A Viscount Speaks

The 3rd Test

What ho, chums!

So the 3rd Ashes Test starts tonight at the ungodly hour of 2 AM.  It is a ridiculous time to be playing a cricket match.  Why on earth can't these colonial johnnies play sport at a proper hour?  The bolshie oiks seem quite determined to assert their independence from the ways of the Mother Country, no matter how ridiculous it makes them seem.

I and all England have been chewing over the bowling situation.  Oakham's Broad is out for the series, so Strauss will have to choose one seamer from Bresnan, Tremlett and Shahzad.  In normal circumstances, one would opt for the chap from the leafy southern shires over the northern prole or the uppity immigrant.  However, fast bowling is slightly unusual in that it favours the type of rough, big arsed, northern character (often from a mining background) who is happy to toil away whilst the rather more pukka batsmen loll around in the field.  It is said, moreover, that Tremlett is a slightly yellow character, so I would be inclined to opt for Bresnan.  He is just the type of beefy specimen we need to get stuck into the Australians.

The colonials, meanwhile, are in complete disarray.  Their hopeless captain, Ponting, confessed this week that his man management is so terrible that he no longer goes near his bowlers for fear of putting them even further off their game.  It was an astonishing admission from a man who is quite patently not officer material.

It seems to me that this Australian outfit lacks brains and breeding.  There are, amazingly enough, a few decent schools in Australia, mostly in eastern Sydney - and the Wallabies, quite sensibly, recruit heavily from these institutions.  The cricketers, for whatever reason, do not.  I am sure that when Mr Sutherland (who is a sensible chap) comes to review Australia's campaign, he will put 2+2 together and demand that every Baggy Green XI should in future field at least one fellow from St Joseph's, one fellow from Scotch College, and so on and so forth. 

It is really asking too much for a group of proles to be thrown into battle without officers to lead the way.  And in Perth this week I expect Mr Strauss (Radley) to ram home yet again just why Englishmen spend £27,000 per annum on their son's public school education.

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

Huzzah!!!

The day is here!

What ho, rugger men!

At last, after a year of torment, the day has arrived for the proud men of Oxford to give the Tabs a bloody good biffing!  Cambridge has won four of the last five Varsity matches, so it is high time that we Oxonians redressed the balance somewhat.  The teams are as follows:

OXFORD

Hamish Macdonald (Wadham); Govind Oliver (Green Templeton), Will Kane (Merton); Tom Evans (St Hugh’s);  Karl Outen (St Edmund Hall), Daniel Guinness (Keble), Louis Mather (University);  Stanley McKeen (VC) (Harris Manchester);  Nick Haydon (C) (University), Charlie Marr (Brasenose), Luke Jones (St Edmund Hall), Alex Cheesman(St Edmund Hall), Sean Morris (Somerville), Luke Fenwick (University), James Crozier (Kellogg)

Replacements: Anthony Connor (Keble), Lewis Anderson (University), Alex Rowe (Queen’s), Ian Swan (Kellogg), Jeremy Mather (Lady Margaret Hall), Harry Guinness (St Anthony’s), Thomas Yusef (University), James Wisson (St Anne’s)

CAMBRIDGE

Niall Conlon (St Edmunds); Jamie Stuart Davidson Gilbert (St Edmunds), Stuart Brown (Clare); Tom Harrington (Wolfson); Charles Baird (St John’s), Jason Kururangi (St Edmunds), Tom Stanton (St John’s); Ben Maidment (St Edmunds); Sam Hunt (Girton), Gregory Douglas Cushing (Ridley Hall), Robert Stevens (Jesus), Paul Loudon (St Edmunds), Fred Burdon (St John’s), Ilia Cherezov (St John’s), James Richards (C) (Hughes Hall)

Replacements: Christopher George Hall (St John’s), Tom Harris (Churchill), Andrew Daniel (St Edmunds), Scott Annett (Clare), Ben Martin (St Catharine’s), Matthew M Guinness-King (St Catharine’s), Miles Daly (Jesus), William Briggs (Magdalene)

The number of geriatric colonials from rum colleges seems somewhat reduced this year, thank Gad, though Green Templeton (which is to Oxford what Stoke City is to the Premier League) not surprisingly makes an appearance again. 

I shan't be in attendance this year but I shall of course be cheering the chaps on.  For an entertaining Tab perspective, read this by the excellent Steve James in the Telegraph.  GDBO indeed, the cheeky blighters!  I can tell Mr James that God will damn only one team today and it assuredly won't be the chaps wearing dark blue jerseys!

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

Savlon for Bruce! (Part II)

What ho, Englishmen!

Bloody hell, chaps, I've seen some beastings in my time but I don't think I've ever seen a monstering quite like that.  The colonials were rodgered!  Utterly, monstrously, brutally rodgered! 

Has the medical industry yet devised a cream to salve the nether regions after a beasting like that?  I rather doubt it.  I suspect that Bruce Shackledragger will be dragging his chains and rubbing his arse all the way to Perth. 

A special word for the superb Mr Strauss and also for his alma mater, Radley College.  Strauss's games master famously said of him that "there was no boy at Radley with whom one would rather be stuck up a gum tree".  Quite so.  But how wonderful to learn that Strauss also has the Jardine-like ruthlessness to give the uppity colonials a good and proper spanking even when Bruce is pleading for mercy.  The man is a walking advertisement for English public schools. 

So, John Bull's foot is on Bruce's throat.  Let's keep it there.  I want to see them grovel.

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

Mr Strauss and Mr Cook prove their pluck

What ho, cricketers!

By jove, chaps, have you ever seen such a marvellous display of pluck, phlegm and sheer bottom as that put on by Messrs Strauss (Radley and Durham) and Cook (Bedford) in the colonies overnight?  Major Strauss lifted the siege of the Gabba by launching a cavalry charge at the colonial lines, superbly supported by the infantrymen Cook and Trott.  It was simply magnificent.  Those loud-mouthed Australians strolled out to bowl in the cocky expectation of rolling England up by tea but they hadn't reckoned on the reserves of courage and gumption instilled by a traditional English public school education.  Strauss and Cook played in precisely the manner one would expect of pukka English chaps under pressure.  Unflappable, elegant, cheery - it was a most heartening advertisement for the merits of traditional English schooling. 

Pity the poor oiks on the Australian team who have to bowl to our chaps.  Young Johnson, in particular, displays all the daffodil qualities for which the Australian is rightly scorned.  Muscles and a beefy arse to die for, but not an ounce of pluck in his entire body!  (And what a ghastly, rat-like face - straight out of the penal colony, that lad!)

The colonials know they are in a fight now.  I fully expect them to back down over the forthcoming tests.  Men possessed of the convict gene are quick to cower when they learn that the other man means business.  I look forward to the Adelaide test in the keen anticipation of a good beasting. 

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

Varsity rugger

What ho, rugger men!

Those of you interested in English rugger tradition might like to read this article by the peerless Frank Keating.  It's great to see Micky Steele-Bodger get a mention.  Bodger might have been helping the Tabs for all these years but I can assure you that he is a bloody good bloke nonetheless.  Incidentally, Oxford beat Major Stanley's 21 - 14 yesterday.  We Oxonians are quietly confident that revenge for last year's Varsity mishap will be exacted in due course.

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

Let's beast those Tabs!

What ho, boaties!

So, it's that time of year when every pukka chap in the land becomes an overnight rowing expert.  Fellows who don't know their oar from their elbow take to waxing lyrical about Oxford's "impressive power ratio" and Cambridge's "smooth transition through the gears".  Chaps whose only experience of boats is the P&O ferry to Calais assure their chums that "the Cambridge stroke is a fantastic technician".  Oh yes, Putney on race day is a veritable bluffers' convention!

But the sight of eight strapping boaties clad only in lycra is a splendidly invigorating sight.  One can forgive a fellow for becoming a little over-excited.  For the uninitiated, the general rule of thumb is that the best rower sits at the front (stroke position) and sets the pace, the beefcakes sit in the middle and add the power, and then a few slightly smaller chaps sit at the back and keep rhythm with the pace set by those in front of them.  Oh, and a yappy little fellow called a cox does the shouting and exhorting and then gets beasted afterwards.

I rowed for The House in seat 5, which is one of the power positions.  Sadly, however, my rowing career was short-lived.  My debut in the Michaelmas Christ Church Regatta of 1953 turned out rather badly when our nincompoop of a cox (still drunk from the previous night's brandy) decided, on seeing us losing ground to Balliol, that it would be a cunning wheeze to steer straight into their boat like a Japanese kamikaze.  Some waterborne oar jousting ensued and the long and the short of it is that the lot of us were banned from rowing for the duration of our university careers.

Oxford are favourites for this weekend's race.  They have won the last two races and four of the last five.  The poor Tabs are beginning to wonder where their next win will come from.  Interestingly, an Irish chappie, Martin Walsh, has been included in the Oxford crew.  Not quite sure what the coach was thinking, but I'll know who to blame if we lose.  It's nice to see two House chaps in the Oxford crew. Twins, no less - and they invented Facebook apparently...

Oxford: Ben Myers (20, Exeter), bow; Martin Walsh (Ire, 24, Green Templeton); Tyler Winklevoss (US, 28, Christ Church); Cameron Winklevoss (US, 28, Christ Church); Sjoerd Hamburger* (Neth, 27, Oriel); Matt Evans (Can, 23, University); Simon Gawlik (Ger, 24, Kellogg); Charlie Burkitt (23, Wolfson), stroke; Adam Barhamand (US, 23, Wolfson), cox.

Cambridge: Rob Weitemeyer* (Can, 27, Hughes Hall), bow; Fred Gill (24, Hughes Hall); Code Sternal (US, 24, Hughes Hall); Peter McClelland (Can, 26, Pembroke); George Nash (20, St Catharine’s); Deaglan McEachern* (US, 26, Hughes Hall); Derek Rasmussen (US, 24, Hughes Hall); Henry Pelly* (26, St Edmund’s House), stroke; Ted Randolph (21, Peterhouse), cox.

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

Sherborne School

What ho, scholars!

I know that my schooling advice is highly valued by readers of this blog.  There are thousands of Englishmen who are currently unsure whether School X will turn their son into a thrusting young go-getter or a snivelling pansy.  As you know, I have had harsh words for the likes of Wellington College.  Far too many of our once proud public schools have gone soft or have become mere finishing schools for eurotrash.  Some of these institutions are now more likely to produce the next Graham Norton than the next Lord Kitchener.

How gratifying, therefore, to report several extremely positive reports about Sherborne School in Dorset. I know several chaps of a stout, hearty and patriotic disposition who are all thoroughly delighted with the robust schooling their sons are receiving.  I am told that:

• Sherborne is resolutely old school in its approach
• Rugger is high on the menu
• There are no fillies to effeminise the boys
• There is no tolerance for yellow behaviour of any kind 
• 96% of the boys come from British prep schools, so there are no odious Russian or Arab types to lead one's boy astray
• The school is situated in delightful countryside near a small market town full of buxom young shire girls 
• Alumni include Peter Oborne, Tom Bradby, Major General Patrick Cordingley, Stanley Johnson and Nigel Dempster - all corking chaps, I'm sure you'll agree 
• Best of all, Sherborne quietly turns a blind eye to regular beastings 

In other words, Sherborne ticks all the boxes I alluded to in my earlier post on this topic.  I think it's well worth considering if you have a son of red blooded disposition. 

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

"Not enough Oxford chaps" - jolly well said, Bills!

What ho, proles!

Interesting comments from Peter Bills:

Of course, defences are far better organised nowadays, that is undeniable. But it might also be something to do with the fact that nowadays, the professional game has all but excluded the real thinking players, those who wish to study and become doctors, scientists, lawyers or captains of industry.

In 1962, the Lions were led on their tour to South Africa by a Scottish wing, Arthur Smith, who became a nuclear scientist. Brilliant minds abounded throughout the game and although it was then an amateur sport, the brain power was often in evidence simply by the way the game was played.

Nowadays, those past great breeding grounds of knowledge, Oxford and Cambridge Universities, which supplied endless numbers of players for the national rugby teams of the world, including South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, produce hardly any.

The professional game has different creatures, and I suspect, the vast majority are of infinitely less cerebral capacity.

'Tis true, is it not?  Modern rugger players are dullards.  They don't read.  They cannot converse in Greek or Latin.  They don't attend the opera.  They don't complete the Times crossword.  Often, their cultural hinterland extends no further than the Nintendo Playstation.  And then we wonder why their play is similarly witless!

Bills is onto something here.  Johnson ought to get on the telephone to my alma mater and request a few of their finest rugger men.  Tim Catling and Ross Swanson ought to be top of the list.  We need beef; we need beastliness; but we also need brains.  

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

Vitai Lampada

What ho, men of Empire!

Watching David Dimbley's "Seven Ages of Britain" last night, I was struck by the segment on Britain's public schools.  Dimbleby mentioned Sir Henry Newbolt's famous poem of how the virtues learnt on the playing fields of Eton could translate to pluck on the battlefield.  It is a terrific poem:

Vitai Lampada

THERE'S a breathless hush in the Close to-night -
Ten to make and the match to win -
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

The sand of the desert is sodden red, -
Red with the wreck of a square that broke; -
The Gatling's jammed and the colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed his banks,
And England's far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of schoolboy rallies the ranks,
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

This is the word that year by year
While in her place the School is set
Every one of her sons must hear,
And none that hears it dare forget.
This they all with a joyful mind
Bear through life like a torch in flame,
And falling fling to the host behind -
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

Now it seems to me that these sublime sentiments of self-sacrifice, leadership and honour are precisely what England's rugger chaps consistently fail to display.  Perhaps Johnson ought to pin Newbolt's poem up in the dressing room in Paris and invite his men to reflect upon the words before they go out to confront the Frogs. 

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback