Council causes outrage by keeping children's bowls scores secret

IT HAS been called the the latest example of political correctness gone mad: a local authority has refused to reveal the scores from a children’s bowling competition.

Officials from Aberdeen City Council running the event at the city’s Westburn Park - as part of the 50th jubilee celebrations for the authority’s annual bowling tournament - decided that some competitors who were beginners at the sport should be spared the embarrassment of seeing the scale of their defeats published in the local press.

Willie Miller, the former Aberdeen FC manager and captain, led the criticism against the "politically correct" local authority, claiming the council had been over protective to the children involved.

He said: "I can’t understand the logic of this. In my experience, the best way for a young player to learn is to match themselves against better opponents.

"You cannot win every game and sometimes you just have to take it on the chin. I think this is taking political correctness too far and I think the tournament officials are being over-protective of the younger players. By refusing to publish the results, they are effectively telling the youngsters they should be ashamed."

The former Scotland international player added: "I know that if I had lost heavily in a game, it made me more determined to do even better in my next one. I always thought it was the taking part that counted."

He was backed by Alex Johnstone, the Conservative MSP for the North-east.

He said: "It is a real disappointment that the council has made this unusual decision. We should be promoting success, and the kids who deserve recognition for doing well will miss out. They are entitled to take pride in their achievements but because the results are not being released they can’t do that. It’s unfair."

However, Audrey Walker, the council’s events organiser, defended the decision to keep the results of the junior pairs competition a secret.

She said: "We had a challenge match last Saturday to start off the celebrations, and we had lots of younger children playing for the first time. Some of them were only ten and most were Primary Seven age.

"Some of the children who entered the pairs competition hadn’t been playing for long and we had the biggest entry we had ever had. And when you get scores of 53-0 we didn’t think it was fair to have these sort of results published."

She stressed: "It is nothing do with being PC or goodness knows what. The kids know they’ve lost and how badly they lost, and the last thing they really want is for their pals to be ribbing them all of the holidays.

"We just thought it would be the kinder thing to do not to publish the results. We don’t want to discourage the children - we want to encourage them because we want young bowlers coming in."

Ms Walker added: "It’s a load of rubbish to suggest this has anything to do with being a nanny state. If that’s how people perceive it, then I am sorry for them."

The Aberdeen City Council ban on the bowling scores is the latest in a long line of PC initiatives taken by councils north of the Border.

Local authorities in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, North Lanarkshire, Fife and Falkirk have introduced so-called "potted sports" for their school sports days which have no individual winners and losers. Pupils are awarded points for taking part rather than winning in an attempt to create a more "inclusive" spirit.