The Football Match / Games Lesson

The comic centre piece of the novel

Mr Sugden is a comic character and can’t be taken too seriously.

He uses big words but can’t explain them.

He pretends the match is a game between Liverpool and Manchester United, showing he is more immature than a lot of the boys.

He bullies Casper and others into playing.

He is a bad sport when they lose at the end, cheats by awarding his own team a penalty, scoring it himself and blames anyone but himself for their defeat.

Many of the boys are narrated as stereotypes and not their real names to show how discriminating games lessons could be e.g. ‘two fat boys’

The boys see through him though, calling him names.

His true vindictive nature comes when he makes Billy take a cold shower.

The boys find it funny at first but soon lose interest and the scene ends with Billy as a figure of pity and Sugden as an evil fool.