No mercy for the mercy rule
Recently, I read that childrens’ football leagues are being urged to adopt an American concept known as the Mercy Rule. This rule comes in to effect when one team reaches an agreed margin, and the game is automatically handed to the winning team without further action.
I can see situations where mismatches in physical size should be stopped. Being brutalized over 80 minutes on a rugger field against a pack of lads who are all two stone heavier and a foot taller might does little to promote sportsmanship and a fair game. These mismatches did, and perhaps still do, occur in school sports. (As an 11-year old, I ran against a Vietnamese lad in the district sprint finals. He bore the thickened stubble of an adolescent who’d been shaving for a year or two, was heavily muscled and spoke in a voice at least an octave lower than anyone else on the starting line that day. As his parents claimed he was just 11, and we were all raised as decent sports, no one cried mercy that day. We simply admired the underside of his Woolworth’s plimsolls as he galloped off, many yards ahead of us, to the finishing line. We had our suspicions that he should be in, at least, his second year at university, but there was no word or gesture from anyone other than a congratulatory pat on the back. I suspect many, as did I, left the track that day determined to work and train harder so that if faced with a similar situation the following year, they would be better prepared to meet and possibly conquer it. It never occurred to us to whimper for mercy, or throw in the towel.)
But many would argue that a monumental drubbing from time to time is good for a team. It can provide motivation to try a little harder during training sessions.
Furthermore, heavy defeat is universal and something we should all experience and learn to accept. Few, if any, professional sportsmen will end their careers without experiencing a colossal thumping. Likewise, no adult will chart a course through life without at some stage experiencing severe disappointment or defeat.
Seeking to protect kids from this sort of experience is a regrettable symptom of a society hellbent on the unchecked use of bureaucracy to insulate children from adjudged unacceptable experiences.
In the US, where the mercy ruling has been used in kids’ baseball leagues for some time, the argument exists that it prevents spectators and players alike having to sit through long and boring games with a predictable outcome. Ask the kids what they’d rather do and I’m sure most would elect to play on at the game they love over climbing in to dad’s SUV half an hour early. This argument seems to stem from impatient adults having their way.
Stopping a game before the regular allotted time period deprives kids of a chance to play the game they love. It’s typical of modern attitudes to look for ways to shrug off or deny a sound hiding on the sports field. For kids, the love of playing the game transcends any result or outcome.
Fortunes can change over the course of 90 minutes on the footy field, or 40 overs on a Sunday afternoon; an early lead can easily become a rueful defeat. However, if a team is persistently on the end of substantial hidings then perhaps they should be better matched and placed in a league more suited to their level of play. It certainly does not warrant a change to the rules of the game.
These days, amid the squabble to win, too few are taught the basic ideas of sportsmanship, to honour an opponent in victory or defeat and to love the game beyond the prize. The mercy ruling seems to be another nail in the coffin of traditional sportsmanship.
In typical British fashion, we seem to be headed down an avenue where this rule will be forced upon leagues by those under the mistaken notion that they know best. If this type of ruling is going to be used then it should be offered as a choice and agreed upon by the two teams prior to kick off.
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