Sport

   

KNITTING FOG
It wasn't that I had double vision after all.  It was just that Charlie Peach was trembling with the cold.  They were all trembling, all of the ‘Famous Fifths': trembling and laughing at the same time, which is something only boys on freezing rugby pitches can do.
We had come to play in our own tournament, a masterful invention from our very own minister of fun, Mr Simpson, and all of us were more than a little keyed up about the idea. Except for my frozen self.  Sheltering beneath several layers of a down jacket and impossible scarf, I stared across the pitches at the other teams as they ran through their complicated drills like they were rehearsing some kind of opening to the Olympics.  "Right," I thought to myself.  "We've got more chance of knitting fog, than even getting close to a try against that lot."
I turned and looked to where Thomas Egan, Lawrence Palmer, Jamie Walford and several other members of the clan were capering about in the wind doing a warm up routine that looked suspiciously like ‘ring-a-rosy'.
"They're keen aren't they?"  I said to the visiting Head of Sport from Sherborne School.  He smiled sympathetically.  "Well, they're certainly Corinthian," he replied.
"It's gentlemen and players," said Mr Fildes nodding in the direction of Tommy who was doing scrum practice in his blazer.  And King's House are the gentlemen.
Naturally that's how we've always played.  In the first match of the tournament we faced Feltonfleet, and were polite in the extreme, giving them the ball with a grace and precision that is rarely seen.  We even gave them two players!
But then suddenly, as the sun came out, the wind blew stronger, we changed our tune, and started to play rugby.  I saw patterns emerge like frost on glass: mauling, rucking, the ball won, the ball passed.  It couldn't be us, but it was.  The parents began to shout. Mr McClay roared and we started going forward.
And then we scored a try!  (I'd repeat that, but we haven't got the space.)  Tom Nunan, supported by the combined swarm of the Fifths, surged over the line for a memorable try.

We lost that game. Who cares, we knitted fog.
Against Rokeby, we kept doing what we had started against Feltonfleet.  Joshua Efiong as Captain, led superbly by example until hobbling off injured.  We scored again!  I couldn't see who went over, buried by the mass of bodies, but it was another group effort.
Alas, Alastair Jackson then departed the field with an injury, and Sebastian Deykin who had played his heart out, went off completely exhausted.  We used every sub - twice.  We had to, otherwise they would have frozen to death, but when they got on the field they played with all the enthusiasm and passion of the famous Fifths.
By this time we were leaking tries like a staffroom kettle, but somehow losing didn't matter anymore.  When the final whistle blew, and everyone trooped off into the darkness, we knew that of all the teams on Chiswick fields that day, we alone had knitted fog.  Twice!
By Mr B Sharrock