Britain: A Nation of Bad Losers?

[Neil Pickup]

The MCC/Cricket Foundation's annual amusing survey.

Britain: 'A nation of bad losers' - News Archive - News - Lord's

I can never really decide what I think of these 'studies'. I'm aware that I cannot stand losing: a highlight of the last term was kicking a football eighteen inches deep into a hedge in fury at a player being caught offside for the nth time. Yet isn't it better to be hurt by defeat than to cast it off as insignificant and grin like it doesn't matter?

Defeat, surely, is the most important aspect of competition as long as it matters enough for you to see what went wrong, learn from it, and make sure it never happens again? Arguably, it is worse to fail to take the lessons, and to see the same scenario played out again?

I would probably argue, from experience, that this country is too prone to making excuses for its defeats than to learn sufficiently from it - arguably why we've needed Zimbabwean coaches to find any cricketing success...

 

[Furball]

Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser.

 

[Jarquis]

It's a good habit to be a bad loser.

 

[Howe_zat]

You're right to be sceptical Neil. No idea what they're trying to spin into moral implications.

Not only that but there's hardly a relevant stat in there.

‘Sulking’ (38%), ‘getting angry with themselves’ (28%) and ‘crying’ (20%) were the most common antics of the young sore losers.

So in other words, the majority of kids - kids - reacted perfectly camly? Including 80% who never cried at losing, when most kids under 12 will cry from a scraped knee?

In a separate survey of children aged eight to 16, three-quarters (76%) of respondents say they see similar reactions from their team mates when they lose a game


Sulking topped the list of reactions again, along with ‘getting angry with team mates’ (37%), ‘storming off’ (27%), ‘shouting’ (26%) and ‘swearing’ (21%).

So 1 in 4 children polled never saw any of their teammates react badly? When there's usually between 7 and 15 on a team that's a damn good result. And 4 in 5 teenagers have never so much as seen a teammate swear at a ref? That's so high it's almost hard to believe.

The sportsmanship lessons come too late, however, for the 60% of parents who admit to being bad losers themselves as children; with 40% sulking and 20% crying after they lost a match.

Oh, look. Kids grow up. Who'da thunk it? Incidentally, since when does "sulking" count as being a bad loser? I sulk when my team loses all the time. doesn't mean I have to be angry, abusive or uncongratulatory.

...while most children (40%)...

Beginning to question the writer's understanding of maths now.

It’s not all bad news: 96% of parents say their children were ‘gracious in victory’, while nearly three-quarters of children (72%) shake hands with the opposition or with the umpire/referee (31%) after losing a game.

z.

 

[Sanz]

Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser.

There were Many in this world Cup itself. Sanga, Ponting heck even Afridi.

 

[BoyBrumby]

I'm far happier to have a team full of mediocre winners rather than good losers.

 

[Neil Pickup]

There were Many in this world Cup itself. Sanga, Ponting heck even Afridi.

Didn't Ponting have an incident with a television?

Either way, there's a massive difference in how you react to defeat publicly and privately.

 

[Dissector]

I googled "whingeing Poms" and got 11200 results. This piece of sophisticated quantitative analysis established beyond a reasonable doubt that Britain is indeed a nation of bad losers.

 

[Top_Cat]

haha, that really is an atrocious survey but the analysis is even worse. In survey research, the results mean very little without comparison. Is there any evidence, for example, that the poor behaviour is on the rise? Are those proportions any different in other countries? And that's just the start....

The article is a waste of time.