SO, there’s me – all set to go to school sports day. Then it’s called off at the 11th hour.

I get a text. (You get a text these days, they’re very good, I must say).

Text: ‘Due to slippery conditions, it’s being rescheduled.’ What they really mean is it’s too ‘dangerous’.

The kids might get injured, the school might get sued and nobody wants that, do we?

“No miss.”

You can’t blame the teachers.

It’s the lawyers who eyed the innocent, udder-swollen cash cow absently-mindedly grazing on school premises – just ripe for commercial milking and legal exploitation.

How will all this impact on the Olympics in 20 years, I wonder?

The next generation GB team shut inside with knocking knees and trembling hands as they nervously peek through a rain-streaked window.

‘We can’t wun in the wain can we?’ they timidly bleat to each other, while another robotic Kenyan lashes past on the wet track on their way to another podium.

My old sports teacher had the right idea.

Anyone who moaned about rain had to do 20 press-ups in it over a muddy puddle with the studs of his rugby boot drilling into the back of their heads.

If you missed one, your face was forcibly dunked in the sloppy brown stew.

Probably a ‘touch harsh’ for primary school pupils, but you see the wider point I’m making.

Sports days were more relaxed in those days. Maybe too relaxed?

In the athletics, Kev Hargreaves got a smack on the head. There was no big fuss, no ambulances or helicopters.

The teacher said: ‘Shut up Kevin! You’ve got blood all over the new javelin…’ Not many families had phones at home, so providing you said you were OK to go home, you could.

As Kev zig-zagged away across the pitches feeling the bleeding hole in his temple, the games teacher – now feeling guilty – shouted after him. ‘You’ll be all right Kev lad. If your mam’s not back from work just sit on the front step till she comes home.

‘TRY NOT TO PASS OUT!’