Twickenham
There's nothing like the Varsity Match to bring on an epidemic of one-day flu. The tor- rential rain at midday on Tuesday must have kept some of these flu victims at home in front of the TV set, but the terraces were packed as always with schoolboys. Tender mortals like my- 'self kept in the protection of the stand among the hip-flasks, Vincents ties, and deerstalker caps. 'How's your leg these days?' forgotten that try you scored for Lowe's XV, old boy.' Obolensky play once, you know.' The tension be- fore a Varsity match is so supercharged that the game itself is invariably an anticlimax. This year the swirling gusts of rain eddying downfield made open play impossible. Oxford tried 'torpedo' throw-ins that blew yards off course; their fancy scissors movements broke in half, and none of McPart's jesuitical cunning could save Oxford from their third defeat in a row. And then hip- flasks were tucked away till next year, and Ox- ford philosophers and Cambridge economists drifted home with their own daydreams of glory on the rugger field.
STARBUCK
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