UNDERGRADUATE PAGE

Team Spirit

By GILES BULLARD (Balliol College, Oxford) S the auto-rail entered Bourgoin I recognised the spot. The summer before I had stood on that curving road, thumbing a lift to Nice, and the coffee now in my suitcase was for the young man who had taken me as far as the coast. All I knew of him was that he had five daughters and practised the trade of baker ; yet in France, even in a town of 15,000 inhabitants, this sort of thing is as good as an address, and relays of small boys led me soon to his shop. He seemed happy to see me. The coffee would be most welcome, though it was not, of course, coffee such as one has in France. He asked how I had come and, when I told him, burst into expressions of delight. " Ah ! Oxford ! L'equipe d'Oxford! We have heard much said of them. Peppered with stars! The open game! "

He had evidently been reading the papers. Sports correspondents had excelled themselves over our visit, and we had not resisted the temptation to translate them literally. " Dribblings, knowledgeably led, open scrums conducted with enthusiasm, touches played without emotion. Then, suddenly, an adroit feint, an arrow-like penetration, a movement of exceptional class. This is what we expect of Oxford." What they got, on pitches baked, frozen or flooded, were three games of surpassing mediocrity, but they seemed not to mind. " Magnificent Display," cried the headlines next morning. " Oxford Produce Veritable Rugby!" We blushed over our coffee and rolls. One commentator had gone so far as to make the match illustrate a theory of his about French rugby, which, he said, was being " led into decadence by the sombre and sterile battles of the Championnat. But these young men, coming from all corners of the British Empire " (a sly dig, this) " to study at its very source the history of British civilisation, these men are true athletes, masters of a subtle intelligence, a perfect knowledge of their role, and a team-spirit that borders upon abnegation." Everyone, from " the minuscule Green " to " Botting, the giant, the galloping horse " came in for his share. It was distracting. We began to feel almost as though the football was the most important part of the tour.

There were so many other things to do. Bathing, for instance. At the southernmost tip of France we swam, naked, before a mildly intrigued crowd. We spent a day on an Alp. Those of us who could ski did so ; the rest tobogganed on upturned café tables. The Syndicate of Initiative, who arranged the trip, were delighted. Here was the true holiday spirit. We were showered with propa- ganda ; books for ourselves, pamphlets for our friends, posters for college common-rooms. " Come again," cried the Syndicate, as our coach slid away into a snowstorm. " The sun here, it shines all the year round." And, to be fair, they did look very brown.

The wine-0 heaven, the wine! Reception after reception, glass after glass. " To the King of England and the President of the French Republic." " To William Webb Ellis." " Down the hatch " " A voire sante." " The wine it is good, yes ? " " Je leve mon verre. . . ." "Je leve ma coupe. . . ." The Entente was never more cordial than at these moments. Gestures came to the hands, long- forgotten phrases to the mind. Tricks were played with forks and coins ; diagrams appeared on the table-cloth. Invitations to ski, to stay a month, a year, were thrown off and as casually-accepted. One man was asked to speak on the radio. Full of Cinzano he was pushed into a tiny room, where was gathered the whole cast of an In Town Tonight—the trumpeter from a local band, the doctor pronouncing gravely the dangers of typhoid, the poultry-fancier with news of a concourse of chickens. The red light flickered. A man in a corduroy coat put his head round the door and was shooed out. A music stand fell with a crash, heard, it is to be hoped, all over France. The trumpeter fingered his stops. " We have with us in the studio today a rugbyman from the celebrated team of Oxford. He is Mr. Hemms, pilier. Tell us, Mr. Hemms, your opinion of the relative facilities for training in British and French universities." This was not at all what had been rehearsed ; the talk had been of mud, of referees and the excellence of French

hospitality. And what on earth was the word for pavilion ? Broadcasting House was never like this.

Somehow the interview was closed. The trumpeter, who had been looking on with a faint smile, swung round to his own micro-

phone and burst into Serenade. But for him a greater tragedy was reserved. The programme was to end with his top note ; he had been heard practising it all over the building. Here it was, now.

Up, up, slowly and more slowly. The accompanist, his head bent, drummed at. the treble with both hands. But the last tremendous peal was never heard. From that brazen mouth and those empurpled cheeks came only a harsh breathing sound. The announcers winced and turned their heads away.

We went to Lyons to play our last match. The communal spirit, which is the curse of all tours, had seized us ; " we " had taken the place of " I " even on the scrawled postcards we sent home.

Together we visited the ballet, La Maison Dor& and the zoo, chivvied into enjoyment by pertinacious guides. With the monkeys, striding the concrete on buckled paws or springing disdainfully to the wire, we felt a certain sympathy. In parties of five and six we did our shopping, and our suitcases, as we boarded the coach for the stadium, were a jumble of pineapples, muddy boots and Cointreau. Our opponents were on the same bus, filling a seat each and singing lewdly triumphant songs. Added to the ever-present

danger of injury was that of death by drowning ; the pitch was

under water, and we waded ankle-deep to meet the usual crowd of officials. " Enchante, monsieur," I said in my best accent to the mayor. Distressing to find later that he had been at Magdalen.

Then a Home Guard general, six officers of the local rugby club, town clerks and hangers-on. These last pushed us into line while tortured versions of our names, with brief biographical sketches, came over the loud-speaker. It was like a party game ; as each was read out he peeled off into mid-field, capering, so strong was the ringside atmosphere, in imaginary resin.

A chord from the band. We have beer, warned about national anthems, and stand shivering in the mud while the bare-headed crowd looks down on us. The mayor kicks off, but the ball goes wide, bespattering him with dirty water. The mob is restive, and glad, like us, when we splash finally into action. For the first halt

our attentions are elsewhere. French rugby sides seem to have no

leader on the field—every man has a powerful voice in the shaping of policy—and if they did not break so many rules they would romp through opponents rendered helpless with laughter. One's

interest is kept perpetually alive by the insane orthodoxy of their play, a text-book gone wild, but one does not laugh for long. The crowd of vrais sportifs boo every adverse whistle, every quick heel, and every wave of the touch-judge's flag. One is tripped into the mud, trodden on and sworn at, and one's delight gives way to a sterner feeling. Agincourt, Waterloo, and now Lyons.

Another French try makes the score 9-0, and the absurd, almost cup-final, emotion of their team finds anger now instead of ridicule.

We settle down and scrape victory by a few points, and afterwards at the banquet one wonders how one could ever have felt annoyed with so excellent, so friendly a crowd. Pure gold, every one of

them. This one opposite, for instance—what a good game he played! Rough ? Well . . . . yes, but eminently fair. I tell him so, and he beams. " How do you find our rugby, then ? " I can't answer. The play of Continental sides has the crazy logic of a shaggy dog story, and I don't know enough French to support that doctrine. I fall back, as one has to do in so many discussions, upon the prepared and commonplace. " You are magnificent, prestigious, but only as individuals. You seem to lack—what shall I say ?—the team spirit." He beams still more. To him, I feel, this is a compliment.