The ‘tearaway’ who’s an example to all children

10:13am Friday 15th February 2008

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Schoolchildren in this country get a pretty bad press. In much of the media, they are portrayed as lazy truants "bunking off" from school, obese couch-potatoes, heads always bent over their computer game screens or - at worst - violent thugs capable of beating older people to a pulp.

Well, with a suitable explanation, I would like you to meet my seven-year-old neighbour, George "Tearaway" Tidswell, a bright lad who works hard at school, loves mathematics and is an absolute nut for sport in all its forms.

George is none of the aforementioned media stereotypes, a good looking, fit-as-a-fiddle youngster who is polite to adults and worships his mum. I call him Tearaway, I should explain, because that's what he does whenever the sun shines (if of course it ever shines again).

Whenever I step out of my back gate, I have to look left and right to avoid being engulfed by a mob of George and his mates roaring up and down the back lane, kicking a football, passing a rugby ball or - in summer - wielding cricket bats or tennis rackets.

In other words, he is a proper young lad as young lads are supposed to be: energetic, noisy, intelligent and funny.

And one day in the not too distant future, I hope to see him touching down for a try or two wearing the cardinal red No 10 shirt of the Skipton RFU first XV.

George, you see, is one of several highly promising players in the Mini, Junior and Colts sections who throng the Sandylands rugby pitches in Skipton every winter Sunday to expend some of that surplus energy with his mates in an arena which instills discipline as well as skill, concentration, comradeship and that very old-fashioned English virtue, fair play.

At this point, I must confess to a tad of bias. As a long-standing Skipton member, I was overjoyed a few weeks ago when George put four tries past the Wharfedale Minis.

In the words of his coach Andy Kemp, an engineering don at Leeds University: "George is a player who is already showing great skill and enormous promise. He frequently takes a real lead which helps others to understand how to operate as a team."

Fine words these, but Dr Kemp adds others which, to me, have even greater significance: "Clearly, rugby is a team game and participating in an active group where everybody's contribution is essential helps promote cohesion both on and off the pitch. Greater participation in these sorts of activities could have very beneficial impacts on society."

George, you see, quite recently went through the all-too-common heartbreak of his parents divorcing, an event which has been known to send many a youngster off the rails. And it is his mother's firm belief that it was sport, with its ability to release inner tensions, that has helped George and his elder sister Jessica, 11 and also a keen sports player, to recover from the trauma.

Mother Sue, a full-time account manager for a lingerie manufacturer, starts her working day at 6am so that she can finish at 4pm to pick up the children from school - and then ferry them round a packed diary of evening fixtures which include soccer and swimming.

Sue, who was once one of the England down-hill skiing squad before a horrific accident in Norway ended her sporting career, told me emphatically: "I have absolutely no doubt that sport has helped the children come to terms with the break-up.

"There must be thousands of working women in my situation who are worried sick about the kids going off the rails. It means that I'm a taxi driver almost every evening of the week delivering them here and there, but they certainly never get the time to mope."

I can vouch for this from personal knowledge, having known both children since they were born, and - like the majority of youngsters in sports-mad Craven - they are totally unlike the poor lost generation so often portrayed in much of the media.

Like many rugby minis, George Tidswell has an idol and it is not some highly-paid soccer star more often in the gossip columns than on the back page. Yes, you've guessed: Jonny Wilkinson, the man who has done more than anyone to give English sport a good name.

Well chosen, George and in the words of the poet, "Play up, playup and play the game."