KOOLAH Evil Football
em Feature

Everyone likes to think, or sometimes boast, that they went to the hardest school in the country. Why this is I'm not sure, is it like it makes you a better or more interesting person somehow? The thing is - people start trying to better each other with tales of hardship and how difficult things were. Personally, I'd like to respond to a claim of "We got beaten up every day by the dinner ladies because it was in the schools curriculum" with "Really? Hahahahaha! Jeez! We sailed through school; beanbags instead of chairs and got roast beef every meal. Oh, and everyone loved each other. Your life must suck!" However, it isn't an ideal world, and I usually find I have to offer my little tale of school brutality to fit in and put things into perspective.

I've been reading a lot of these sites lately that have lists of the evil things kids got up to at school in order to placate their own schoolyard status and ostracise those smaller, and usually smarter, than them. Sure they seem funny now, but if you witnessed some of these goings on, or at worse were the victim, I'm sure you see things in a different light. Much like the Bangles did.

REMINISCENCE
I'm quite a reminiscent person and can remember almost everything about my childhood, more than most people anyway. I think this is mainly because I just had more fun back then. Days when making friends was as easy as asking someone if they liked Queen or Simple Minds, and making up was only as difficult as offering a fruit salad chew (or a refresher chew for bigger upsets).

It's probably why I listen to so much 80s music these days, it just brings back lots of happy memories, spending the hot summer holidays playing tag, run-outs and picking blackberries, but falling into the largest nettle patch in the area wearing only a pair of shorts because you saw one mutant sized blackberry that was going to be yours no matter what. God, that stung like a bitch! It's not good spending one of the warmest days of the year sulking in the garden covered in vinegar.

But it all had to end sometime, and that sometime for me was September 1987, 11 years old and starting the next stage of childhood development and the road to the sucky world of adulthood…comprehensive school.

This is when things started to go wrong. None of my friends wanted to play much anymore, they were all for growing up. Just why this was I have no idea. I think it was because they had older brothers who they looked up to, whereas I had computer games and Queen: Live Magic.

So anyway, everything seemed to turn fairly serious and scary. I think I'm safe in saying that anyone around my age now can look back at when they were little, and honestly say that Grange Hill scared the hell out of them. I was sure I was going to get bullied, beaten up, tormented and have fibreglass shoved down my back the first day of comprehensive school, it made Tim Robbins' time in Shawshank look like a picnic.

Sure we can all look back at old episodes of Grange Hill now and smile and reminisce, but I'm sure if that program never existed there'd be fewer kids shitting themselves over the summer holidays between leaving the happiness and safety of junior school and entering the unorthodox, hate and fear filled world of the comprehensive.

Ok, so maybe I'm digressing a little here, but I can't reflect upon the comprehensive school days without resentment and a little hatred. I saw myself as one of the in people in junior school, people knew me, and most people liked me. I got on well with my friends and we all stood by each other. But in the comprehensive everything changed, most of them turned against me, probably not in a nasty way, but more of a 'try to impress those you don't know by making fun of the easiest target thus getting others to like you' kind of way. Not that I think I was an easy target, but because I was such a nice guy I guess they saw it that way.

So there was this little football game we used to play in junior school, and at it's best it was a great game of skill and excitement, it was called Koolah, or at time Koola. I have no idea where this name came from, and at the age of 9 you tend not to question the linguistics of school playground game names.

THE RULES DON'T WORK
I'll try and explain this game as best as I can:
The number of players was as many as were around really; it was a bit of a free for all. It was played against a fence or wall of some kind; in the comprehensive we played it on the tennis courts up against one of the fences for example.

Ok, so you had your goal, which would be between two of the fence posts, or jumpers if you played against a wall. There was one goalie, usually decided by 'Eenie-Meanie' in junior school.

The main aim of the game was to score goals but only using volleys; i.e. someone kicking the ball in the air then someone else kicking the ball into the goal while it was still in the air. You had to get three goals, after three everyone got to punch the goalie once. After another three goals it would be two punches, and so on.

The goalie did have a chance though and that was try and throw the ball at someone's legs (below the knee) when he had the ball. If someone's lower leg got hit, they were goalie. Also, if someone scored a goal that wasn't a volley, or the ball got kicked over the fence, that person became goalie.

Now like I said, it used to be fun in junior school because it really was a game of skill, excitement and fun. Sure you'd get the odd punch, but we were all friends, so we weren't intent on hurting each other, also we were 10 years old so punches weren't exactly life threatening. Plus this one friend of ours stayed in goal constantly, with the number of punches being added up every day. I think he enjoyed it in a sick kind of way.

PEOPLE CHANGE
But in the comprehensive things were different, this was a more adult world we had entered, where the game was no longer about skill or fun, but about pain, suffering, fear and punishment. Not only had your 'friends' suddenly turned against you, but sometimes older kids decided to join in the game, merely as an easy way to beat the shit out of smaller kids without the consequence of getting pointing at by one of the teachers. But the strange thing is everyone playing it, well the majority anyway, seemed to like it. Like they got off on the danger. I preferred to take a safer path through life.

Also, the 'Eenie-Meanie' goalkeeper selection method had vanished. It now turned into either 'last one onto the courts' when everyone knew damn well that someone was about 100 meters behind everyone else because they had dropped their sherbet fountain. Or just a simple method of picking the weakest and telling them they were in goal whether they liked it or not. I mean if they wanted to beat the kid up that badly I'm sure everyone, including the target, would have appreciated it a lot more if they just beat him up instead of making it into some kind of sport.

Remember the 'one punch first, then two and so on' rule of the junior version? Well I suppose that was kept this time round, only it all sort of ended after the two. From then on it was just beat the living crap out of the kid until it looks like he might be in a position to hit your legs with the ball. Then it was run a mile. I mean let's face it, the kid in goal was never going to know who had three punches and who had fifteen was he, especially with 20 of the bastards all laying into him. And if he did what was he going to do, complain?

And just one more thing, sometimes these games would suddenly become huge spectator sports. I mean everyone likes to see someone get the crap kicked out of them, right? Well, maybe not in the Rodney King trial, but every other time. So you'd get a large percentage of school kids stood outside of the courts, right behind the goal in fact, watching the game and tormenting the kid in goal that he was about the get the beating of his life.

These kids would always be the ones who wouldn't even think about playing, but still wanted a piece of the action, so they would all wait behind this fence; then when the goalie's time came to get pummelled and he got slammed into the fence from the force of the onslaught, they would begin kicking the fence with as much force as they could muster. So the kid in goal was not only getting kicked, but kicked with the metal of the fence essentially - absolutely brutal.

KILL EVERYONE
So that was the game. I've always mentioned it when people start talking about how tough school life and their school games were, but no-ones heard of it, or can better it in terms of brutality. I don't know if I've summed up everything here; this was a fairly difficult piece to write, mostly because although I remember everything, I prefer to lock away my comprehensive school memories as the worst days of my life. This article was heavily fuelled by rage and hatred of the game, just in terms of it being something I used to enjoy, to something I came to fear and hate.

Sure I tried playing a couple of times, but as soon as it started getting ropey I would try to get out as soon as I could for fear of not being able to walk again. By the time I was about 15 I'd stopped playing altogether, and spent less time with the ones who did.

One time though I was bored and went up onto the courts to watch a game. I stood on the outskirts eating some crisps or something. The ball came over my way and I got asked to chip it in. I said I wasn't playing and they said Ok. I said that if it accidentally went in goal then it doesn't count because I'm not playing. They got impatient and said to Ok, just kick the ball in.

I kicked the ball - it sailed into the goal; I was told I was now in goal and it was only one goal left to a beating. I protested that I said I wasn't playing but these guys didn't care, they wanted blood, my blood. God knows why.

Anyway, I started to leave the courts and they all started to chase me. I kept a low profile for the rest of the day, just to stay out of site. However, we had games later that afternoon and everyone decided to beat the shit out of me in the changing rooms, receiving several kicks to the head. Happiest days of your life…

I'm sure if we had been in America I would have shot every one of the bastards the next day.

david twomey

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