Emmanuel, Cam vs St Hugh’s, Ox
St Hugh’s College, Oxford was founded in 1886 by Elizabeth Wordsworth as an all-girls college, and for one hundred years it stayed that way, only admitting its first gentleman a mere fourteen years before the turn of the century. It’s truly staggering to think that more than half way into the nineteen eighties an institution at one of the most prominent Universities in the world was permitted to discriminate entrance on the basis of some arbitrary aspect of potential applicants’ biology.
Of course at the time this move had its detractors, those who said there was nothing wrong with denying men the right to study at the college - that they should stick to being firemen and train drivers, because, “their brains are wired that way”. Why do they even need to go to University?
Tonight’s Hugh’s team is comprised of four guys, and many would state this as a victory for the progress that has been made on equality since the days when boys weren’t even allowed through the doors. Those same people who decried the college in 1986 however, would probably see this as political correctness gone absolutely mad, that the college has purposely gone out of its way to put together an all male team as part of some gimmicky liberal agenda. After all, how could these men, built for football and farming, possibly have been the best choices for the team? They probably slept with the selection committee, too.
Emmanuel hadn’t suffered quite as badly at the hands of the PC Brigade and with one woman on their team, were the clear favourites going into the contest. This despite them having retained only one of the three mascots they felt the need for last series (with Ellie the duck making the cut while Kleiny the Bottle and Manny the Lion fell by the wayside). St Hugh’s also have what appears to be some kind of duck-like bird representing them, though it does have two heads. One of the heads has a scarf on. Is it a goose? A geese? Who knows.
Grainger negs the first starter on astronaut Tim Peake, and I saw loads of people on Twitter, mainly women it should be pointed out, saying how this proved the stupidity of the affirmative action they saw as having got him on the team. Of course this was nonsensical, as Fraser, another man, picked it up for Emma, but the cognitive dissonance necessary to sustain bigotry is rather tenacious.
They miss the first of the bonuses on Quentin Tarantino, but take the next two, with the third being an outrageous gimme on ‘Kill Bill’ that could only have been easier if they’d given you the first word and said that the second word rhymed and started with a B.
Elias nabs the next Ten for Oxford, and Grainger takes the third of the night to make up for his earlier error. Mehigan gets in on the act and takes the first of a personal six to give St Hugh’s a thirty five point lead going into the first set of pictures. Not bad for a bunch of boys, eh?
Fraser and Derby combined to wrest the lead back for Cambridge, and they hold it reasonably comfortably until the final few minutes when Mehigan took his fifth of the evening on a Canaletto painting with a determined nonchalance to start a late charge from sixty five back.
The big American shoots for his sixth and Grainger grabs his second to put the Oxonians within five points thanks to a panicked neg from Mistlin. Seconds left.
But it was the boy from Bristol, Jim Fraser, who held his nerve and completed his own sextet for Emma on the last starter of the night to secure a Cambridge victory.
A really tight, well fought game - it turns out that if you give them the chance, the lads can be just as good as the women.
Final Score: Emmanuel, Cam 170 - 155 St Hugh’s, Ox
St Hugh’s 155 means that Ulster have been confirmed for the play-offs with their losing score of 160, and the Oxford side are looking pretty safe bets to join them with only three first round matches left. Next week St Andrews take on St John’s looking to make it three Scottish teams in round two.
