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Themes: Sports & Athletics
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Author:  Róisín [ Thu Jun 05, 2008 1:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Themes: Sports & Athletics
Sports and Athletics play a major role in school life, from mandatory PT to school teams. There are the girls whose main roles revolve around their ability on the court or pitch - such as Katherine Gordon, Blossom Willoughby or even Grizel. Sport is used by EBD as a definition of nationality while the school is in Austria.

Do you get bored by descriptions of school matches? Did EBD portray the different sports realistically? Was she progressive by the very fact of having her girls take part in sports?

Please raise any issue you like, to do with Sports and Athletics, below :D
Author:  Kadi [ Thu Jun 05, 2008 11:11 pm ]
Post subject: 
I am one of those who was never good at sport and hated it. I can
recall very few characters that weren't good at sport. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Simone. But even she seemed to like sport.

I had the impression that EBD seemed to think that anyone who didn't like participating in sport was lazy. I first really thought about this issue after reading an Angela Brazil book recently.
Author:  Theresa [ Thu Jun 05, 2008 11:42 pm ]
Post subject: 
A lot of school stories seem to have this idea that all girls should be sporty, athletic girls are the best yada yada yada. EBD is an obvious one, but I can think of a bit in a Clare Mallory where a mistress says that the first XI are always the prefects and 'geniuses' are no good with responsibility, or something to that effect. In the first Trebizon book we know a character Rebecca meets is Bad News because she is disparaging towards athletics and would rather watch TV. Ethel Talbot does it too, and I'm sure there's at least one Angela Brazil in which being a 'bookworm' is frowned upon, and a Christine Chaundler I just re-read equates contemporary schoolgirls being sensible creatures with having shingled hair and playing cricket.

It always seemed very strange to me, because I would have thought the women who grew into authors would not have been particularly athletic as children, and that the 'bookworm' would be the girl they identified with, not the popular athlete, but there you go.
Author:  KatS [ Fri Jun 06, 2008 1:23 am ]
Post subject: 
I don't think EBD does particularly think girls ought to be athletic. None of her main characters are particularly noted for their athletic prowess, I don't think. I get the impression that Joey, Mary-Lou, Len, etc all play sports to a certain extent and aren't bad at them, but they're not the sports stars in the way the heroines of most school stories are (thinking particularly EB, Angela Brazil, Antonia Forest). "Getting into the team" isn't the huge deal it is in many books. There's much more emphasis on being fit/outdoorsy in an keen-to-ramble-for-miles kind of way, or enjoying swimming and boating, rather than being a star on the hockey pitch. Yes, there are random long descriptions of matches, and choosing teams, and hockey practice and what not, but it's not sublimated in the way it can be- there's no sense that being sporty (in a matches/teams way) is a code for being "good". After all, Margot and Grizel are both Games' whizzes, and they're hardly the Darrell's or Nicola's of the Chalet School.
Author:  lizarfau [ Fri Jun 06, 2008 9:13 am ]
Post subject: 
According to Rosemary Auchmuty's A World of Girls, allowing girls to play sports was one of the things Victorian feminists campaigned for. Girls had been denied exercise in the interests of femininity and because it supposedly affected their reproductive values. Angela Brazil, apparently, regretted the lack of games at the school she'd attended, and therefore filled her books with sporting heroines.

Bear in mind that no women were allowed to take part in the first Modern Olympic Games in 1896. They were allowed in four years later, but only competed in tennis and golf. It was 1912 when women's swimming was admitted, and 1928 when women finally competed in athletics and gymnastics. Amazingly, there was no women's hockey in the Olympics until 1980! And until 1972 women weren't deemed capable of running farther than 800m at an Olympic Games - the women's marathon didn't come in till 1984.

Auchmuty also discusses the backlash against girls'/women's sport in the interwar years, when educationalists wanted the curriculum to focus once more on domestic duties for girls. In Dimsie Goes to School, the headmistress tries to reduce games time in favour of domestic science lessons, to the horror of the girls - DFB clearly disagreed with the educationalists here!

Against this background, I'd say the school story writers were making a point by having sporting heroines in their books. However, it is amusing that the girls who devoured their books were most likely to be happier sitting by the fire reading than pounding up and down the lacrosse pitch!
Author:  JS [ Fri Jun 06, 2008 9:26 am ]
Post subject: 
I couldn't stand games and sport at school myself - in fact, I managed to use a note excusing me for swimming for six weeks (bad sinuses) at the age of 14 to get out of any PE for the next four years (don't ask - it involved collusion of a sympathetic member of staff and a certain cunning awareness of how they compiled the register).

As such, I often found the descriptions of long tennis games etc rather boring and would skip to the inevitable victory (I do much the same with the quidditch matches in HP)

I'm interested in the points made above about it being a feminist issue but, by the 1970s, it certainly wasn't one for me! Also, it seems that some of those chosen to be games prefects aren't very good leaders, in that they are crabby, rather than helpful (Margot in particular). I was surprised to read in Behind the Chalet School that EBD used to coach hockey etc. I'd have thought she'd have been more a bookworm type. And I don't think that Joey excelled (except most improbably as a mature swimmer) particularly, although, of course, she was a jolly good all-rounder!

Having said that, I now run/swim/play tennis most weeks so maybe it was school sports I hated.
Author:  Róisín [ Fri Jun 06, 2008 9:33 am ]
Post subject: 
lizarfau wrote:
Auchmuty also discusses the backlash against girls'/women's sport in the interwar years, when educationalists wanted the curriculum to focus once more on domestic duties for girls. In Dimsie Goes to School, the headmistress tries to reduce games time in favour of domestic science lessons, to the horror of the girls - DFB clearly disagreed with the educationalists here!


I'm just in the middle of reading this (thank you Kate!) and I thought that DFB made sure that the headmistress was seen as sensible and practical when she made these changes - ie the girls are horrified at *first*, but the main heroines can see where Miss Yorke is coming from and that it is a good idea. I took it that DFB was being practical and a bit anti-classist by having the girls prepared for a post war life where servants would not be as plentiful or affordable as in their mothers' time.

But yes. In Dimsie the games thing is a bit unfathomable to me. Why are rounders a more gentle game than hockey for the pre-15 year old?
Author:  lizarfau [ Fri Jun 06, 2008 9:46 am ]
Post subject: 
Róisín wrote:
I'm just in the middle of reading this (thank you Kate!) and I thought that DFB made sure that the headmistress was seen as sensible and practical when she made these changes - ie the girls are horrified at *first*, but the main heroines can see where Miss Yorke is coming from and that it is a good idea. I took it that DFB was being practical and a bit anti-classist by having the girls prepared for a post war life where servants would not be as plentiful or affordable as in their mothers' time.


Yes, I stand corrected - you are quite right here. I was thinking more of how in the later books games are pretty prominent. DFB seems to include a lot of games, more than EBD does.
Author:  CBW [ Fri Jun 06, 2008 10:24 am ]
Post subject: 
Róisín wrote:
But yes. In Dimsie the games thing is a bit unfathomable to me. Why are rounders a more gentle game than hockey for the pre-15 year old?


Speaking as one who was banned from playing rounders after a certain (accidental) incident with the bat and Sister Rosario's knee I would say that rounders was at least as dangerous as hockey.
Author:  Róisín [ Fri Jun 06, 2008 10:25 am ]
Post subject: 
lizarfau wrote:
Yes, I stand corrected - you are quite right here. I was thinking more of how in the later books games are pretty prominent. DFB seems to include a lot of games, more than EBD does.


I haven't got that far yet! Still in the middle of book 2 :D
Author:  JayB [ Fri Jun 06, 2008 10:35 am ]
Post subject: 
I do skip over the tennis matches in Wrong and the lacrosse in Ruey. Antonia Forest uses games to illuminate character, so if you skip the matches in Cricket Term, for example, you miss out on important character development. With EBD I get the feeling the matches are just there because they're an expected part of the genre.

EBD has an advantage over other big names in the genre in being able to write about water sports and winter sports. They're more interesting to read about than the overdone tennis/hockey/lacrosse etc. She does more successfully use those as a way of developing character, I think - for example when ML beats Clem in the swimming race because Clem allows herself to be distracted.

I think the CS isn't as grimly competitive at sports as some other fictional schools. Their Sports Days are usually for fun rather than for serious athletics. The Games Prees like to win their matches, but games is just one of a range of activities the CS girls have.

Girls who aren't really interested in games therefore aren't left out as they would be at other schools. I think there's a line in DFB somewhere about it not being possible to have a good time at school if you aren't interested in games. At the CS, Con Maynard is allowed not to be as interested in lacrosse as all the others.
Author:  Pado [ Sat Jun 07, 2008 1:00 am ]
Post subject: 
I find the lengthy sports descriptions similar to the detailed discussions of the Sale, the Christmas play etc - nice for color, but something I skim/skip on a reread.

Even so, EBD does use sport to enhance the story nicely at times. I see the school's interest in lacrosse (is that in Ruey?) as a perfectly believable fad, and I can easily picture the winter sporting (although bending the knees would be better advice here than worrying about crossing your points...).

And really, the concept of the well-rounded schoolgirl who participates in sports, has a creative hobby and knows something about music appeals to me on some intuitive level. (Also, apparently, to college admissions officers, but that's another story.)
Author:  jennifer [ Sat Jun 07, 2008 3:01 am ]
Post subject: 
I enjoy playing some sports, but was terrible at them as an adolescent - I got through gym on effort marks and theory.

I find it interesting that sports are emphasized, possibly as a feminist response to girls having not been allowed to do sports, but that overdoing academics was still seen as bad for your health. Girls are not allowed to over study, or work outside of proscribed hours, but a quick cricket practice or extra ramble is always good for them. The same idea - that overstudying and excess brain work made girls unsuited for their true calling (babies and housework) was also present.

Interestingly, I read a study in the US that girls are actually getting more university degrees than boys now, but that men still, on average, make more than women. :roll:

Count me as one who skips descriptions of sports matches. As a character developer, it seems to work much better. In Ruey, for example, the girls' lacrosse enthusiasm is nicely done, but the actual match is deadly boring.
Author:  Cel [ Sat Jun 07, 2008 10:00 am ]
Post subject: 
JayB wrote:

I think the CS isn't as grimly competitive at sports as some other fictional schools. Their Sports Days are usually for fun rather than for serious athletics. The Games Prees like to win their matches, but games is just one of a range of activities the CS girls have.



Isn't there a quote (in Theodora, I think), to this effect? I think Ted is surprised at the casual attitude Len and Rosamund have when talking about their school sports day, and how much fun it seems to be, compared to how seriously it was taken at her previous schools, with weeks of training and special diets, etc.
EBD seems to be pushing sport for health and enjoyment rather than 'for the glory of the school'.
Author:  Sunglass [ Sat Jun 07, 2008 10:11 am ]
Post subject: 
I do think EBD isn't in fact that interested in writing about regular team sports herself, but includes them dutifully as something readers of school stories are likely to expect. There aren't any instances of people gloriously playing on despite a broken ankle to win the Inter-Schools Cup to the glory of the CS. (Which being bored by team games in general, as well as disastrously bad at them, I'm delighted by...)

Of course, the isolation of all of the school's settings limits inter-school challenges anyway, so it would be difficult to write the CS as hugely team games-mad, with no one to play but themselves much of the time. (Would that have made any difference to the sizeable number of CS girls who want to go on to be games mistresses - not coming from a school known for its games prowess?) But in any case, it's the relatively exotic locales that are her forte, and the hiking, ski-ing, sledding, snowballing, swimming and boating etc. that go along with them. And she is realistic enough to give some attention to the fairly athletic indoor activities like country dancing that have to happen in blizzard conditions... Though I know nothing of English country dancing and find it slightly hard to imagine - if anyone knows, is it like Irish ceilidh dancing, and potentially quite complex and tiring?
Author:  JayB [ Sat Jun 07, 2008 10:52 am ]
Post subject: 
Cel wrote:
EBD seems to be pushing sport for health and enjoyment rather than 'for the glory of the school'.

An instance of EBD being some way ahead of her time - that's actually a very 21st century attitude, isn't it?

Sunglass wrote:
Though I know nothing of English country dancing and find it slightly hard to imagine - if anyone knows, is it ... potentially quite complex and tiring?

It can be. I'm no expert, but I've done a bit at parties. It gets interesting when alcohol has been consumed and there are men in the set - instead of doing a gentle arm-in-arm turn, you're spun round vigorously so that when you're released you find yourself flying across the room.

I expect there are clips of English folk dancing on YouTube. Pretty much anything can be found there.

EJO is the one to read for folkdancing - although I think EBD's interest and knowledge was genuine and it wasn't something she included just because it was popular at the time.

Quote:
There aren't any instances of people gloriously playing on despite a broken ankle to win the Inter-Schools Cup to the glory of the CS.

A theme which is wickedly subverted by Antonia Forest, who has the Evil Lois pretending to sprain her ankle before important matches, so that if the school wins she gets even more glory for playing on so bravely, but if they lose it isn't her fault because she was injured....
Author:  abbeybufo [ Sat Jun 07, 2008 11:19 am ]
Post subject: 
JayB wrote:
EJO is the one to read for folkdancing - although I think EBD's interest and knowledge was genuine and it wasn't something she included just because it was popular at the time.


EBD's Jean of Storms has a lot on country dancing, but I agree that EJO says more about it otherwise. Some dances are more complicated than others, but most of the longways are relatively straightforward.

The main problems EJO had her characters face when the went 'Back to School' were those of 'style' - at the time [1921] the summer schools run by Cecil Sharp [The Prophet] and his team were very prescriptive on exactly how each dance should be done.

Some of the dances done in the Jane Austen TV adaptations are similar to the longways in appearance, if you want to see what the 'refined' version looks like. Agree that the 'ceilidh' type of dance more vigorous and 'untidy' - and perhaps more fun :lol:
Author:  Shander [ Sat Jun 07, 2008 12:41 pm ]
Post subject: 
Part of the challenge I always had with sports in EBD's books is that I often didn't know anything about the sports she was discribing. I know nothing about the way cricket is played, and reading the rules only served to confuse me further, I'd never heard of netball until I read the Chalet School, and it took me a full two years to realise that when they talked about hockey they were reffering to Field Hockey, not Ice Hockey.
I do remember that in one of the early books one of the mistresses is said to have played Field Hockey on her county's team.
I was impressed by that. It seems fairly progressive for the time, to have an adult mentioned as being that good at a sport.
It's about fifty-fifty as to whether I read the descriptions. It really depends on how much else is going on in the scene portrayed.
Author:  Sunglass [ Sat Jun 07, 2008 12:56 pm ]
Post subject: 
abbeybufo wrote:

Some of the dances done in the Jane Austen TV adaptations are similar to the longways in appearance, if you want to see what the 'refined' version looks like. Agree that the 'ceilidh' type of dance more vigorous and 'untidy' - and perhaps more fun :lol:


The only thing I liked about that woeful adaptation of Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley as Elizabeth was that they did actually use some of the more energetic country dances for some of the Meryton Assembly scenes. From the way JA and other writers of the time wrote about dancing - as making you hot and footsore etc - it's clear that many of the popular ones were quite boisterous and a way of letting off steam for genteel women who got no other exercise much, and more like what I would think of as ceilidh . Mind you, I do understand why most adaptations use the slower dances - not much point in Elizabeth and Darcy being too out of breath to talk! (Also throws a bit of light on why Darcy says he doesn't like dancing - might make him look undignified and sweaty in front of his social inferiors...)

To make this of any relevance to sports at the CS, I will observe that I'm rather fond of Antonia Forest's dastardly Lois 'I've sprained my ankle in case I play badly' Sanger. How would that strategy have fared at the less-cynical CS? Would the Games Pree see through her?
Author:  Alison H [ Mon Jun 09, 2008 8:06 am ]
Post subject: 
There isn't as much sport as there is in most GO school stories: I think EBD gets just about the right amount in for the first half of the series, but it seems to die off in Switzerland.

I do like the "different" sports in the CS books - rowing and winter sports make a great change from netball and lacrosse et al! One of the big advantages of the location. They seem to enjoy sports as well, rather than being deadly competitive about them and looking down on girls who aren't sporty - as someone who was always hopeless at sports, that's nice to see!
Author:  Bethannie [ Mon Jun 09, 2008 8:14 am ]
Post subject: 
I think that we need, as ever, to see these books in context. They were written for a girls who attended school where games were an important part of the curriculum.

I was excused any form of PE/Games/Sports on medical grounds. However, I can remember the amount of time spent on these activities. Up until the age of eleven, here was Music and Movement twice a week, Netball or Shinty (similar to hockey) once a week, country dancing once a week, and this was in addition to the games we played at break - the staff on duty at break didn't allow people to stand around, we were encouraged to get a netball out - even for a 15 minute break.

At secondary school, There were 2 'gym' periods a week - using the apparatus, one 'games' session for netball/tennis/hockey, one session for swimming/country dancing/cross country and again, breaks were active - lots of skipping, British Bulldog/Red Rover games et.c

Once we started the O-level course - in what we called 4th year - today year 10 - we had a little less gym, but were still active and there were after school sports activities.

Oh, and we did physical activities in Guides - and most of my class were guides - I was actually able to join in drill (marching).

It was a much more active lifestyle - I used to walk to school, it took about 3/4 hour. I remember walking down country roads n the early morning half-light or walking back in the rapidly darkening dusk.

So, going back to the CS - I think that EBD wrote fairly about sports and games at school. As has already been pointed put, other writers wrote much more.

EBD was aware that some schools were extremely competitive at sports. I think it is in Heather Leaves School that a girls school (Ripley?) is described as 'making a little tin pot god of sports.'
Author:  MJKB [ Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
Excuse my racism but the idea of English folk dancing being on par with the discipline involved in Irish dancing is absolutely ridiculous!
As for sport in the CS, I agree with the consensus so far that the School did not glorify sport and sporty girls in the way most other school stories. Remember poor Gwendoline in Malory Towers? Her hatred of games is a measure of her nastiness as a character. The pretty' featherhead' Alison in St.Clare's also moans about games making her sticky and dirty. I'm sure they did too, and smelly. You never hear of the girls taking showers after a match or practise. I imagine they must have been pretty niffy.
The CS takes a more balance view of games. The leading characters do not always display prowess in athletics or gym. Their curriculum is far broader in that it lays emphasis on art, music, science, languages etc as well as sport.
One thing that always intrigued me a bit. Why was lacrosse regarded as an even more strenous game than hockey? Hockey began at 14, lacrosse at 15. I read somewhere too that EBD was pretty enthusiastic about lacrosse and introduced it into her own school. In fact I think lacrosse was regarded by many 'of the top schools as far more graceful than hockey. All of EB's schools favour lacrosse, apart from St.Rollo's. Our school was one of the very few schools to play lacrosse in Dublin. It was dropped in 1970 for hockey when I began secondary school there and I always regretted that I didn't get the chance to play it.
Author:  JackieP [ Thu Nov 13, 2008 12:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
MJKB wrote:
One thing that always intrigued me a bit. Why was lacrosse regarded as an even more strenous game than hockey? Hockey began at 14, lacrosse at 15.


Not being particularly an expert in either game, but I could see a point being made that lacrosse is slightly more dangerous as the ball is flying about at/above head height - whereas in a well-played hockey match the ball (and sticks) stay close to the ground.. :?

JackieP
Author:  Emma A [ Thu Nov 13, 2008 12:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
Given that there seem to be more injuries arising from hockey than lacrosse, I wonder! Margot, Lavender, Anne, probably others that I'm having difficulty remembering!

Certainly we played lacrosse (rather than hockey) at our school, but I know in North America it tends to be seen as a men's game.
Author:  Mrs Redboots [ Thu Nov 13, 2008 4:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
Emma A wrote:
Certainly we played lacrosse (rather than hocky) at our school, but I know in North America it tends to be seen as a men's game.


But then that is mostly ice-hockey, I think; when they mean hockey played on grass, they call it "Field hockey", to differentiate. And they consider football (proper, ordinary football!) a game for girls!

We played lacrosse at my school, and I loathed every second of it!
Author:  Emma A [ Thu Nov 13, 2008 4:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
Mrs Redboots wrote:
Emma A wrote:
Certainly we played lacrosse (rather than hockey) at our school, but I know in North America it tends to be seen as a men's game.


But then that is mostly ice-hockey, I think; when they mean hockey played on grass, they call it "Field hockey", to differentiate. And they consider football (proper, ordinary football!) a game for girls!

We played lacrosse at my school, and I loathed every second of it!

Sorry, I meant lacrosse was regarded as a men's game in North America!
Author:  Mrs Redboots [ Thu Nov 13, 2008 4:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
Emma A wrote:
Sorry, I meant lacrosse was regarded as a men's game in North America!

Sorry, shouldn't post when I'm half-asleep! So you did.
Author:  Pado [ Thu Nov 13, 2008 10:31 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
Lacrosse has been largely men's in the past, but is fast rising as a women's sport. Many girls now play lacrosse in the spring and hockey or soccer (football) in the fall. And ice hockey in the winter.
Author:  KatS [ Fri Nov 14, 2008 12:30 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
I have to say, I was always surprised at the CS girls playing lacrosse, as it was very much a men's sport growing up. But I understand that soccer is primarily a men's sport in most of the world - so what the men lose on one end, they gain on the other.

Never having seen or heard of field hockey, it took me a while to reconcile the descriptions of the CS sport with my knowledge of (ice) hockey! Certainly in the Tirol years, I never doubted that it was ice hockey they were playing.
Author:  Cat C [ Mon Nov 17, 2008 1:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
Thinking about this again, it strikes me that when EBD did want to endow her favourites (Joey and OOAO) with sporting powers, she chose to make them champion swimmers and/or runners, rather than making them the heroines of the hockey pitch. Even Kat Gordon is a super-dooper tennis player, rather than champion of one of the hairy-knees team sports.

Given the prevailing ethos of 'play up, play up and play the game', this implied preference for individual sports is almost subversive.

I wonder if EBD was one of those types who was always (or suspected they would always be) picked last for teams? :twisted:
Author:  Caroline [ Mon Nov 17, 2008 2:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
I get the feeling that EBD wasn't actually terribly interested in normal school sports - she's much keener on singing and handcrafts and folk dancing and Guides and skiing / skating / toboganning, many of which are "exotic" to the English schoolgirl reader or (in the case of music / dance) are her own interests.

Perhaps she just features normal sports because (a) they are an expected thing to have in a GO school story, (b) they can be used to demonstrate a character trait or character interaction or plot point (show not tell) and (c) there's an opportunity for dramatic tension in a sports fixture.

Add to that the fact that she clearly doesn't know much about the scoring in either tennis or cricket :lol:
Author:  Alison H [ Sat Nov 22, 2008 8:43 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
One of the reasons that games are such a big issue in most GO books is that the honour of the school :D is usually at stake in inter-school matches. When the CS is in Armishire, and especially when it's on St Briavel's, we see the girls playing a lot of matches against other schools, but in Tyrol they only play St Scholastika's and in Switzerland they don't seem to play any other schools apart from the tennis match in Wins The Trick.

I'm not sure what sort of sports schoolgirls in 1930s Austria or 1950s Switzerland would have played, but, although they might have been able to arrange tennis matches or swimming/watersports/gym contests I'm, pretty sure that cricket, hockey, lacrosse and netball have never been very popular in Central Europe, so the sort of matches that the girls in Malory Towers and St Clare's are always getting worked up about wouldn't have happened.

Maybe they could have arranged a winter sports competition -*has vision of school slalom race with Ski Sunday music playing in the background*! Imagine the potential for mishaps ...
Author:  Loryat [ Thu Dec 11, 2008 7:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
I wasn't at all sporty when I was at school, except for being good at swimming, but I don't mind games in GO. It's what you expect, though it's always refreshing when you get a character like Tim who doesn't care at all.

I think CS is really good for not being games mad. In Switzerland they can barely even have any matches, and go in for much more interesting sports that I would prefer and probably be better at lol. While EBD does have her moments, especially in the 'English' books, mainly games are a gentle undercurrent. The lacrosse in Ruey is also a really believable fad.

If Lois Sanger was at the CS, she'd get caught out, benched, and then break down in the Study and repent, to become 'one of the best Games Captains the School ever had' in her final year.
Author:  Catrin [ Thu Dec 18, 2008 12:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
Cat C wrote:
Thinking about this again, it strikes me that when EBD did want to endow her favourites (Joey and OOAO) with sporting powers, she chose to make them champion swimmers and/or runners, rather than making them the heroines of the hockey pitch. Even Kat Gordon is a super-dooper tennis player, rather than champion of one of the hairy-knees team sports.

Given the prevailing ethos of 'play up, play up and play the game', this implied preference for individual sports is almost subversive.

I wonder if EBD was one of those types who was always (or suspected they would always be) picked last for teams? :twisted:


I would have thought that if EBD was really serious about playing the cello (certainly she is very keen on music) she might well have been excused hockey and/or lacrosse, netball. People at school were always breaking fingers doing these, to the extent that one girl (a violinist I think) was excused from them because she missed too much practice.
If this was the case then EBD would have had more experience of tennis/running/swimming and perhaps be more inclined to have her heroines play these games.
Author:  MJKB [ Sat Dec 20, 2008 6:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
I love the skating scenes in the Tyrol books and often wonder why it''s not an activity in Switzerland. Mind you, I don't remember the girls skiing in Tyrol.
Author:  Josette [ Mon Dec 22, 2008 2:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
I think it's just to do with the location - the Platz appears to be higher up in the mountains, better for skiing but skating would have to be an organised trip - and in Tyrol it was the other way round.
Author:  Tor [ Mon Dec 22, 2008 2:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
No, the Tiersee is higher, I think. It says so in Joey & Co

*runs off to look*

Yes, here it is:

Quote:
We're three thousand feet up here and that's higher than we are at home by five hundred metres


But that could still explain the lack of skating: Maybe Interlaken is too low for a good solid freeze.

And there is skiing mentioned in the Tirol books, I know it. But it isn't a sport in the way it is in the Swiss years. I expect this relates to more general contemporary trends in the increase in popularity of down-hill skiing.
Author:  Cat C [ Mon Dec 22, 2008 2:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
Yep, skiing occurs in Jo At, so very early on.

The vague impression I get though is that skating is much more of a 'turn up and have a go' thing, that's fine with a relatively small number of people, skiing tends to be more organised, and is better suited to the large numbers of pupils there were in the Swiss books.
Author:  Jennie [ Mon Dec 22, 2008 3:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
Were there any lakes on the Platz? I think you need one of them for skating in EBD land.

I don't know whther Gaudnz woud be happy to water the hard tennis courts to make a skating rink whenever the weather was cold enough.
Author:  MJKB [ Mon Dec 22, 2008 11:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
I'd forgotten that. In the Swiss books the school has to go down to Lake Thun (?) for their boating and swimming. The reason I mentioned the skating is that it always made the Tyrol so Christmassy and winter wonderlandy. I just revelled in Jo of the CS when she and the Robin and Madge spend Christmas with the Menche's. That gorgeous sleigh ride and the skating on the lake. Majic!
Author:  MJKB [ Tue Dec 23, 2008 12:02 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
Ooops!! Just realised that Joey and Madge went skiing not skating!
Author:  Alex [ Sat Jan 03, 2009 10:58 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Sports & Athletics
I suppose we do see some of the "honour of the school" stuff when Miss Bubb says that no-one who is doing an exam can be in a team and so they are going to be resricted to the IV forms. It certainly creates a hue and cry all round, but perhaps it is just one more thing to emphasise that Miss Bubb is totally clueless.
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