A headmistress has banned football from her school playground because she said that pupils were copying 'cheating behaviour' and fouls seen during the World Cup.

She said that the pupils began copying 'fouling, cheating and shirt pulling' after seeing their World Cup footballer heroes doing the same thing.

The headmistress Pat Fay said; "We are a Church of England school and we very much value developing a caring attitude among our pupils.

"We felt that playground football was causing a decline in those standards and we noticed that things got worse during the World Cup.

"Children watched their heroes and role models on the television and then copied the fouling and the shirt pulling and the cheating that went on.

"They saw famous players behaving badly and when they got into the playground thought it was OK to kick another player or grab their jumper and pull them over. We also had an incident when a teacher was hit in the face with a ball so hard it almost knocked her out.

"We are not against football, in fact we have lots of good footballers and four or five boys who have real potential.

"A few parents have said to us that they understand the decision. They realise it is difficult with a playground the size of a tennis court for 83 pupils."

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