WHY do you think the great public schools put so much emphasis on sport? Was it to develop the noble ideals of a healthy mind in a healthy body, teamwork, sportsmanship, the great British principles of fair play?

No. It was just to get teenage boys exhausted. Wear them out, run them ragged, bring them to their knees, leave them too shattered to do anything but collapse into quiet obedience

How else do you keep a few hundred adolescents under control?

Yes I know it's hard to believe, as they slouch blearily downstairs at the crack of noon, that these boys have too much energy. But they have. And being boys, they will turn it to all sorts of purposes that really, you don't want to think about. And that's before you start on hormones.

So anything you can do to get them outside burning up that energy, the less time and inclination they'll have for trouble.

Encourage them in anything - football, swimming, cycling, cricket, canoeing, karate, deep sea diving, anything that will give them an interest and wear them out.

Yes there will be a price to pay - in muddy clothes, equipment and, quite probably, a lot of broken bones. But think of the alternative if you dare.

When I took one of the boys on one of our many visits to Accident and Emergency at Darlington Memorial, the receptionist laughed at our great long record. Broken bones, torn ligaments and cartilage, gashed eyes and lips.

What she didn't realise was that we had a similar long record at the Friarage in Northallerton - and passing visits to the Duchess of Kent, North Tees and Middlesbrough General.

But better a split lip than a life shortened by obesity or heart disease.

Sport is an acceptable form of gang warfare. It lets boys give vent to their tribalism, gets rid of their pent-up aggression and fills in long afternoons and evenings.

Better to be kicking a ball about in a field them kicking someone's head in the street.

If they play casually with friends, it means that sport is easy to organise. And if they play in more formal teams, leagues or competition level, the chances are that they re being kept in order by older lads or men - who know just how to keep a teenage boy in his place, which is a real bonus.

The only problem is that, at this age, parents are a deep embarrassment to a boy. Even if you never sing, wear silly hats, gossip with their teachers or try and make jokes with their friends, you are an embarrassment just by your very existence. Nothing you can do can make it better.

So don't make it worse. If your son ever takes sport seriously enough to be in a match or a competition, then don't go along and watch.

Or if you go along and watch, then don't cheer, yell encouragement, argue with the referee or shout "Oh be careful darling!" as he disappears under a flailing rugby scrum.

If you do, he will be mortified. His life will be in ruins. He will never hold his head up among his friend again. He will, of course, never speak to you again.

And he'll come straight home, grab the remote control and the sofa and be a couch potato for evermore.

And it will, of course be entirely your fault. It always is.

Published: 09/01/2003