Cheers to a new sport for our schoolgirls?

May 9 2008 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post

THE strange thing about female emancipation is that it gives permission for women to do what they like.

Even if that means behaving in a non-feminist manner and flaunting their curves for sexist objectives.

Which is not as bad as parading as a sex object, but very close to it.

So it is that, in yet another Americanisation of our culture, an effort is being made to bring cheer-leading to our schools.

This move is driven by no less a body than the Department of Culture Media and Sport. Which probably means that nobody has got any idea of what’s going on.

To be fair, the idea is to get girls who dislike playing competitive games to put down the tennis racquets, hockey sticks, hurling stones, Quidditch brooms and pick up a pom-pom to wave instead.

It will surprise you (and it certainly surprised my sons when I told them) that long ago and far away (well, in Ashton) that I was quite a whiz on the netball court.

But there are people who have an aversion to ball games to whom this alternative of being involved in a sports event might appeal.

Such as my husband, for example, who likes quoting the late actor and wit Robert Morley, who said: “The ball is man’s most disastrous invention, not excluding the wheel.”

Not that I want my husband to take up cheer-leading instead. It’s not just that those nylon pom-poms could easily cause a nasty rash on his sensitive skin, but he wouldn’t be at his most appealing in hot-pants.

He’d probably also insist on wearing that baggy T-shirt otherwise kept for the gardening. Mind you, I concede that he would still look slightly better than Robert Morley in similar garb.

Anyway, Plymouth and Hertfordshire children are now being trained in the art of the “cheer dance” – the beginners form of cheer-leading that includes pom-pom routines, chants and athletic manoeuvres, including the splits.

The ambitious concept is that such arm-waving and cheering will breathe new life into the tired old PE curriculum and tempt participation by those children alienated by inability to catch a ball or who never get picked for the team.

It can only be a matter of time before this substitute sport reaches Merseyside and Cheshire, as it’s already spreading through Leicestershire schools.

This initiative to widen girls’ participation is supported by the Olympic double gold medallist Dame Kelly Holmes.

She has just participated in a cheer-leading workshop (honestly) at a Plymouth school.

Just in case the kiddies can’t quite grasp the intricacies, cheerleaders attached to rugby and basketball teams are also being brought into schools to give shows. And they say lessons aren’t being made easier.

Ron White, a spokesman for Plymouth schools, says cheer-leading is “taking off”. Well, better go easy on the pom-pom waving otherwise you’ll be in orbit.

“There are a lot of girls who don’t take to traditional sports who are really keen on cheerleading,” says Mr White.

Before depressingly adding: “They are drawn into it by American television.” Still, I suppose cheerleading is better than actually watching American television.

Unbelievably, Plymouth High School for Girls is employing a cheerleading instructor in the new school year and will offer the “subject” as part of the curriculum.

The Department of Media Culture and Sport states: “Cheerleading has broad appeal as it combines so many elements like dance, gymnastics and music.”

Cheerleading is now recognised as a discipline by the governing body of British Gymnastics and the DMCS is “sure” it will continue to grow in the UK. So who am I to scoff? (Not that that’s ever stopped me).

Would we not be better instead encouraging an over-looked, but very British sport? As you’ve probably guessed, I’m talking about Pooh Sticks.

This is a highly-competitive game that verges on an art form, needing precise hand-eye co-ordination and finely-tuned equipment (the sticks).

It also requires that quality which foreigners seem to believe we have in abundance – duplicity and the ability to cheat.

Still, George Bernard Shaw said that the only way of preventing civilised men from beating and kicking their wives is to organise games in which they can kick and beat balls.

So perhaps all women, whether feminists or wives or both, should be grateful to ball games. Perhaps waving our pom-poms and giving a cheer is the least we can do.

Although doubtless there will be objections to busty young women in tight kit and hot-pants jiggling their assets around. Sorry, what’s that, sir? You’re willing to tolerate such displays on behalf of all those who never like ball games?

Now that’s just the spirit of liberal understanding that makes this such a great country in which to live.