Strathaven Academy ‘geek’ fight posted on YouTube

Jan 7 2009 by David Wynn, East Kilbride News

TWO more pupils at an East Kilbride school have become the latest victims of the YouTube craze.

The teenage boys were filmed fighting inside the Strathaven Academy campus and the footage was posted online.

The video lasts for one minute 17 seconds and is entitled ‘High School Geek Fight - Fe***n Hilarious’.

Throughout the clip insulting comments are displayed on the screen poking fun at the two pupils. The video was posted on YouTube last week but has since been removed by whoever uploaded it.

The boys involved seem reluctant to fight but are egged on by a crowd near to a stairwell in the school.

Eventually it becomes quite violent with punches being thrown, an arm being bitten and one boy ending up with a burst nose.

The video’s title, the childish comments on screen and the reaction of the crowd suggest the two lads are not usually involved in such behaviour.

Strathaven Academy pupils are currently based at the former Ballerup High campus in Greenhills.

Since developments in mobile phone technology the YouTube website has been the venue of choice for morons posting footage of people, often school pupils, fighting.

Critics have called on the website owners to exercise greater regulation but they insist self-policing is the most effective method, meaning any offensive material should be flagged up by visitors to the site and then it may be removed by the administrators.

However, thousands of fight scenes involving unwitting and unwilling ‘actors’ remain just a mouse click away.

Councillor Archie Buchanan said: “I’ve had concern for some time about websites such as this where there seems to be no real regulation of what goes on it. It’s fair to say there must be skirmishes in most schools fairly regularly but the difference now is that people are filming it and putting it on the internet. This can blow it out of all proportion and it’s clearly not fair on those involved.”

What do you think? E-mail dwynn@s-un.co.uk