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Howard Blackett's address to the School in his Weekly Assembly on Monday 14 September 2009

There’s not much to report on sport today, but as most of you know, there will be over the course of this year. Sport is very important to The Royal Hospital School. I have witnessed some outstanding success over the past few years in both boys’ and girls’ sport, and we currently have two pupils who have reached national standard - Laura Brown and Reece Topley - and a number of others, notably Jono Ilori and Charlotte Shelley who have routinely performed with conspicuous success as athletes. We will field as many as twenty teams at any one time this term in boys’ rugby, girls’ hockey and sailing to play against other schools, whilst at the same time, inter-house league fixtures will also be taking place. It is not unusual during the course of the Michaelmas term to see the fields covered in pupils playing inter-school or inter-house fixtures, and I look forward to watching, refereeing and umpiring most of you on the sports field at some stage during the term.

I believe in the importance of sport, in the importance of physical fitness and physical well-being and also in the importance of competition. You all need to experience the thrill and satisfaction of victory and the disappointment of defeat, and you all need to learn to win with humility and accept defeat with good grace. In short, I believe in good sportsmanship, in playing competitively, but strictly within the spirit and laws of the game, and by inference I do not believe in gamesmanship or in winning at all costs.

That’s why rugby’s already notorious ‘bloodgate’ affair has really grabbed my attention. Like many rugby enthusiasts, I used to think, as the cliché goes, that rugby was a ruffian’s game played by gentlemen, and by implication, the integrity of all those who played it and coached it, notwithstanding the odd blind side punch or stamp, could be taken for granted. Many of you would have followed the ‘bloodgate’ affair as closely as I have done, but briefly, for those of you that haven’t, the story is as follows:

On 12 April, Tom Williams playing for Harlequins faked an injury to his mouth by biting on a blood capsule so that he could be substituted. His deception was quickly revealed, not least because he was daft enough to wink to one of his colleagues in full view of the TV camera as he left the field of play. What Tom Williams did was bad enough, but it paled into insignificance compared to what happened in the aftermath of the incident. Lies, cover-ups, the offer of sweeteners - it was an appalling and grossly unedifying sequence of events which shattered my naive belief in the integrity of rugby.

‘Bloodgate’ may have caught my attention in particular because I happen to enjoy rugby, but the shinnanigans surrounding the scandal are very sadly mirrored in almost every other sport. In the recent past for example, there have been allegations of deliberately orchestrated crashes in Formula 1 and drugs-related issues in athletics. As we all know, cheating in football is endemic, as is the abuse that referees at all levels of the game suffer every week.

So, at the start of this new academic year and new season of sport, I want you to know that no matter what you may see on television, or what you may witness live, or what you may read in the newspapers, or for those of you playing at a high level, what you may be told by coaches or senior players, I believe that you have a responsibility, a moral obligation to pursue and play sport with honesty and integrity. In cricketing terms, to walk when you’re caught behind and you know you’ve hit it without waiting for the umpire’s decision.

If you are struggling to accept what I’m saying, if you are sitting there thinking I’m an old-fashioned amateur enthusiast, a fuddy-duddy who’s out of date, I say you are the fool who is deluded, not me. Right is on my side, not yours.

I leave you with this thought: in Ipswich in St. Peter’s Street, there is a statue of Prince Obolensky, the famous flying winger who scored some magnificent tries for England and who subsequently died fighting in World War II. As much remembered for his sportsmanship as for his sporting ability, he was in every sense a great sportsman. What I wonder will Tom Williams’ epitaph be? Will someone somewhere erect a statue of him? I think not. He is destined I suspect not to be remembered for his sporting ability, but for the part he played in rugby’s darkest hour. That’s why you should play sport with honesty and integrity, and that’s why above all else, you should aspire to great sportsmanship.

Let’s win as many fixtures as we can this year but let’s do it in the right manner.