Save me from the parents’ race at this year’s school sports day

Wimbledon is in full swing. England’s men are trying to reinvent Test cricket. The Lionesses are hoping to come up trumps in the women’s Euros. And the World Athletics Championships are just around the corner. And amid all this glorious, top-draw competition, there is one event that ducks head and shoulders below the rest: school sports day.

While Scottish kids are gladly packing away their kit at the end of term, before turning on the telly and reaching for some Irn-Bru, their puny peers south of the border are entering peak sports day season. Pasty faces are being slapped with sun cream and misplaced high fives; warm-up drills are becoming unpleasantly competitive; and, across the land, infants are aiming for egg-and-spoon PBs while unathletic teens try desperately to avoid falling at the first hurdle, let alone the last.

As a small child, I found sports day just about tolerable, not least because it meant a day outside. We were split into four houses at my junior school and, although my house – Saturn – was rarely a match for Mercury, we’d generally give Jupiter a run for its money; and obviously everyone always thrashed poor Mars.

I wasn’t wildly keen on the actual running bit. Sack racing is difficult and makes you look like a worm trying to walk upright, and I was usually towards the back as the finishing line approached. My proudest achievement was coming seventh in a three-laps-of-the-field race.

At secondary school, it all got a bit more serious, with discuses and shot puts and all sorts of other “proper” track-and-field events. I discovered very early that, despite being nominally sporty, I was resolutely hopeless at everything that athletics had on the menu. In Year 7, I must confess I pulled a sickie – one of only two I’ve ever taken; and this was the one with greater justification. I felt sick with impending embarrassment.

The following year, I got away with entering just one event – the long jump – and I came second from last. My memory claims that this was with a jump of 3.05 metres, but that sounds rather good, so perhaps inflation has got the better of me.

By incredibly lucky chance, in Years 9 and 10 I was picked to play cricket matches outside school on sports day, so avoided the possibility of spearing my own toes with a javelin. And that was that – Year 11s didn’t have to do sports day unless they were studying sports science GCSE or fancied themselves as the next Daley Thompson. I sat on the sidelines and felt relieved that I would never again endure the torture.

Twenty years later, however, I realised that, with children of my own, I was not in fact free of sports days at all. And while watching your little ones throwing balls and doing obstacle races should in theory be very sweet, mostly there is a lot of standing about and hoping your child avoids mishaps.

At my son’s last sports day, the parents watched their kids’ ineptitude with varying degrees of delight and pity. Teacher encouraged us to give the kids a big hand. “Now,” she went on, “I think it’s time for the mummies and daddies to have a turn!” The children cheered; I had unpleasant flashbacks. A running race came first, but it was merely a warm-up for the main event: skipping two lengths of the playground. And by skipping I do not mean with a rope; I mean like a gambolling lamb, which with my gammy knee is not a laughing matter. I might have been last, but who was counting?

At my daughter’s version, the previous year, I had turned up to watch after a very, very late night of drinking. I managed to wheedle my way out of the parents’ race, but otherwise sweltered miserably in extreme heat in exchange for watching a few uber-competitive children, and a whole lot more who were desperately uninterested, run slowly around the field or throw foam javelins that had a habit of drifting off at strange angles.

This year, my daughter did her father proud by coming last in the long jump, though she claimed foul play on the part of an incompetent instructor and a poorly marked run-up. My son’s sports day is a few days away and I am already planning my escape from the dads’ event. There’s no way I want to end up with egg – or spoon – all over my face.