Sharp pointed things flying around. I wonder what today’s risk-averse nanny state would make of it. As far as I can remember, there wasn’t one case of someone being speared by a divider, not even on his toes.

Talking about toes, I seem to remember that being “spiked” was a common accident amongst sprinters. Many of us could not afford foreign spikes, the Indian ones were often cumbersome, so we preferred to run barefoot. And that led to the risk of being spiked, when someone wering spikes trod on another runner’s bare foot. This was only meant to happen on the track, but was known to happen off-track between races as well. I was spiked at least twice, one of which was off-track at an interschool event at Don Bosco Park Circus (or DBPC as we called it, to distinguish from Don Bosco Liluah or DBL. Do they still exist?)

Actually, the worst athletic accident I remember was that affecting Larry Taya. It must have been 1971, I was in Big School, and was waiting for the shot put event to complete. Then, just as Christopher Hupping threw, Larry ran across the area and into the put, cracking his skull in the process. He seemed fine a few weeks later. I wonder what happened to Larry.

Anyhow, the picture you paint is very evocative of our childhood. Just to add some other words to that memory; ‘maanja’ (kite string), ‘kaantch ka maanja’ (string with a smear of crushed glass) which could easily slice through fingers if you gave ‘dheel’ (let the reel unwind by itself) to the kite hastily, and ‘latai’ (reel), from which came ‘lapait’, to take in (literally wrap) endless spoken rubbish. And from the vocbulary of the wooden top, full marks for remembering ‘gantchha’!

Usually there will be a short(ish) discussion between the players and if agreement cannot be reached, then the contested foul rules will be invoked. There is an imperative to preserve “the spirit of the game” which is enforced by the community (in fact there is a prize at most tournaments for the most “spirited” team) and this combined with the steps outlined above is usually enough to ensure a fair and free-flowing game. It is only at the international level where a lot is at stake that the no referees model is breaking down slightly and there are calls for referees to be introduced.

Perhaps this is a model that can be more easily translated to a business context?

I think you’re right about this. Sport is not amenable to a community approach to decision making. It’s no good waiting for a consensus to emerge (although that’s how a good many playground LBW decisions are reached).

If the umpire or referee’s objective was to win himself then it would be less easy to believe in this system. Having an absolute authority on the sport field is OK because his role is simply to enable the game, not to empower himself (except Graham Poll, Daryl Hair, Billy Bowden etc.)

Translating this into a corporate environment is difficult because then the referee is also The Boss. His decisions are made for his own benefit not purely to enable you to do your job as well as you can.

How can we make organisations work more like playing fields?

I don’t remember yelling anything when playing tops. What I do remember is I yelled something when having a kite fight. It was something like Bo-kaaattaaa, but memory fades after a while.