UK Secondary School Sports - help required

So I'm working on a story, one set in 1999 and moving forward, and I need knowledge about girl's secondary schools sports competitions.

At one point I have a girl's public school where they have cricket, football (soccer), and lacrosse. I think that works, but I'm basing it off movies.

Now I'm looking for two schools to play against each other - one from a bad part of town and one a different girl's public school. The match is set some wheres around late October to November, and I can't find a sports schedule for any UK schools. Odds are I'm looking at setting it in either England or Wales (as I've already had a college curling match in Scotland) but I have no idea what kinds of sports would be played then. Nor can I find details on the web.

Any help would be appreciated.

My daughter’s school play hockey in the autumn term, lacrosse in the spring term and tennis/athletics in the summer term. Her school seem to have matches against other schools all the time. Each year group has an A, B and C team. A and B are in matches every week. C rarely so.
I used to work in a school where there was no hockey and they played lacrosse in the autumn and spring terms.
My own school, which was much rougher, I don’t recall there being any particular pattern to when we played different sports but there we played hockey, football, netball and rounders, with tennis and athletics in summer. My school just had one team for hockey and football (probably the same people for both games) who I suppose occasionally played against other schools but no one was interested except perhaps those girls on the team.
October/November would work well though if you’re using specific dates, half term is always the end of October and will be two weeks in a public (fee paying school), one week in a state school.
Might I suggest that if you think of a specific public school, their calendar showing all their sports fixtures will probably be on their website.

Late October and November would put you in the autumn term, so outdoor summer sports are largely out. Thus hockey would be first choice plus possibly soccer which would be becoming more popular back around the turn of the century. Netball can be played in the gymnasium, so that could be all-year.

@ Goodgulf

You would have more fun to search something like that in Germany
As far as I know nothing like that exists in Germany. In addition since schools are financed by the community (aka cities) I don't see that there would be enough competition between schools.

@ KatiePie
Is hockey played by boys too? I somewhere read that hockey is less gender specialized than European football and other team sports, but it kind of gave me the impression that it is nonetheless considered a girls's sport.
Your child's school plays different sports each term? In Germany you have to join a club for team sports. In PE we did 'track and field' like high jump and similar activities in he sports hall. In the last 30 minutes we selected 5man-teams and played European football turnament style. It was the only way to get us motivated. In year 12 one guy at the start a lesson sprained his leg resulting in his foot forming a right angle to his leg. When the ambulance came they at first packed the wrong guy, since that guy fell unconscience at the sight. Because of the disturbing sight I went outside with a few others. In Germany Churchill's quote "No sports" is quoted as "Sport ist Mord" (sport is murder) On that occasion I seconded it. Before we graduaded at the end of the year we saw a lat time he had to repeat the year after nearly 12 months hospital and rehab with more to come. No large ceremony like in the hollywood movies, you got your final report card in front of your form in your class room. No idea about the past but there is nothing remotely large scale because of the Nazi regime in Germany. To my shame I have to say that army members are outcasts. It might change over time again as the army serves in many missions that got a positive view in society.

Hello Moody,

Team games are a big thing in most UK schools, particularly public schools. They’re seen as being a positive thing for some reason. I think the school day is a little longer in the UK than in Germany and sports are compulsory up to age 16.
As far as I know, at daughter’s school, while the girls play hockey, lacrosse and tennis, the boys play football, rugby and cricket. I don’t know if that’s the norm everywhere and I went to an all girls school myself.

Not sure what the distinction would be in the UK, but here in Ireland certain schools would play hockey and netball and other schools might play football but I would think few schools in 1990s played both.
I know some schools here have/had outdoor netball courts.

End of October / beginning of November is Samhain( Halloween ) an important festival here and in Scotland. I think it was suppressed in England. And I am not too sure about Wales whether they still celebrate Halloween

@ KatiePie

There is an ebook from TheEnglishMaster where the heroine plays cricket, it sounded a bit like baseball we get something that is similar but different without the racket. When our male PE teacher we fell ill and were send over to the female training hall to do PE with the girls. We still changed in the boys locker room and did no PE but played that game. The teacher forced us to make mixed teams though, no boys vs girls. It was already year eight, and girls weren't totally uninteresting anymore, but with a female teacher and snitches in place all was ok. At that age boys might be stronger all around but we were already past the time you sleft like teamrolling them at all costs,
Once each year we did a form trip and stayed a week at a youth hostel. One year we went into the Sauerland while most of it was in our state, the town we went was in the state of Hesse. We got lots of snow we weren't supposed to cross the state border. At such occasions you might do an unprofessional match of European Football but at home there were no matches. While you public schools most likely have different gouvernors/funding and the schools compete for pupils there is no comprtition between schools here.In addition schools in Germany while more numerous they are smalller and wont be able to field multiple teams,

Hockey was most definitely a popular spot in girls' schools as opposed to boys', which in a way is most odd as it's a quite rough sport with lot of potential for injuries, far more than soccer in my opinion. My son played for a while in a men's team and he came home looking like a panda after a hit in the face from the ball (and that was accidental).

I don't think soccer was played much in UK girls' schools until at least fairly recently, it's gained a lot of popularity in recent years.

Netball was always played, as it used the gym facilities.

Lacrosse has always been a minority sport in the UK, I've never seen it on TV although there was a men's league based around Manchester so there were several local clubs.

@ mobile_carrot
That was my impressio too, that Hockey in England is a girl's sport. The neighbouring town of Mülheim sas the club Uhlenhorst that back in the 1970ir and 1980ies played on a national level and I got some minor knowledge. Our PE teacher in 5th and 6th grade played with us some some field hockey but at that age it was entertainment not anything serious while he preferred to teach us basketball. Since it was exotic because of the rackets we played along. With the icehall close by we did some trips there for PE in 11th and 12th grade, but I never managed much more than keeping upright on the ice. The PE teacher in 7th and 8th grade was a GDR refugee and insisted on hand ball. My local club TuSEM played hand ball on European level but the hand ball department was flooded by the less than social guys. Whever we had PE with the girls when their teacher wasn't available we played Volleyball with them. It seems no contact sports for the girls:A short list of sports we tried and what we observed from the girls. They might have played Tennis at some point

GER
B|G
-|X Badminton
X|- Basketball
X|X European Football
X|- Handball
X|- Hockey
X|- Ice Hockey
X|X Volleyball / Netball`?'
X|- Water Polo

40 years later I would say the games were more meant to keep us iterested/motivated than to achieve anything. You really got the impression girls mostly did gymastics. Either they had their own clus or hockey was deemed to dangerous for them.

If you use netball, watch a little bit on youtube to get the idea. While vaguely related to basketball it is quite different, IMHO (American) POV.