TWICKENHAM REVISITED
By J. P. W. MALLALIEU, M.P.
wHEN the slightly discreditable member of a family comes home his relatives look sideways at him through their lorgnettes and watch the spoons. He, in turn, drags his respect- ability out of the past and tries to seem as good as they—rather as I did when I went back to Twickenham on Tuesday to see the Varsity Match for the first time in sixteen years.
I played rugger all my playing days ; but since then I have acquired some rather vulgar habits by watching soccer. When I watch Huddersfield Town I want Huddersfield to win by brilliant, clean football ; but most of all I want them to win. Brilliant play by the opposing club is wormwood and gall to me. Once Hudders- field have got the lead, by one method or another, I don't care if they spend the rest of the afternoon kicking the ball out of the ground.
It is all rather shocking ; and here I am at Twickenham. I must watch my step. It is the Twickenham of old. There is none of that rush-from-work, that quick-wash-and-snack-at-home-and-then- off-to-the-ground-in-a-sea-of-cloth-caps that we know in Yorkshire. The crowd is leisurely. It is a luncheon-basket crowd. It takes a glass of gin in the car-park and warms itself in the December sun- shine. It strolls up and down behind the West Stand and greets its friends. "Hullo Smutty! haven't seen you for years." " Well! Well! Well! May I introduce you to my wife?" They walk up and down, clergymen in hats of every denomination, elderly gentle- men in deerstalkers hats who preferred it when the match was played at Queen's Club, respectable middle-aged City gents in black homburgs who flew down the wing in Phil Macpherson's day and young men in converted service uniforms or duffel coats " won" not long ago. And all the wives and all the daughters, pink but very drab. In that crowd, though the sun shone, there was no colour—except Twickenham's velvet green and the yellow caps of some small boys straight from school.
The crowd moves slowly into the stand, keeping the amiable British tradition of holding conversations in narrow doorways while a queue piles up behind, keeping, too, the tradition of sitting happily for half an hour in someone else's seat and then making three wrong shots for the right one just as the match begins. Cambridge come out first and sit for their photograph, forcing nervous smiles, while the photographer's assistant runs round with a little book to check the numbers on their backs. Then in a moment the game is on.
(Watch your step. You are Oxford, but—may the best team win ! Oxford are favourites. They have not lost a game. They are the best team since 1923. May the best team win ! Play up, both sides !) But what is this? There is a man behind me with a rattle. Worse, twelve young men in unison chant C-A-M-B-R-I-D-G-E . . . CAMBRIDGE! in true campus style. What did I tell you? There is a penalty against Cambridge in the first minute. Another penalty a minute later. (Dirty ! Play the game Cambridge ! Another penalty. Well played ref. ! What ? Against Oxford ? Ref., you've left your specs behind ! Now then, watch your step. This is Twickenham.)
At once it was clear that Cambridge were out to stop Donnelly and the Oxford backs. Steele-Bodger, the Cambridge captain, was only nominally among the forwards. He was seldom in the scrum and stood well back from any line-out, ready, on the instant, to
* Scrum-half for Oxford 5927 ; M.P. for Huddersfield 1945. race for Donnelly if Oxford got the ball. And all the Cambridge three-quarters marked right up, so that each reached his man at the same second as the ball. These tactics put Oxford off for quite a time, but they put Cambridge off, too, for, whenever the ball came out on the Cambridge side, the Cambridge three-quarters looked at it rather irritably as though it was interfering with their job of tackling opponents. The ball took the hint and, for the next fifteen minutes, came out consistently on the Oxford side— brilliant hooking by the aged Gilthorpe since the Cambridge for- wards were shoving well. Donnelly tried a number of short kicks ahead, but Cangley, the Cambridge full-back, was always there to take the catch cleanly ; and each time he showed a mannerism I have never seen duplicated on a rugger field. He seemed to twirl the ball reflectively in his hands and cock his chin in the air as though to say, " Is this the moment for Kick Three or for Kick Six?" Having made his decision he then kicked and, whether it was Three or Six or Sixty-Six, it was always extraordinarily effec- tive. Cooper and Bevan, the two Oxford insides, tried to break through, but were always held by a fine defence and then, suddenly, there was a score. From a scrum not far from the Cambridge posts, Newton-Thompson sent back a beautiful pass to Donnelly, who took two quick steps to the right, steadied himself and dropped a goal. The Oxford team looked pleased in a well-bred way. Now, thought I, for the landslide. But not a bit of it. Cambridge were away almost from the kick-off, and Turner, finding himself hedged in on the wing, cross-kicked high into the centre. Newman, the Oxford full-back, was standing almost on his goal-line waiting for the ball to drop, when Steele-Bodger, coming up like a badly educated thunderbolt, left him grasping the air and crashed over for a try which was converted.
That set the game alight. Oxford had been led only twice before this season. They did not like it. First their forwards carried the ball downfield and over the line but were beaten for the touch- down. Then Cooper broke through but kicked ahead to the im- passive Cangley when he might have passed, and at last the ball flashed along the line to Swarbrick who got over by the corner flag with approximately an eighth of an inch to spare. It seemed all Oxford now, but they could not score. Wilson did a typical for- ward's run. He clutched the ball in both hands, felt guilty about handling it at all, looked everywhere for someone who'd take it, made fifty yards in the meantime and was tackled a foot from the line. And no one got nearer than that until half-time.
The second half began as the first had ended, with Oxford getting the ball and pressing. Almost at once there was a lovely try. Newton-Thompson taught the Cambridge backs the danger of marking up when he suddenly broke through from the scrum. He passed to Ryneveld who looked as though he might score. But he was caught and passed to Donnelly who immediately threw a long W. J. A. Davies pass over the heads of two opponents to Cooper, and Cooper was over the line a second later. That and the goal which followed made it 12-5. It should have been 17-5 a moment later. Donnelly picked up a fast, loose pass in midfield, swerved slightly and passed on, just as he was tackled, to Bevan, who passed on to Swarbrick, who went over full bat behind the posts. Donnelly fluffed the kick. But that try was the end of the match.
Cambridge fought on ; but the winter mist rose out of the ground and began to cover the fields, the trees, even the church spire of Twickenham village. Once an errant fist came out of the gloom and Mr. Lambert gave a penalty—Mr. Lambert, that admirable referee who never seemed to move but was always there.
But soon it was time for tea.
So that was Twickenham again, one of the stately homes of leisured England. Though the Varsity Match was played in mid- week, there will be no stories of essential workers lured by it from the export drive. Comparatively few essential workers play rugby, because they can't learn it on the hard paving of a back street. For them soccer is the game. Maybe, in the next few years, because thirty boys can enjoy space which soccer would reserve for twenty-two, some elementary and secondary schools may decide to adopt rugby. I hope they do.
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