The school game, which is a cross between rugby and football and has been played since at least 1766 (the wall was erected in 1717), is arguably the world's most elite sport. It was the Duke of Wellington, after all, who famously remarked that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.
How does Eton work? Are all its students resident at the school or do a few go home at the end of each day?
ReplyDeleteI would imagine that children who reside at their school would become independent adults at an earlier age than children who say go to a government school and come home each day to Mum and Dad. That said I don’t think I would have had the right character to have gone to these elite schools.
I would also imagine that a sort of negative pear-pressure could well develop in such schools, but one could argue that about any school I suppose…
The Wall Game is perhaps the most boring sport ever played. It is vastly over-hyped in the run up to the event, but I have never been able to stomach more than ten minutes of the thing before abandoning it for something more interesting. The one consolation is that it always gives me an hour of peace and quiet and enables me to pack my bags and be out the door as soon as they finish (upon the end of the Wall Game, boys are allowed to depart - it is, to answer Mr Byers' question, an all-boarding school - for their second "Short Leave", or weekend at home, of the term). The last time it was interesting was in 1909 when one M. H. Macmillan, a Colleger and later better known as Harold Macmillan, played: in that year, a goal was scored.
ReplyDeleteEton actually has another unique game, and one more widespread than the Wall Game. This is the Field Game, of which I have an even more limited comprehension. To try and explain it in layman's terms (knowing, as I do not, despite having played it for the last three years, the requisite technical terminology &c.), it has the worst bits of football and the worst bits of rugby condensed in one handy sport.
It may also interest readers of TM that I am only able to access your journal at the moment because I am at home from school on holiday: the College, in its infinite wisdom, has always banned the ability to post to TM and other weblogs and recently blocked the site altogether, no doubt fearing that you would somehow poison my mind with counter-revolutionary fervour...
Dear Rex, thanks for your comment.
ReplyDeleteI assume of course that they banned Blogger in general and not specifically The Monarchist blogspot, but I nevertheless had fun with this fact in the new post further up.
Fraternal Regards,
You would be right in your assumption. I have tried many ways around it, but now that they have even blocked Google's cache links I am reduced only to reading The Monarchist in the holidays (though as Sir Osbert Sitwell once claimed that his education had been during the holidays from Eton, that may yet be no bad thing...)
ReplyDeletehi
ReplyDeletehello (:
ReplyDeletei don't understand the game.
ReplyDeletei don't like it i think.
mwuahahahah
i'm a mongol.
ReplyDeletexxxx the famous cheese man (jaapo)
ths game is fun!
ReplyDeleteYannick je faalt
ReplyDeleteja niels, jij ook xD
ReplyDeleteHallo kindertjes
ReplyDeleteJa, Yannick jij faalt
ReplyDeleteStefan
ReplyDelete