Is back crawl ban a stroke too far?

We've had road rage, air rage and mobile phone rage. Now comes the latest modern malaise to provoke even the most restrained of us into heated confrontation - pool rage.

Fearful that a clash of heads or a tangle of arms will lead to punch-ups in the pool, a council has banned the back crawl and told swimmers to stick to strokes that allow them to see where they are going.

Now the move has sparked a debate about whether this is a legitimate way of preventing pile-ups in the fast lane - or just another example of the nanny state interfering with people's lives.

Are backstroke blunderers really a menace to society? Or is swimming pool psychosis just a figment of some council official's overheated imagination?

To some people, the joy of languidly swimming up and down on one's back, gazing absentmindedly at the roof of the local baths as other swimmers do their best to keep out of the way is one of life's great pleasures.

That, however, is to reckon without lawyers. There are few areas of life in which the legal profession has failed to intrude, and the council behind the original ban - Blackburn and Darwen - admits it is fearful that if any swimmers injure themselves in a backstroke collision it could end up being sued.

The backstroke has, after all, already claimed one victim in Blackburn.

Ruth Marriner's 13-yearold son recently knocked himself unconscious while swimming backstroke, and Ms Marriner - a member of a Blackburn swimming club - is wholeheartedly behind the ban.

"In open sessions, when people are doing lengths and widths, it is already chaotic," she said.

The idea of banning the backstroke already appears to be catching on.

Pool attendant Jay Eaton, 24, who works at a leisure centre in the City, said: "We ask people not to do the backstroke at busy times. When there's 20 people in a lane you can get crashes, but if they are in a lane on their own it's not a problem. People are happy enough to follow the guidelines."

But one manager at a pool in west London said his staff had other things to worry about than whether swimmers were doing the back crawl.

Steve, duty manager at the Porchester Centre in Queensway said: "We're more worried about people wearing inappropriate gear, like flippers, or misbehaving. The back stroke is not a big problem here.

"People can bang heads whatever stoke they're doing." Many others will simply regard the notion of banning the backstroke as yet another case of the modern world going mad.

Only last week a school in Chippenham, Wiltshire, banned football from the playground in case the children hurt themselves. In others, conkers have been prohibited.