George Orwell, the author of ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’, famously wrote in 1945 that, “Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.” He might well have been predicting what later became known as ‘The Soccer War’ when El Salvador and Honduras went to war (albeit for one hundred hours) in 1969 following riots at three qualifying matches for the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, though historians and players alike do not proclaim anywhere that it was the result of the matches that led to the war breaking out.
Is sport, then, just war minus the shooting? It should be obvious to anyone that, of course, a game of sport is not a war in exactly the same way that war is not a game of sport. They are, or should be, worlds apart. Yet it is interesting and perhaps relevant that sporting fixtures often are defined in war terminology, especially with graphic references to battles, do-or-die missions, bringing out the big guns and so on.
Orwell also wrote in the same 1945 article that, “Nearly all the sports practised nowadays are competitive. You play to win, and the game has little meaning unless you do your utmost to win. On the village green, where you pick up sides and no feeling of local patriotism is involved, it is possible to play simply for the fun and exercise: but as soon as the question of prestige arises, as soon as you feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savage combative instincts are aroused. Anyone who has played even in a school football match knows this. At the international level sport is frankly mimic warfare. But the significant thing is not the behaviour of the players but the attitude of the spectators: and, behind the spectators, of the nations who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests, and seriously believe — at any rate for short periods — that running, jumping and kicking a ball are tests of national virtue.” The same is true of school sport.
And there is another key reference to war in sport, especially in school sport: war cries. Originally, the purpose of war cries was no doubt two-fold; firstly to psyche up the warriors before the battle and secondly to scare and intimidate the opposition. In other words, it was aimed to bring competitive advantage. Now schools have developed their own versions but in truth there has arisen a third and more pressing purpose of such war cries and dances: it is done to show off to the other spectators. In other words, it has nothing to do with the sporting fixture and therefore nothing to do with sport. Now it has been choreographed, practised almost as much as the actual sporting moves and plays. Those who are performing the war cries are not actually watching or indeed interested in the sporting activity that is happening around them. It is an entirely separate entity; the players on the field are playing sport and the spectators on the side-lines are providing a noise. In fact, most of the singing and dancing has little or no connection to the game. It is a separate competition on the side.
The whole idea of cheer leaders loses the point. Support should be spontaneous, related to what is happening; players having to make signs to the crowd to stir them up into making more noise are failing in their responsibility. Crowd and fans should be responding to the players’ performance not to their pleas. If players cannot prepare themselves (that is: ‘psyche themselves up’) for the task before them without yelling or abusing, how will they prepare themselves for interviews or work responsibilities or Board meetings?
Sport is not war; it is not a matter of life and death. Sport is a game, fixture, match: people’s lives and reputations do not depend on the result. School sport is even more so. Let the focus of the supporting pupils be on their team’s performance, on their skills and effort, and not on the noise or theatrics that they themselves are producing. In the article quoted above, Orwell concluded that, “sport is an unfailing cause of ill-will”. We as coaches, parents, supporters, schools, must make sure that it is not such. Let it be noted that ‘War cries’ is one letter short of ‘war crimes’; the war cries at school sport may not be far from ‘crimes’. To change the words of ‘Evita’, don’t cry for me, ardent singer; weep for the way school sport is going. The only cries should be this: cry the beloved sport.
