Tabs poised for Pooh showdown
RECENT YEARS have seen a growing number of minor sports in Oxford clamour for the recognition they feel they deserve in the form of half-blue status. The Blues Committee saw fit to reject an application by Oxford's snowboarders on the grounds that the club's members did not compete at a high enough level and the Chess Club since, despite vociferous claims to the contrary, athletic demands on compteitors were insufficient for it to qualify as a sport at all. It remains to be seen what the Powers That Be will make of the latest Tab-initiated scheme to create a new area of Varsity competition.
Anthony Walker is Captain of Poohsticks and the pioneer-apparent behind calls for both Universities to sanction a Poohsticks Varsity Match.
The Tabs may have the advantage of experience with an allegedly teetotal Winnie the Pooh Society already well-established. Apart from the rigours of poohsticks, its activities include the drinking of tea with honey and consuming condensed milk sandwiches.
Walker's vision is a contest judged by Oxbridge officials with the reward of Quarter-Blues for participants, a (mystical) prize shared only by the Tiddlywinkers. Rules would be identical to those devised by Pooh himself:
They dropped their sticks in when Rabbit said 'Go!' and then hurried across to the other side of the bridge, leant over the edge, and waited to see whose stick would come out first.
The number and variety of bridges available for competition will, he feels, ensure that matches are always competitive. He maintains that he is not "a bear of very little brain" and that this is a serious request; anyone interested in participating should email him at aew25@ hermes.cam.ac.uk
Rumours of a counterbid to contest a human version of the game at Magdalen Bridge on May Morning remain unconfirmed.