Aberdeen City Council is the latest local authority to stop newspapers printing sports results on the grounds of political correctness.
Council officials refused to release results from a children’s bowling tournament so that beginners would be spared the embarrassment of seeing the scale of their defeats published in the local press.
Event organiser Audrey Walker defended the decision to keep the results of the junior pairs competition a secret.
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She said: “Some of the children who entered hadn’t been playing for long, and we had the biggest entry we had ever had.
“And when we had scores of 53-0 we didn’t think it was fair to have these sort of results published.”
She stressed: “It is nothing to do with being PC or goodness knows what. We just thought not publishing the results was the kind thing to do.
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“We want to encourage children because we want young bowlers coming in.”
She added: “It is a load of rubbish to suggest this has anything to do with us being part of a nanny state.
If that is how people perceive it, then I feel sorry for them.”
The ban is the latest in a long line of PC initiatives from Scottish councils. Local authorities in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Fife, Falkirk and North Lanarkshire have been promoting the introduction of school sports day events that have no individual winners or losers.
Pupils are awarded points for taking part, rather than winning, in an attempt to create a more “inclusive” spirit.
By Hamish Mackay
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