UK Secondary School Sports - help required

In my schooldays (association) football, rugby and cricket were all regarded as boys' games; hockey and netball were regarded as girls' games. I am not sure if football and cricket have found their way into girls' schools sports to any great extent more recently, but they are very much on the up as professional sports for women. Hockey was offered as a boys' sport in my school, and it appealed to some of us as it was vaguely similar to football which was banned. (Football was snobbishly regarded as a game for hooligans, so the emphasis was very much on rugby. The school George Best went to also banned football, but fortunately he did not suffer too much from a lack of school coaching!). I would support Mobile_Carrot's contention that hockey is more dangerous than it might appear, especially when played on grass rather than modern all-weather pitches. A boy I knew was tragically killed playing it when he was hit by a ball which sent a rib through his lung. Re. Sloth: Netball, as far as I am aware, is sill a female-only game, but at the top level it is very good to watch. Less physical, but much faster in my opinion than basketball.

Thank you all for the feedback. It looks as if it will be a netball game. As for my use of cricket, football, and lacrosse at a girl's school, well that will be another inaccuracy ... I mean a change to the world. I've already invented a sports program (curling) that never existed at one university in Edinburgh and junior varsity women's basketball league in the US.

What are these sports for? I'm about 100 pages in to a story set in more or less the modern world where gods and magic exist. So there was a sports cup made in the late 1800s to encourage sports days at public schools for girls and named after the god of corporal punishment (a lord of law who is gentler than the lord of capital punishment). The cup selects three girls from the losing the team and one from the winning team for thrashing. When corporal punishment was banned in England, Wales, and Scotland, that cup was redesigned and three versions of it appeared. One curses those four girls, with the cure being a good thrashing. One sets the four on quests to get good thrashings. The last delivers dream thrashings that carry on to the real world.

One cup was used for a curling game in Scotland, another for a basketball game in Texas, and the last was used for a volleyball game in South Korea. Now that they are back, I need a few more games for them to used at... or at least the one in the UK. The Korea one has been sent to motivate teams preparing for the Olympics, the Texas one is at the centre of lawsuits, and the UK one was stolen and is about to be deployed in a sporting event.

Why was it stolen and who is deploying it? A London newspaper magnate who wants to sell papers.

Don't worry, it should make sense when the story is finished.

Just a point to Bob about netball and participation. It’s a big sport in Australia for ladies, we’re the current world champions, and it is played in a lot of schools as well as having a professional competition. There are mixed games at a social level. I played in one for a work team. There is also a men’s competition internationally, Australia’s men’s netball team is called the Emus.
GG, you may also want to consider volleyball and/or water polo.

Seegee & Bashful: All of netball I've seen, via youtube, is school level netball. I'm going to seek out college or pro-level. What I saw was not particularly physical, as mentioned.
GG: I watch a fair amount of college women's basketball in person, albeit not at the huge uni level. It is much more a team sport than the men's version. That is, more passing, more play setting, and more encouragement for each other on the court. Less run and gun. Women's BB is very physical. Whether subtle differences between the men's and women's versions will help what sounds like a HUGE I cannot wait to read story, I know not.

The World Cup for netball was fairly recent, you should be able to find some footage of that. The rivalry between Australia and New Zealand in netball is big.

Now that I have earned that hockey was and is a girl's sport. (Who would have thought about girls going hammer and tongs with wooden sticks ;) trying to persuade the other team they are better.

The question now is: What mightly exotic summer term boy's sports were (as in 1980) / are there, especially considering 'European football' was / is not.

Field hockey has been played at British schools and universities by women since the late 19th century. It was first contested at the Olympic level by women in 1980. In fact, the German team won the gold medal in 2004.

Moody, if you really want to see girls play the most skilful game with 'sticks' as you say , then try youtube and search for 'senior camogie championship' . Very fast moving, unbelievable skill. (And the 'stick' is called a 'hurley' )

@ Seegee
Now you might laugh, I always sorted field hockey away as a male sport. A game with 'clubs' allows to many chances that discussions are decided by other means than the mouth. In my school days I was under the impression girls like little kids do gymnastics. Yes we Germans are nearly as ignorant as the Americans. Attendees excluded.

In fifth/sixth grade when our PE teacher came to us and dropped the hockey sticks into the gym and told us everyone grab one. I have to admit nobody knew what it was, he couldn't be handing out clubs, could he? We thought of is as ice hockey with a ball to replace the puck It was probably one of the hardest lessons for him. We got the base rule no hockey stick above hip level. I guess we made him give up after a few weeks. He tried a few times and there was not much of an improvement. Then he taught us basketball instead, less dangerous I guess.

In 7th and 8th grade we had a GDR refugee as PE teacher who thought Handball was a good choice to keep us occupied.

Probably more fun than the 'Track and Field' guy in 9th and 10th grade. Even though I got my best score in 9th grade since he decided to make us achieve the German Sports badge and grades would reflect it. In the end it was the only time performance was essential for your score. Normally it was the largest mouth.

11th and 12th grade we did a bit of everything. And Yes, the PE teachers switched every 2 years. Maybe they had no choiceand ended up in an asylum after teaching us two year in a row. None of them had the fun to teach us a third year.

What would boys play in grade 11 (5th form) at an English school in 1980?
That would be boys age 11+5=16 (17 in Germany)

@ Smachtai
Sorry if I wasn't clear in my answer to Goodgulf's post. On a second thought, I probably shouldn't have posted at all since I can't help him in his story, but most likely only cause confusion.

Not sure about England, I’m guessing soccer (football) and rugby. In Australia it would have been mostly Aussie Rules football in most of the country, and rugby in NSW and QLD.