The Sportsmanship

When it comes to the gate ball what image do you have? For me gate ball seems sports for the elderly and good for their health. Actually at the school near my apartment the elderly play gate ball on the Saturday morning.

Anyway do you know the history of the gate ball? The gate ball is born in 1947 in Memuro-cho, Hokkaido. Although the gate ball is popular especially among the elderly, it was made for the children. The population of gate ball player was about 6 million in 1990, but now the population became about 2 million.

According to the Japan Gateball Union, the reason of the decrease in population is that many elderly quit the gate ball by aging so much and the younger people are not attracted by the sports.

However there is another reason, it is the bullying among the elderly gate ball player. The gate ball is the team sports; therefore often the fight and the bullying occur in the team. Moreover surprisingly the murder which is caused by the trouble in the gate ball team was happened in 1999 in Kagoshima. In this case a 69 year-old woman was killed by a 70 year-old man, for the woman gave a bad account of his gate ball skill. By thinking such a case what is important to do healthy and clean sports is the moral of the player.