose; Thursday: King’s Square (again played with a foam ball); and Friday: a free-for-all (but no football). All of these games are lovely, but they are overseen and require adult involvement, hampering the ‘play’ aspect of playtime. In some lucky primary schools, a certain weekday is allocated for lunchtime football. If it’s wet play that day there is uproar and the boys beg to have football the next day, which is generally never allowed. Those boys – and it generally is boys – who don’t want to play the supervised activities, organise games of Tag, Bulldog, Slender or Capture the Flag instead. These too are broken up as being too dangerous.

When I was at primary school in the 1980s, our tarmacked playground included one netball court, a sloping concrete bank, a smaller area marked for hopscotch, and the bin. Every single lunchtime the boys played football on the netball court. We girls did skipping or elastics on the hopscotch area, played Mums and Dads on the slope where the area was divided neatly into houses, or would sit around chatting by the bin. Some girls played football and some boys played Mums and Dads. However, one girl got a petition together saying it was unfair on the girls that the boys took up most of the playground and lunchtime football should be banned. The Headmaster agreed. For a week, the boys skulked at the edges of the playground while the girls wandered around listlessly, or continued playing Mums and Dads. I have a clear memory of the emptied playground with the petition girl furiously trying to get a game of netball going and only boys wanting to play. Lunchtime football resumed the following week.

Roll forward 40 years, and at our youngest son’s school, a decision has been made to allow NO lunchtime football whatsoever, in the apparent hope that reception children never develop a taste for it. Those wild, unwieldy games of lunchtime football with jumpers for goals will be viewed as anachronistic as games of marbles, leapfrog or knights where children would clamber on each other’s backs and joust with sticks.

I expect this artificial state of affairs in the playground compares very loosely to society at large. Boys and girls have been interfered with in the schoolyard, the family and the workplace, to subdue and deny their natural instincts and pleasures. Anything that could lead to fighting or injuries is outlawed, likewise any activities that fall along obviously boy-dominated lines. Often the cramped playground space does demand certain restrictions, but I expect the fact that 74% of teachers are female (86% in primary) is not irrelevant to the lunchtime football crackdown. Girl-dominated activities like skipping are, of course, never outlawed.

The bid to regulate playground activities rather than trust children to play according to their natural desires, needs and creativity reflects the ancient philosophical question about whether, in essence, man is a beast in need of taming or inherently good and in need of nurture. If left unsupervised, will children scrap or play happily? And if they scrap, is that necessarily a bad thing? Sometimes the hollering at the start of lunchtime football looks aggressive as they work out who is going in goal, but then, within moments, all is sorted and the game begins. The Ancient Greeks famously held wrestling as an absolute educational essential.

I long for a society that allows children at play, and adults at work and when raising families, to do so in ways that support rather than quell natural inclinations. If that means unregulated lunchtime football, then so much the better. And for those girls, and boys, who enjoy playing Mums and Dads, imagine teaching them – at primary school age and beyond – all the necessary skills involved, from nutritious, delicious cooking, parenting and DIY?

In the meantime, if your child or grandchild’s school bans lunchtime football, please kick up the most enormous stink.

Joanna Gray is a writer and confidence coach.