The Culmination of Sacrifices

It is the weekend (14th to the 15th) of our last match. Mathematically
speaking, if we managed to beat Trinity College by more than 200
points, then we would go through, but realistically speaking... Never
mind.

Anyways, training was on Saturday at 1400 hours. With not
much time left we decided to commence with a new training regime which
sadly, didn't go too well. Kinda confused us lot actually. But the
workout was much needed.

Somehow I didn't feel too sore after the training compared to my last outing. Daniel's on the way to his six packs! Haha..
I even had the liberty to play an hour or two of tennis with Paul,
Mike, and Janice. Since I haven't played tennis since I was 12 I
obviously sucked real bad. I did serve some great serves though, a la
AndyRoddick! ;P

The palpable tension on Sunday was quite
unnerving at times. Maybe I should elucidate on the importance of this
match. Janet Clarke Hall was owned by Trinity College when it was first
established by Lady Janet Clarke. You see, Janet Clarke Hall was the
original women-only college (not anymore la of course!) and Trinity
College was a men-only college. So basically Trinity College has been
stepping on us ever since we came to be. The day we became a sovereign
college was a proud day. Since then, loads of bloodshed has tainted our
unwritten history.

For example, since they own the gates from
uni to our college, they found it a good idea to lock the gates, making
us either climb over the 7-foot gate or take the long way along the
main road. Of course, we shall not be undermined by those misogynistic
bastards! One of us had the audacity (which we all are in awe of) to actually get a bolt cutter and break the f*cking lock off! Haha! Another triumphant day for JCH!
However, due to security reasons, and the plausible presence of Trinity
spies, the identity of the person has not been divulged yet. Not that
it matters anyway!

Moving back to footie, I find it pertinent
to mention that we actually beat Trinity last year! According to the
stories it was a majestic feeling and very memorable indeed to the
players and supporters. That got us all worked up and eager to bash
thoseoppressive yokels!

That
Sunday lunch we sat as a team and ate together, just as the men of 300
would. After the preliminary checks (gear, mouth guard,
water and so on), we then proceeded to a tutoring room to have a
tactical meeting. The boys from Medley (if I haven't mentioned it
before,JCH and Medley teamed up together to make a football team. We
are the smallest colleges on campus, so it was perfectly logical to put
us together. After all, the total amount of mates fromJCH and Medley
combined is not even as many as Trinity's) came soon after. Funnily,
the coach came in with a massive hangover, and couldn't even remember
his all-inspiring speeches! It didn't matter too much though, because
Ed (the co-head coach) laid out the basics for us. It's either we win
or we win.

After a half hour of that we gathered our stuff and
headed to the field. We reached a half hour early and proceeded with
warm-up training. Trinity had the bloody cockiness to not even show up
till 5 minutes before the match! That really made our blood boil.

Then crunch time
came. We huddled together, with our arms around our neighbour's
shoulders as Ed gave one last poignant message "Okay boys, this is what
we have been training for. All those waking up at 6.30 and running our
butts off is for this day. Trinity came up here thinking that they are
going to win easy. They're wrong. They might have the skills, but we
have the heart and the determination to give them a run for their
money. If we can keep the intensity up for the first 10 minutes, we
know that we can heap the pressure on them. This is it boys, this is
it. Okay, hands together now.. On the count of 3. 1, 2, 3, Allies!"

With
the visceral screams of Allies, we headed towards the field. A few of
us headed to the sub bench (no bench though, so we stood), including
me. The referee blew his whistle, and the game commenced. Immediately
we were on the offence. The game got messy for a while as Allies ran
for every ball and gave our everything. However, not too soon after,
Trinity drew first blood with a lucky goal from the middle. Not to be
undone, we scored our first proper goal of the tournament not too soon
after, courtesy of Reese's (I think that's how it's spelled) grounder
goal. Yells of triumph were heard as the boys congratulated Reese. The
screams of joy from the girls of Medley andJCH were heard from the
other end of the field. As the quarter wore on Trinity's class shown as
they managed to score another crappy goal or two.

The referee
then blew his whistle, signalling the end of the first quarter. I was a
bit disappointed that I haven't been on the field yet, but I knew that
I would get my chance. We didn't have much time, so the coach screamed
for us to huddle up quick, and gave us a few pointers. "Guys, I can see
you all doing your best out there, but all this would go to waste if
you can't do anything productive when the ball is in your possession.
We are beating them in terms of possession but we are not converting
them into any sort of real chances. Teamwork is very important in this
game". The boys then entered the second quarter with the same
conviction as the first.

After just a minute or two, Matey had
to be subbed out after getting a hit in the face, resulting in his nose
bleeding quite badly. Adam was sent on. Just a few minutes later I was
sent on after Brendan, who was playing as forward flank. I was joined
byRushith, who then played forward. The feeling that came over me when I stepped foot onto that ground was quite exhilarating
. Unfortunately, I didn't have the liberty of taking it all in as I had
to concentrate on the game. With that I was off! Most of the game was
spent in the middle and on the left flank, which left me isolated out
on the right. The opposition too noticed that I was not getting the
ball much and actually left me roaming around the top right corner of
the field (or maybe it was my great positional play). If someone
actually looked up and passed me the ball I would have had a clear-cut
chance at goal. Of course, it wasn't to be. The only time I was in
action was when I went after the ball at the same time with this bulky
dude from Trinity and had a very nice clash with him. Trust me, running
full speed into another person is NOT something I would do everyday.
That said, it did get the adrenaline going. The second most memorable
moment was when I had to dive for the ball. Upon reaching the ball I
was immediately engulfed with crazed players both teammates and
opposition. Beneath the squirming bodies I managed to flick the ball to
a teammate, and immediately got up to assist him.

That said, we
didn't do too well in the second quarter and were further behind by a
couple of goals. We can pretty much imagine how the coach is gonna be.
And
true enough, he gave us a good rollicking! The third quarter was more
of the same, which didn't bode well for our chances at winning the game.

The
last quarter was a whole different ballgame altogether. We were
galvanised by the powerful speech by Ed. Watching him run himself
ragged, as well as Will and Damien really got our blood pumping again.
It was a disastrous start to the quarter. Trinity scored a hell of a
scrappy goal almost immediately. Instead of killing us off it made us
even more pumped up, and we responded with a beautifulfree kick by
Andy. That provided the impetus for us to go for the impossible. Two
minutes later, we scored another goal! Cries of ecstasy erupted from
the boys, accompanied by wild cheers from our supporters. It became a
one-sided quarter, as we battered Trinity's defences from all sides of
the field. Next came David's attempt, which was flying for an agonizing
few seconds before hitting the inside of the post. Groans were heard as
it meant that we got only one point instead of 6. Of course, that
didn't stop us much!

Not too long after the goal I was given the
signal to replace Hugh, who was limping off with a slight twitch on his
hamstring. As Hugh played centre forward, I was in charge of fending
off a 6-feet player with the physique of a rugby player.Yay . I
couldn't let the team down though. I was quite proud when I managed to
punch a ball clear before he could reach for it. However, the final
nail into the coffin came a minute later as we saw our co-head coach go
down, and we had to substitute Ed. It was a massive blow for us, as he
was the one holding the team together and keeping the morale up. We
never really recovered after the injury, and Trinity scored a few more
lousy goals.

When the whistle blew, we could only look into
the sky and ponder, "What if?" With extreme reluctance we shook hands
with the Trinity players and mouth "Congrats" as sincerely as possible.
Then we huddled together for a debriefing. The coach went on about how
he was extremely proud to be coaching us, and that we played the best
we could, and that was all that mattered. Then he told us the bad news
that Ed was sent to the hospital with a suspected broken leg, and
Sammie with a suspected broken nose. Trinity made things worse by
singing cliched victory songs that made us sick to our stomach. At the
best, it was a Pyrrhic defeat, but knowing that I played with the best bunch of guys there is cheered me up a bit. I also spent a little bit of time reminiscing, realizing that this was probably my first and last footie game ever.

We walked to the Royal Melbourne Hospital to visit Ed and Sam. Unfortunately, we kinda became too noisy and were ushered out by the hospital guards. After the visit, we headed off to Pugg's (a pub) for footie sculls! As all footie sculls are, we were booted out for being too rowdy. So we headed to Clyde's instead. This time, we wisely decided to sit outside, away from the other customers.

With that, footie sculls began! Basically footie sculls consists of buying jugs of beer and singing drinking songs, upon which a certain group has to stand up and scull (bottoms-up) their glass of beer when they have to. For example, we sang about all the scorers during the game. The players who scored then have to stand up and down their beer while the song is going on. Then another group is called upon, like the forwards. Pretty soon everyone is sculling their beer. Some 'unlucky' ones may have to scull glasses of beers without stop. Lincoln, for example, sculled three times in a row for playing as a forward, a midfielder and was from Medley.

As time passed, people went off. With a smaller crowd we proceeded into the pub. Still in a competitive mode, someone decided to have a boat race between JCH and Medley, to which loud shouts of "Oi!" greeted it. A boat race we will have!

Basically this is how it works. Two groups of 6 sit opposite each other, in this case JCH being on one side and Medley the other. Everyone is to sit down with a glass of beer in front of them. The countdown starts by first asking everyone to put their thumbs on the table. Then they are to place their chins onto the table. Then off they go! The first person has to stand up and scull his beer as fast as possible, upon which he would then slam the glass onto the table, prompting the next person to then stand up and scull his beer. This goes on until the last persson sculls his beer and slams it on the table. This first team to finish sculling wins obviously.

The first time round I was the first person, which put a lot of pressure on me as I didn't really know how well I would do. As it turns out, I actually did quite well, finishing the same time as my opponent. It was pretty intense and hilarious as everyone spurred each other on to scull their beer. It was really neck-to-neck right to the end, and we actually had a tie, with both teams slamming their glasses down simultaneously (allegedly at least). With that, a second round was on to break the tie. This time I was in the middle. Unfortunately, we couldn't resist the sculling might of Medley and succumbed at the final hurdle. All in good fun though, and round up a truly memorable day.

Well, that's about it folks. That's my story on my first day of footie. It actually is a pretty cool game, both to watch and play. It's kinda sad to know that I won't be playing footie for quite a while, but then again, there is hockey and basketball to look forward to!

With that said, it was sad to lose Ed to some horrific injury, Thank God he didn't break his leg, just sprained a few ligaments. A really cool guy, and a great example of how to have fun (the same guy who we ties to a pillar and who waxed his chest). He went home for a week, but he's back in college now!