Health & Safety Myths: British Bulldog was banned because of H&S

The myth:

Schools banned British Bulldog in playgrounds because of health and safety

The truth:

• The playground game British Bulldog was banned by many schools due to concern arising from the danger it caused. No national or legal ban was put in place, but many schools still feared for the welfare of pupils on playing such a violent game.

• Officials have commented on both the ban on conkers and the ban on British Bulldog, saying that we are bringing our children up in a “cotton wool society”, which is not healthy for their development.
• Games such as conkers, and more importantly active games like stuck in the mud and bulldog should not be discouraged but supported by schools in an attempt to combat obesity. If we continue to mollycoddle our children, we will take the fun out of childhood by deeming everything as ‘too dangerous’, and decrease physical activity in doing so. One advocator of this said that “cuts and grazes are all part of growing up”.
• So, the myth is partly true this time: It is right insofar as many schools did ban British Bulldog. It is wrong because something evidently got lost in translation: Many schools did indeed ban the game, but not because health and safety legislation forced this decision, the ban came about because schools made an independent decision that the game was too dangerous.
• Time for a memoir: I remember playing British Bulldog at school; it really wasn’t as bad as people make out. Once I fell over mid game and skinned my knee, but to be fair if I hadn’t fallen over playing that, it was bound to happen somehow, be it cycling around the block, playing tag or walking the dog (I was a clumsy child). It got banned at my school back in the day as well. I don’t think it was because it was too dangerous though. The games we played were quite big, and we stampeded over the playground en masse. I think it was banned because the little kids had nowhere to play due to the scale of our playground antics.