The Second Memorial Match

Special thank you to the OLD ISLEWORTHIANS and Andy Brooks for providing such good spirited and competitive opposition for the Memorial match which raised £2500 for charity'.

A thousand apologies for starting on such a serious note but let us never forget what the Memorial match is all about. It is dedicated to the memory of two OM’s, Hugo McDermott and Tom Waley-Cohen, who lost their lives to cancer at a desperately early age.

As such, the event is geared towards raising money for the chosen charities of their families through the sale of burgers, t-shirts and beer (unfortunately pupils at the college were not allowed to donate to charity through the acquisition of alcohol). These young men were in the minds of all that took to the field that Sunday.

Added to this was the nostalgia of playing on the XV in front of the school alongside some very old friends. As such the match was played with great heart and wonderful spirit by both sides, whilst remaining hugely competitive… It was a misty morning. Marlborough was brought to life by the sound of the chapel bells, but everyone had been lying awake that night riddled with anticipation.

Those of you that have read between the lines of Nostradamus’ prophecies will know that such an event had been predicted in the 1500’s. As such a sense that a day of gargantuan importance had arrived infected the atmosphere. Old Isleworthians turned up with handkerchiefs on their heads, most of them over 40 fresh from a tour to Western (sic) Super Mare. We were very aware that they had perhaps as much as two centuries of rugby experience more than us but miraculously unfazed we headed straight to the training pitch to come up with the most outrageous ensemble of moves that we could muster. As is rapidly becoming tradition, there was no shortage of volunteers to receive the final pass in certain try scoring moves with many of the younger members of the team eager to impress the sixth form girls.

Effortlessly and inevitably one tradition leads to another and thus the endless jabberwocky of the older members who ‘have already done their impressing’, the XV of their era being ‘probably only a little better than the current All Black team that are doing jolly well in the world cup.’ Once satisfied that our repertoire of extravagance was audacious enough, we went for lunch. Running onto the pitch we were met by bagpipes, stimulating the adrenaline within us further and met by the gentle wafts of BBQ smoke along with muffled cheers of those Marlburians who had obviously taken a bite of their ¼ pounder at exactly the wrong point.

A minute’s silence was blown by referee Charlie Harrison which further reminded us all of the great cause for which the match is played. Then came the long awaited kick off and a match of intense flare and stunning tactical perspicaciousness. No sooner had the game started than the whistle went, prompted by an exceptional example of ‘draw the man and give’ by all of the backs. 5-0. Not long (at all) afterwards another enterprising try was scored. 10-0. I know what you’re thinking - our kicker must have been pretty rubbish but in spite of this we were still a little nervous that it could be a complete miss match. However, after 5 minutes we were all pretty tired and finally we started making some mistakes. The more regular of the Malones players were at this point looking very bemused that so much time had gone by without a display of absolute incompetence. However, the captain set the tone by knocking on the kick off and a catalogue of completely unforced errors followed.

At half time the score was 24-12 and very competitive. It was time to ring the changes and the second half saw all 10 subs get a game. The fresh legs and more youthful second half side did eventually wear down the Isleworthian defence and despite the occasional moments of ingenious risibility the Marlborough Malones came out victors 50-12. It was a special day and roughly £2500 was raised for charity.

The Cronk Cunis XV-a-side competition always takes place on a Sunday. Unless Lady Luck has blessed you with a monumentally generous gift, Cronk Cunis starts on a Sunday morning. As most of you will have learned during you’re A-levels at Marlborough College, Sunday morning follows directly on from Saturday night. This was the first of our problems. A year’s worth of relentless training for this event had included complete teetotalism, 26 mile runs before breakfast and dietary schedules calculated down to the nearest milli-carbohydrate. However, in keeping with tradition, such boundless discipline had failed for the first time, the very evening before it would be rewarded. And so, when the ten of us warmed up five minutes before our first kick off, nobody needed to ask ‘where is the rest of our team.’ Being such well rounded and courageous athletes we were confident that we could get ourselves into the quarter-finals with only 10 (we had done this in the immortal tournaments of 2003 and 2004) and when the reserve troops arrived we would power on through the lasting alcoholic inconveniences of the night before to win a heroic victory for ourselves, for Marlborough, for Wiltshire, for the entire Country!

It wasn’t to be.

Our first match was against last years winners, Brighton College, who we had found out, generally produce teams a little bulkier than ours. Nevertheless we were joined by two more OM’s in the third minute of play and a jolly nice chap from Bryanston who decided to give us what we thought to be a little charity. After a truly valiant effort we were eventually beaten 12-7 by 15 players.

Only slightly disheartened we warmed down taking it in turns to give outrageously inspiring speeches and were warmed by a glance at the schedule confirming that there would be an hour’s interval before we were called upon yet again to march valiantly back in to battle. In this time we firmly believed that we would be rejuvenated by a mass of further arrivals and we could then have a winger whose idea of sprinting was not simply a gentle amble and our No.8 could move back to his favoured position of scrum-half.

This too was wishful thinking.

The thoroughly good bloke from Bryanston had given us just about enough time to sit down and tuck into the first Marks and Spencers strawberry jam doughnut of the day, before announcing that his appearance in the Malones line up was not as we had thought, purely based upon receiving the glory and honour of wearing a Malones shirt. In a contract that none of us could remember signing there had been a very large section of very small print stipulating that in return, we too were responsible for bulking up the Bryanston numbers. As it happened Bryanston were drastically short of numbers. So short in fact that 8 of the Bryanston team that played that day had never before been involved with Bryanston, in any way, whatsoever.

A lesser team, perhaps even a team with more Oxbridge students might at this point have decided to form a more permanent alliance with Bryanston, combine forces even. However, hope that our friends may still come and lighten our hefty work load spurred us forward.

So we put our bodies on the line for our Dorset allies, many of us extremely conscious that we had got the raw end of this deal. Would you believe, it we won!? We therefore believed we had paid back what we owed to them.

Come 1130 all of our team had played at least 50 minutes of rugby. So far there were no injures but to our disappointment, there was also absolutely no sign of anybody else.

And so with nothing but typical Marlburian resolve (the rest of the world I think refers to this as arrogance) we took to the pitch for our second group match with only 12, having cut our ties with Bryanston. This started off very promisingly, scoring two extraordinary tries, created by a combination of forwards and backs keeping the ball alive and offloading out of the tackle. Now the training was coming into its own and the original 12 were in the midst of their Cronk Cunis purple patch and playing like real veterans of the sport.

Things were really looking up when finally a car load of OM’s arrived, albeit looking like Frankenstein after a curry. Following this, steady streams of late comers emerged and were promptly subbed on. We won by at least 25 points, a true and comprehensive thrashing.

However, although everything may have looked smooth on the surface, it did not reflect the trials that we faced behind the scenes. The 5 minutes when we had 15 players on the pitch was a real talking point of the day but the problem that was disabling us now was far more profound. Injures and fatigue plagued the bruised and drained bodies of the original elite. Thus we found ourselves in an extraordinary predicament in which the ratio of those arriving to those becoming injured was perfectly synchronised. Although there were 20 of us we could still only field 13 players.

It wasn’t our day. Perhaps fate had understood that it would be desperately unfair for Marlborough to play any side with an equal amount of players, being so superior in quality to all opposition.

The next two games I refuse to report on. We bowed out gracefully. Brighton College ended up winning, which I think says a great deal about the quality of those brave men, who were there from the start. Had you all been there from the start we could have won – think about that. Anyway, then we did what all Marlburians do best, celebrated a bloody good day in a bloody good pub.

The annual supper also took place earlier this year, on the 7th September. This was a great event and the guests were lucky enough to listen to Martin Evans make a fantastic speech. There was a raffle and a brilliant meal in the East India club, who hosted us wonderfully. It was a multi-generational event, which unfortunately fell in the first week of the College's term, damaging the availability of staff members whose presence was greatly missed. It was a wonderful event and hopefully will grow in size through the years.