The Score
THERE ARE many questions that this column ponders – like ‘What league do the gloriously- named team East Allotment play in?' and ‘Why does their result mysteriously appear on Jeff Stelling's soccer Saturday round up?' Are there derbies against the other geographical points of this strip of land – or perhaps a cataclysmic natural disaster rendered all other parts of the Allotment uninhabitable? Answers on a postcard please.
Another question no less vexing is how Keble, five games unbeaten, are still menaced by the threat of relegation. One answer could be the stubborn resistance of Jesus, currently churning up the barren field of sure predictions with their dug-in heels. Things could have been made yet more complicated if the rulebook hadn't been iconoclastically shredded by the ref, who took advantage of obscuring confetti to make off with the three points.
With Jesus leading 3-2, he booked a Jesus player for dissent after the ball had gone out for a throw-in, the resulting freekick yielding an equaliser. A stirring Keble win against St Hughs had all the hallmarks of an epic – not least the fact that player shortages meant a call-up for the Estonian beserker Paavo Piik. Paavo is a third- and second- team veteran of the highest calibre and marked his ascension to the big League with a bullet header from 12 yards in the dying minutes.
But what has caused this revival? Some sources say the return of mulletted Bertie Passaro has been key. Others (everyone apart from Bertie himself) treat the claim with healthy scepticism. Monday deadlines (the barbershop before the guillotine of credibility) mean this column stuck its neck out in predicting a Balliol revival. After finally detecting the crimson hue of this particular herring, it now backs Keble to assume the role of phoenix, rising from the flames amid much spluttering.
The trial-by-mud against Balliol and the Hughs win will not have gone unnoticed by Queen's skipper Nikbin, who must pick up his players to face Keble after the Catz showdown. Not an apocalyptic reckoning as predicted last week (in a glut of pointless rhetoric to meet the word count) more a ‘glitch'. Now, if this column was a doctor of the occult it might be tempted to forecast a change in the tide or a shift in the forces.
Catz's Owen Price is more realistic, realising that Queen's have to slip up once more. It could still be so near yet so far. We are entering a crucial watershed in the season, dear reader(s). If Catz can avoid being impaled on the Magdalen long throw, and Queen's stumble against Keble, then things do look interesting. For Queen's, a test of their collective will.
Perhaps not all heavy punches are heavy, nor all exhaustions to be thought depleting, and we'll see what we are left with when the dust has settled.
17th Feb 2005