A memorable child’s story (certainly to one Scots granny we can find on YouTube) is ‘Wonky Donkey’ by Craig Smith which starts with the listener hearing that “I was walking down the road and I saw a donkey”. He goes on to describe certain things about the donkey, one by one, adding suitable adjectives to describe the actions, and ends with the glorious summary that “I was walking down the road and I saw a donkey. He only had three legs, one eye and he liked to listen to country music, and he was quite tall and slim and he smelt really bad and that morning he got up early and he hadn’t had any coffee and he was always getting up to mischief but he was quite good looking. He was a spunky hanky panky cranky stinky dinky lanky honky tonky winky wonky donkey”! Ridiculous, yes?

We may well remember a similarly unlikely age-old nursery rhyme entitled ‘There was an old woman who swallowed a fly’. Like many nursery rhymes, there is not a lot of logic to it but it follows a similar path to the story mentioned above. It begins “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly. I don’t know why she swallowed a fly – perhaps she’ll die!” The lady swallowed a fly so then had to swallow another animal to catch the previously mentioned creature in increasingly bizarre and ridiculous ways – “a spider, that wriggled and wiggled and tiggled inside her”, followed by “a bird; how absurd to swallow a bird!” Then it was “a cat; fancy that to swallow a cat!”

Ultimately, as we may well recall, it all builds up to be summarised as “There was an old lady who swallowed a cow, I don’t know how she swallowed a cow; She swallowed the cow to catch the dog, She swallowed the dog to catch the cat, She swallowed the cat to catch the bird, She swallowed the bird to catch the spider, She swallowed the spider to catch the fly; I don’t know why she swallowed a fly – Perhaps she’ll die!”

That may very well be interesting (or not!) but we may well be screaming out at this stage “What’s your point, counsellor?” What has this to do with school sport? Well, let us go back in time a little and follow another story, but this is no nursery story. There was a young school sports coach who came to the first day of the second term and started to coach his team for the season; he knew why he was doing it and he and his players were satisfied. They would thrive. But then, there was a young school sports coach who called his players back to school early to train in order to be ready for the season – we may not know why; perhaps the players will cry.

In time, there was a young school sports coach who called his players back to school early to train in order to be ready for a festival that was arranged to prepare the players for the season. We may not know why; perhaps the players will fly. But then, there was a young school sports coach who called his players back to school early to train to prepare for an overseas tour in order to be ready for a festival that was arranged to prepare the players for the season – we may not know why; perhaps the players will …. How absurd to swallow that word!

We may think we know why we are doing these apparently (but dubiously) selfless acts of increasing demands on our children but the sad reality is that we do not know the effect that it is all having on the children. School terms are set with necessary holiday periods assigned as children (plus teachers) need a break – often the coaches are external and do not face the same demands on the time and energy of pupils and teachers. Holidays are intended for holidays. They do not need all these extra activities, all disguised as an allusion that they must swallow that it will be good for them.

Perceptive readers of nursery rhymes for children may well remember that the poem about the old lady ends with “There was an old lady who swallowed a horse… She’s dead, of course!” Similarly perceptive readers may also understand that the current trend of swallowing even greater chunks of children’s holiday time may well end with a similar conclusion – they are dead, of course. Dead to the world; dead to reality; dead to sport. The children’s enjoyment of the sport will die (how many continue with the sport after they leave school…?) It is not the donkey that is “spunky hanky panky cranky stinky dinky lanky honky tonky winky wonky”; it is schools and their coaches that are donkeys. The granny reading the story may laugh but the way we run our school sport is no laughing matter.