Lions, tigers and bears.

For many of us the experience of secondary school is either one of joy, mixed feelings or a traumatic nightmare you've gladly put behind you. I was 'lucky' enough to spend 7 years of my life in an all girls' school. I would describe my time there as 'an experience' and I received an 'education with a b*tch slap.' 

Unfortunately, it was every inch as b*tchy, snake-like, back stabbing and cruel as the world thinks.

If you didn't look a certain way, have the latest bag, straight hair etc you were a 'neek' (nerd+geek=neek), instantly undesirable by the boys in the neighbouring school and a red alert for bullying. 

However, the main thing that all-girls schools are infamous for is sports. The main one? Netball. 

I believe that girls playing sports is so important and it's a shame that not many of us take it seriously - there's some inspirational female athletes (Jess Ennis, Paula Radcliffe etc) to look up to. However, there is a huge difference between female Olympians and your secondary school netball player. 

Now everyone likes to think that girls playing sports in schools as "cute", "healthy", "fun" and "adorable." Well I'd have used far stronger words to have described my P.E classes! 

1. We were often made to do sports in the freezing cold with our teacher wearing a hat, coat, scarf and gloves.

2. Our P.E teachers tended to be really fat or really really skinny: no happy in between. 

3. Half of us skived off P.E because it was a doss lesson. 

4. It was prime time to bully other girls under the guise of: "Oh but it's my adrenaline Miss, I couldn't help it!"

What people think girls playing netball looks like.

So, you can imagine exactly what kinda things tended to happen in P.E. Now when it comes to netball, it's some next level stuff. It may only be 1 hour but trust me...sh*t goes down!

I have no idea where the idea of: "girls are harmless" came from, but they clearly haven't seen a secondary school all girls netball game or played in one. 

We come out of the changing rooms in our P.E kit, cordially having a chit-chat, hair tied up if you're serious (or out if you're a rebel) and looking generally quite disinterested. So far so good. We do our warm-up; have a quick sip of water, some more chit chat and then we get split into teams. 

What girls playing netball REALLY looks like.

This is where it all goes horribly wrong. We viciously scramble for our positions: scratching, diva tantrums, dirty looks etc - everyone wants to be Centre or Goal Attack. After this ritual, we are then sent out into the arena to do battle. The captains of each team swagger out to the middle, menacingly eyeing one another with the look of: "Gurrrl, we gone whip yo' ass!" to a replying look of: "Oh really? Is that so?"

The whistle blows, the ball is thrown in the air and it goes from roses to full scale war in a matter of nanoseconds. Screeches, shouts, insults, hair pulling, face scratching, T-shirt grabbing, deliberately tripping each other up as any tension between friends or enemies spills out into the battle field. 

Game face on: this is netball at an all girls school. None of the "good ol' sportsmanship" or "let's all just be friends" or even: "this is just a game" crosses our minds. This is serious and we take it way more seriously than people think. Netball is not just a game. It is where we vent our frustrations, bring our beef with someone out in the open and anything is justified with the wide eyed statement: "I won't do it again. I promise."

Netball, it's not just a game. We're not professionals, we just have a score to settle with someone.