A long long time ago in 1989 our school took sport extremely seriously. At least two hours a day was devoted to it four days a week and the whole of Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. Rugby was the most important of course. The first rugby team were automatically anointed as college prefects because as anyone who has been on rugby tour can attest, that sort of culture is a perfect match for government. After rugby came cricket, then hockey, athletics, rowing, tennis, squash, swimming, water-polo, fencing, fives, field-gun and more. The facilities were excellent. 15+ pitches, an amazing sports centre complete with rock climbing wall, a cricket pavilion and fully stocked armoury (where the children kept their machine guns). One thing I never saw was a football.
Interschool matches were big events and rivalries were intense. We fully expected to smash our opponents using a combination of school spirit and large Samoan mercenaries we’d given scholarships to. The latter came in particularly handy in the scrum with highly suspicious beards for their ages, full body sleave tattoos and their own children watching from the touchline.
So this was all going well and our sporting results helped mask our declining academic performance until a new teacher had some incredible notion that we should invite the local state school to play a match of something.
Short interjection while I explain the dynamic between us and the local state school. They absolutely hated us and would frequently hurl almost exclusively homophobic, insults at us in the town. These usually centred around institutionalised homosexuality and the teachers all being paedophiles. The fucking nerve – that was only half right. Some of the boys at school were gay but nobody gave a shit. We were completely uninterested in the prejudices of the era and embraced everyone regardless of race, sexuality or anything else. Well nearly anything, state school children were viewed as vermin and we’d automatically retaliate to their homophobia with classism, wishing them well in prison and offering them pennies to fight to the death for our entertainment. Good healthy stuff. It rarely kicked off because we travelled in packs, played vast amounts of rugby, were trained cadets and had confidence bred into us to a point we were rarely worried if the Grange Hill cast made good on their treats. Anyway, it was much more fun to pretend not to understand them and express concern for their terrible living conditions.
So it was quite an event when we actually allowed some of them through the gates to play a match against us. Turned out they’d never played rugby, didn’t know one end of a hockey stick from the other and hadn’t heard of fives. Seems they only played sport weekly! Christ knows what they did with their time, heroin presumably!
Another short interjection while I point out that this school is frequently rated excellent, parents move from miles to get into the highly affluent catchment area and I have subsequently met several ex pupils who are not heroin addicts. One was my boss for years in a lovely twist of irony.
So football was chosen. We all looked at each other quizzically. We’d seen it played and it looked simple enough. A team need to be assembled. A task hampered by a flu epidemic that as you can imagine can turn a boarding school into something resembling a battlefield in a couple of days. The sanatorium was overflowing and dormitories were converted to sick and not sick to try and keep the remaining healthy out of harm’s way. We just need 11 healthy boys irrespective of ability to play. Sadly I fit that criteria.
On paper our team was excellent. We had a future England rugby captain (and British Lion test starter) in goal. Several other future internationals and professional rugby players, an Olympic hockey player and two who would go on to excel in the military including I think, one special forces member.
But we were absolutely crap at football.
Our 6 ft, 15 stone, “12 year old” Samoan was awesome in the scrum but he was not made to be a left back. It was like watching the Hulk playing ping-pong. Grange Hill showed up looking like rejects from an East 17 audition and soon after the match started. The home crowd cheered and we were quickly 5 nil down. The crowd grew quieter and then dispersed as 5 quickly became 8. We needed a change of plan (or the beginnings of one). Our keeper who I’m sure has fonder memories of World Cup finals and Lions tours than this torrid day spent much of his afternoon retrieving the ball from behind the goal which was a netless Rugby post. We ended up putting a junior boy as wicket keeper behind our goal to help, a role sadly unrequired at the other end. The bane of my afternoon was their left back. A little Brian Harvey like creature with a permanent squint. I was playing right midfield or right wing. I wasn’t sure which or if that was important but on the rare occasions I got the ball Brian took it away (often without me even noticing) and every time he got the ball he went round me with ease or I fouled him. Some of those fouls were completely accidental. He was just considerably better than I was. As the match progressed and the goals accumulated I noticed Brian was getting tired – presumably from running into the acres of space behind me I was affording him (and possibly down to malnutrition and heroin). I on the other hand was pretty well rested. Slightly hoarse from shouting warnings about impending danger down the channel I was meant to be defending but physically fine. Our keeper had made the wise decision to throw the ball rather than kick it and I received the ball in some space. Grange Hill had abandoned any thoughts of defence as it was superfluous to requirements and there was only Brian, a keeper and three quarters of the pitch between me and their goal. Up until then my plans had been to either run directly at Brian (failed) or dribble around Brian (failed more) so I decided to hoof the ball way up field which made Brian fall over (probably out of shock or possibly withdrawals) leaving a lot of pitch and single keeper between me and the beginnings of a herculean come back. Christ knows how but it worked and I somehow brought the score to a nail biting eleven – one. A mass pile up ensued in celebration complete with a distinct and deliberate homosexual undertones. I can’t remember how many more Grange Hill scored after that, it didn’t matter. They and we both knew that honours and reputations were shared that afternoon.
They wisely declined a rematch at rugby or anything else but to be fair to them it would never have entered our heads that they could beat us at anything, let alone absolutely fuck us up at the national sport on our own pitch. Equally at eleven nil they probably didn’t see themselves conceding to a bunch of stuck up, posh twats who’d never played the game before. Jesus if we were playing rugby and one of the East 17 shitbags had crossed our line I never would have set foot in the town again.
Speaking of which I saw Brian in the town soon after. If this was a better story and we were better people we’d have nodded with mutual respect but I’m sure he offered a limp wrist sign and I retaliated with a look of patronising concern for his circumstance. But still, everything was gonna be alright.
Diaries of Boarding School 