The Score
On Tuesday this column took the groundbreaking decision to actually watch a college football game and at the same time raised a mocking middle finger at the word 'roundup' in its header.
The game was New College seconds versus Keble seconds and it finished 6-1. New College are a big team and their lineup is peppered with menacing shaven heads.
However this doesn't stop them being surprisingly delicate, executing flick headers in particular with aplomb. The plight of plucky Keble was poignantly encapsulated by Rob 'ballet shoes' Bennie, who suffering from agonising blisters brought on by his poncey choice of footwear and finding only bandages in the First Aid box rose majestically and no doubt painfully to score a futile consolation goal.
Elsewhere, in Division One, Pembroke, after being collectively greased up and massaged by this column last week promptly went and lost 5-3 away to New College firsts. There will be furrowed brows at University College after their 5-1 defeat in the relegation cruncher with Teddy Hall.
On another note there are images that mesh seamlessly in the minds eye like John McCririck, turning slowly on a spit, side chops going from singed to cinders under the lurid fiery gaze of a thousand burning bras. Others like a dwindling crowd watching the Varsity football in a cavernous Premier League sized stadium don't sit quite so well. And, if you thought that was a tenuous segue then the knowledge that the mystical symmetry of the University's 120 match rivalry extends to almost scoring the exact number of goals won't convince you to swell the 600 souls who watched last years game.
The high profile status of the game is under threat according to college football organiser Richard Tur who fears the flagship event becoming a much more "modest occasion".
"Perhaps Oxford United and Cambridge United would host the event but even so there are quite substantial costs and neither club is secure in terms of football or finances,"he said.
This column decided to not bother researching the specific meaning of this ominous phrase as deadline was fast approaching and instead lazily interpreted it as the dread fear of having to play in a lower league shed rather than a Premiership standard Temple.
But let us not forget that these grounds can arouse feelings more profound than simple grandeur.
On that note goodbye... and send me some sodding e-mails! Tickets for this season's Varsity Match on March 12th at Upton Park go on sale soon priced £5.
20th Jan 2005