I’VE only ever taken part in one boxing match – and it wasn’t out of choice. It was when I was at school in Yorkshire and the snow was so bad that not only couldn’t we play rugby, the PE master wasn’t even able to pack us off on a cross country run.

So he hauled us all into the gym and used the benches to form the edges of the ring.

As the fly half in the school rugby team and a member of the three-man cross country squad I was, as you may have guessed, pretty fit.

I was lined up to fight Malcolm, a wiry little lad of no particular sporting skills. I saw his first haymaker coming, ducked, stood up straight and while quietly preening myself over my foresight was flattened by his second. End of fight. End of my boxing career – not that I ever planned one.

However, when it came down to sport it was the games of rugby, football and cricket that most of us threw ourselves into with gusto. It was an opportunity to run wild, revel in our skills and settle a few scores.

As a kid you can’t spend all day sitting in the classroom. Steam has to be let off somewhere.

So when I first saw a story last week about the head of a fee-paying school saying that pupils shouldn’t be forced into team sports because it was a miserable and humiliating experience I felt the old hackles start flexing.

Speaking at a conference, Keith Budge of Bedales School said that for every 15 boys who enjoyed playing rugby, ‘hundreds more were forced to trudge round the field like articles of faith.’ So I licked the end of my pencil and prepared to write about what tosh he was talking and how team games helped create an ethos of togetherness and an ‘all for one and one for all’ spirit that would carry us into a balanced and effective adulthood.

Then I thought about that boxing match. It was a miserable experience for me and the only thing I learned from it was to never put on a pair of those strange gloves again. And maybe that’s the same feeling those have who were forced to play rugby.

Clearly I had a great zest and aptitude for sport that carried me beyond my school days into the realms of rock climbing, cycle racing, rugby and county league squash. Those school sporting days helped fashion my focus.

However, don’t talk to me about academics. Now that was a miserable and, on occasions, humiliating time for me with scathing comments on my reports (apart from PE of course) to rub salt into a gaping wound.

The views expressed by Mr Budge are not entirely new as we have often seen people’s ire raised with reports of schools abandoning competitive sports because it ‘wasn’t good for the pupils.’ But Mr Budge doesn’t drive his wedge into that particular door. He actually comes up with an insightful line of reasoning. By all means let those kids who enjoy rugby and football play it at school. But for the rest why not offer the options of sports such as badminton and the multigym – the sorts of things most are likely to pursue into adulthood to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

You see there is a subtle difference between competitive sport and keeping fit and it’s a valuable lesson that can be taught at school.

Mind you, most of you won’t believe a word I’m writing of course. According to yet another of those surveys journalists are the least trusted among professionals with just 19 per cent of people believing them.

Top were doctors.

Oh – and in case you’re interested the survey was carried out for the Royal College of Physicians.