Playing Rugby for the school

I wouldn’t say that I have been particularly sporting, however, I have “had a go” at many different games over the years.

Most of it my sporting experience was of the “knock-about” variety rather than organised sport.  The trouble with organised sport was that it required talent, skill, training and commitment.  Now I have a fairly compulsive personality and so commitment is not a great problem once I am interested in a subject, and I appreciate the value of training to bring out talent and develop skills … but these have to be present in the first place, and in my case, I am sorry to say, they are fairly limited.

Anyway, as a result of trying so many sports over the years I know the rules of many games and can turn my hand to almost any of them.  I quite enjoyed playing Squash and Volleyball when I was young, but they were never big sports – so there was not much opportunity to play them.    Perhaps that was why I liked them – nobody watching and so less chance of embarrassing myself in public … and not that much competition.  Another reason, looking back on it, why I liked Squash in particular, was that it was an individual sport … so there was less of a sense of letting other members of the team down by silly mistakes or a lack of talent … on the other hand, my hero, (Alistair Cooke), was a great fan of two “individual” sports – Golf and Tennis … I have never played golf and, as a schoolboy, I played one full match of tennis and lost: six-love, six-love, six-love … I never took up Tennis again.

Without much talent and without practice to develop whatever miniscule skills I might posses, I always joke that I was a natural choice for seventeenth man on the fourth team for the Rugby club.  For the record, the Rugby clubs I belonged to only ever turned out four teams … as a result the the fourth team had very few matches and played very irregularly … and, anyway, a Rugby team only fields fifteen players … so I was always the second reserve … the last choice.

When it came to Rugby, my interest in the sport came about almost by accident – like so much in my life.  A friend of mine talked me into volunteering for the school team when I was 14.  Now, ours was basically a soccer school and everyone played football.  There was plenty of talent, and no chance of my being picked for a team.  The Rugby team was different, however, more like a social club.  It was run a retired Army major and we all called him Major, or Sir.  He taught the Third and Fourth Boys Remove classes … basically boys who were never going to do well in examinations and were thought to be “a bit of a handful”.  His military style, hypnotic glare and barking voice probably stood him in very good stead – but he although he instilled fear in everyone who met him, he also managed to command great respect and affection from those who did get to know him.

From a public school and military background he and the Councillor (a similar character who also taught the Boys Remove) were naturals for coaching the school Cricket team.  The Major, however, ran the school’s three rugby teams on his own.   Even though he conscripted many of the his Remove classes into the teams, (those that didn’t play Soccer), there were never enough players.  I turned up for our first practice on Thursday and was told:  “There’s a match on Saturday, be here at nine o’clock and bring two shillings (10p now) for the bus.”  I thought I was going to watch the game and perhaps learn a little … but there were only eleven of us and I found myself in the three quarter line …wondering what on earth was going on.  We lost.  We lost nearly every match. Still, we had fun doing so.

There is a saying that “Soccer is a game for gentlemen played by hooligans, but Rugby is a game for hooligans played by gentlemen.”  I don’t know if that is a fair reflection, especially in these days when the sport is more professional than it was in my day.  (At that time “professionalism” used to be a dirty word in the game.)  There is another maxim that Rugby has a place for all sorts of players … it doesn’t matter how big or small, tall or short, fat or slim you are … there’s a place for you in the team.  I am quite small and certainly not a typical “prop forward”, but that’s the position I played for most of my school career.  Over the years, I have played in virtually every position, except the crucial positions of scrum-half and fly-half.

One of things I learned to appreciate in those early days was the camaraderie of the team.   At first I wasn’t sure.  The Remove boys were renowned for being troublesome hooligans, and   OK, so they smoked … they swore … they fought … but  they turned out to be regular guys with a sense of humour and loyalty.  They were not half as frightening as I, in my timid way had thought of them beforehand.  In the Monday morning assemblies the results of the school’s soccer matches were reported simply: First Eleven versus Nunnery Wood, 1-0; Second Eleven versus Dyson Perrins, 2-3 … and so on.  The Rugby reports however, were full match reports prepared by the Major and read out by the Deputy Headmistress, complete with names and blow by blow accounts.  On one occasion she suggested that as so few people played the game, the results were usually so disappointing, and time was short, (I think the Major was also absent on that occasion), then she might give the report a miss … but everyone in the room, (or so it seemed), let out a groan and so she relented.  I hate to think what the atmosphere in the staff room would have been like if she hadn’t done so … the Major would not have been amused.  Those reports were really important to some of the characters involved … it was the only form of recognition and worth that some people ever received.

When I was fifteen I decided that I wanted to have my Saturdays to myself, and announced that I was leaving the team.  I still remember the look of betrayal on the Major’s face and the way I was ostracized by my former teammates.  As it happens, it didn’t last long … although I liked having my Saturday’s free I also missed the flow of adrenalin and sense of belonging … and I was soon back in the team.

The boys of the Remove classes left school as soon as compulsory schooling was over … so the school’s first team needed an influx of fresh blood from the sixth form, and every year there was a trawl to see who could be persuaded or drafted into the team.  As a result, we tended to have a young, less talented and less experienced team than many of the local schools, and this was often reflected in our results.  The Major never gave up, however, and neither did we.

The Major was a real character.  Rumour had it than in the second world war his jeep had driven over a landmine and he lost half a finger in the incident.  I don’t know how much truth there was in the rumour, but I well remember how he used to point at you with the stub of the finger and the fear it used to instill in even the hardest of characters.  He was feared by all and sundry and just knowing him and being able to talk to him was a source of kudos.  I was walking through the school one day and called me over: “Claytor, come here.”  I forget what he wanted but all of my friends, (“Cream Puffs” – he called them because they weren’t “man enough” to play Rugby … for that matter neither was I, technically, I was only in the team by default because there weren’t enough volunteers to play), stood by quaking in their boots.  When the Major and I laughed together at something, they almost went into apoplexy.

He and his wife took us to see the local first class team, (Gloucester), play a match against another of the country’s strongest teams, (Leicester).  It was the first time I had seen a mass of people engrossed in what was still, not only to us but generally at that time, very much a minority sport.  It was a really enlightening and invigorating experience and I have always enjoyed attending matches ever since, no matter who is playing.

My brother, having passed the dreaded eleven plus, went to a local selective grammar school where Rugby was the major sport and soccer was definitely looked down upon.  Everything he studied in school seemed to be different from what I studied … for example: he learned German whereas I struggled with French; he learned about the Georgians, Tories and Whigs, but my history seemed to stop with the Tudors and Stuarts; he studied weird subjects like economics which I wasn’t to encounter for years.  In Rugby, however, we had something in common.  He was a much better player than I was, and he taught me one very valuable lesson – one I am certain that the Major would have disapproved of: “Don’t worry too much about running across the field to get from one scrum to another … the action has a habit of coming back towards you, anyway.”

Together we joined the local Rugby club and I started playing for the fourths … never rising any further, but content with my weekly run around.  Training twice a week was actually harder than a game … and, in theory, I could have missed it because I was never in the running for a place in a more senior team, and the fourths were always a “scratch team”.

When I went to college I carried on playing, but suddenly I was in more demand as a referee.  Once again, that happened by accident.  The team arrived at a game and there wasn’t a referee and as someone had to do it … I was asked.  As a natural choice for seventeenth man, my skill on the team weren’t really missed and my refereeing meant that everyone else got a chance to play.  The next I was drafted in again, and so an unofficial career as a referee began.  I didn’t go through any of the training or examinations that are normally necessary for such a role – and it showed … but it was only a “scratch team”, a “knock about game” … and I got away with it … most of the time, at least.

When I started teaching the time came for me to pass on the enthusiasm that the Major had instilled in me.  I began simply watching games because the school fields were close to my home in North London, soon I was being asked to accompany a team to away matches and then I found that I was given my own team to coach.  Me.  Coach.  It seemed, and still seems, as if I was out of my league … but there was a need and I stepped into the role.  I was never a great success.  I couldn’t whip up the drive and enthusiasm as other coaches could, but over the years we had a reasonable record of success.

The school had an old boy’s club and I joined it.  So did some of the sixth form and it was really quite funny to running along carrying the ball and have some seventeen year old yelling at me “Pass it sir, pass it.”  We agreed that on the pitch he could call me Ian, but if he ever tried it in class he would be in trouble.  He was never in trouble.

My playing days ended quite suddenly.  I arrived early for a match one Saturday afternoon, to be greeted by cheers and was told to get in the car.  A little surprised, because I thought that the fourth’s were playing at home, I did what I was told.  We got to the ground and I started to get changed. I looked around and couldn’t see any of my regular teammates, but the penny only dropped when they gave me a shirt … it was a second team shirt.  Someone hadn’t turned up and I had been drafted in to take their place.  Once again I ended up in the three quarter line wondering what on earth was going on – just like in my first game.

This time, however, I was well and truly out of my depth.  This was a serious game with serious opposition.  The weather was beautiful.  The pitch was on field under and embankment carrying trains of the London Underground system.   That’s about all I remember.;  Apparently, at one point in the game, someone in the opposition had the ball and came running at me … I tackled him and, so I am told, it was a “cracking” tackle.  I am not sure if that means that it was a spectacularly good tackle, or they could hear the bones crack.  As it happens, I hadn’t broken any bones – but I did suffer concussion.  They were calling me all sorts of name, Peter, Paul, Mary … and I was answering to all of them as if it was my own.  They took me to hospital where the doctor diagnosed concussion and told me to rest, not to read or watch television.  Ok, no problem.  Monday I felt well and went to work – no problem.

Later my shoulder started to hurt and began to swell.  I went back to hospital and had more x-rays.  The consultant told me that one of my vertebrae had chipped and the chip of bone was “traveling” and it had trapped a nerve.  It would probably give me problems throughout my life – sometimes trapping a nerve and giving me pinching pains, but most of the time, I wouldn’t know a thing about it.  However, “it would be better” if I gave up playing Rugby.  So I did.

I continued coaching a school team, but perhaps without the same enthusiasm and conviction as before (and that was never very good anyway), but I still enjoyed going to and watching matches.  It is one of the things I miss a little, here in Kyrgyzstan.  There is a local Rugby Federation and they organize a festival every summer, but to my regret I have never managed to get there.  The Kazakhs have a fairly good team – not quite up to the standard of the Ukraine, but most of the Ukrainian national team play in Europe.  The police have a number of rugby teams – it is thought to promote fitness and character.  I do get to see the occasional Six Nations match, but these days I am limited mostly to reading reports of matches on the internet.

I once saw an advert on the internet for the National team shirt of the Kyrgyz Republic and I thought, “I must get that”, but the site was based in the US and they wouldn’t accept my credit card as my IP address was in Kyrgyzstan … crazy isn’t it … I’m in Kyrgyzstan but I can’t buy the Kyrgyz National Rugby shirt!

1. be a citizen of the Kyrgyz Republic,
2. have a degree in Tourism, and
3. have at least three years experience in tourism.

Under this provision I couldn’t be the director of the Celestial Mountains Tour Company.  Although I satisfy the third of these conditions … the company was established in 1997, and so I have over ten years experience … but I fall foul of the other two.  I do have official Residence status here in Kyrgyzstan – but my passport is of “a different colour” … I am not a Kyrgyz citizen.  Also my degree is not in tourism, it’s in Theology and the Psychology of Education.  I also have a postgraduate diploma, but that’s in Mathematical Education … and so wouldn’t help.  Neither would the fact that I taught the IT units on a Tourism and Leisure vocational course back in the UK …

For the record … in 2009 there was another draft law proposed – and it included the same provision.  The law was passed by the Parliament – but vetoed by the President in the face of opposition from the industry, and sent back with the instruction to revise it.

Most people are surprised to learn that I have a degree in Theology, (and the Psychology of Education!).  Indeed, I think it was a surprise to everyone at the time – my friends and family included.  We weren’t a particularly religious family.  My parents, like most English people of their generation, were nominally Christians and would probably have answered “C of E”, (Church of England, Anglican or what is known in the US as Episcopalian), on any form that asked for their religion.

These days I don’t normally talk much about Religion (and despite the name of this page, I am not going to now), but that wasn’t always the case.  It might seem odd for someone with a degree in Theology, but I tend to agree with the old adage that there are three things that you don’t discuss in “polite conversation”: Sex, Politics and Religion … they are private matters, between a man and his lover, the ballot box, and his god.

When I was growing up, on the other hand, I took a lively interest in religion.  It was a major part of my life.  So much so that I wanted to become, (indeed, I planned to become), a Minister in the church.  Looking back at it now, with the benefit of hindsight, it seems to me that a lot of it was social … rather than a question of conviction.  There was no dramatic conversion, no “Damascus Road” experience, no “blinding lights” … but then again, not every believer has such an experience.  Like many others, I sort of “drifted” into the church – and then out again … “a backslider”.

It started when I started attending the Sunday School at the local Salvation Army and then, later, at the Methodist Church, then the local Crusaders Group and finally Bible Classes at the local Gospel Hall … I don’t think I ever attended all four on one day, but my Sundays were pretty busy.

Basically I was taken along at first by one of my friends, but when they “dropped out”, I didn’t.  The “classes” got smaller as more and more people stopped coming and soon I was one of the few left.  The others all seemed to belong to families which were firm members of the church and so were like “conscripts”, whereas I stood out as a “volunteer”.  I got more and more involved in Church affairs on an informal basis and eventually asked the Minister if I could join the church as a member.  He was delighted and probably jumped the gun a little – instead of explaining everything to me and making sure that I understood and was ready he sort of rushed the decision and pushed the process through.  The next thing I know, I am a member.

“Membership has its privileges” as the advertising slogan put it … but it also carries responsibilities and obligations.  Was I ready to accept those?  Looking back on it now I think that I can probably, honestly, say “No”, but at the time I felt ready.  I didn’t, however, accept everything I was told blindly.  Like the early Methodists I was very much a “freethinker”.    I created quite a stir, for example, amongst members of the church, (who are traditionally teetotallers), when I took a summer job as a barman in a local pub.  What was wrong with that? – didn’t Jesus turn water into wine at a wedding? – is the wine an important part of the communion ritual?  The problem wasn’t alcohol in itself, it lay in the abuse of alcohol.  Surely it was better to drink alcohol in the controlled situation of a public house, served by a barman than at home where there were no social controls.

Perhaps, however, I was a little too ready to accept what I was learning … to take things on trust, as a matter of faith.  In life you have to take some things on trust … or faith … and perhaps, looking back with hindsight, I did take too much on trust without asking enough questions and analyzing the stories, accounts and precepts.

After a while I felt ready to take the next step – I really felt that I wanted to work in the church.  So I asked the question about how I should set about it, and once again I found doors being opened for me … I didn’t feel that I was being rushed into something, but I was being “carried along with the tide”.

Finally, someone gave me some advice which seemed sensible.  Our Minister had retired and his replacement was a young man, with a young wife who didn’t really see herself as a wife of the Manse.  Most of the people in the church were a lot older than them and, to be fair, she, in particular, didn’t fit in.  I don’t think it was anyone’s fault – indeed, it might just have been a mismatch … if he had been assigned to an inner city church, then I think they would both felt much happier.  They would have felt that they were making a real difference rather than being tucked away in some backwater.  Eventually, he decided that perhaps he had made a mistake and decided to resign … not just from his post as our Minister, but from the Church as a whole.  It was a blow.  I was shocked, but it was pointed out to me that I was also young and who knows what the future might bring.   Instead of deciding to go to Theological College, perhaps I should think like an actor who always has a second string to his bow for when he is “resting” … that is – when he doesn’t have an acting job … a role to perform on stage.

I knew that this was good advice – as I have said elsewhere, I don’t believe in closing doors until you have to … so I looked around and chose teaching as a suitable “second” career.  As things turned out, it was to end up being my main vocation for most of my life – sometimes, I think, even today when I am running a tour business.

The “backsliding” started after I left home to go to college.  I had chosen my college for several reasons, including:

• it was not far from home,
• it was a Methodist college, and
• it offered me the opportunity to continue my studies in my two “favoured” subjects … Religion and Mathematics.

The Theology lectures I attended, however, started to raise more and more questions in my mind, as did the new subjects that I encountered, such as Psychology and Sociology … and what I was learning in Mathematics gave me the analytical tools to tackle, (although not necessarily to answer), those questions.   I didn’t like the answers that I felt I was being drawn towards … and I started to wonder if I had, indeed, made a mistake.  I then made a fateful decision, on purely emotional grounds, that I needed to take a breather … I needed to think things through for myself before I took an irrevocable step.

I wrote to my Superintendent Minister at home and explained the situation.  I can imagine the shockwave that letter created – I felt some of the ripples sixty five miles away – a much bigger shockwave than my being a Methodist barman.

I wasn’t ready to leave the church at that time … I still felt that I believed … but I felt that I didn’t have (and I don’t have today) the conviction and certainty that I used to have – and that I felt I needed to have in order to become a Minister.   So, I stopped attending church several times every Sunday … but not altogether …  Slowly, however, I drifted away from the church.  My membership lapsed and if anyone asks me now, I tend to say I am agnostic about religion … perhaps, veering towards atheism.

I was once asked whether I felt, as things eventually turned out, if I felt that I had wasted my time in University studying Theology.  The answer is no, emphatically, NO.  I learned a lot in that time – about the culture in which I grew up (- just think about how much of the music, art, history and literature is tied up in religion), about ethics, about people and how to deal with them and, of course, about myself.

It’s part of me.  It helped to make me who I am, and what I am.

Well, Yeeees, technically that’s true … although I always feel uncomfortable about this …  It’s a genuine degree … a genuine Oxford Degree … I did go to Oxford, I did all the things that Oxford undergraduates do, the sort of “Brideshead” experience that most people associate with the name of Oxford: I went punting on the Isis and the Thames; drank in the Mitre and other alehouses (pubs); played Rugby – although I never went rowing; strolled down the High and Broad Streets and bought my books, (on account) in Blackwells; oh, and yes, I did study (and it wasn’t easy) and sat the exams (neither were they); and I sat in the Sheldonian Theatre to have the degree conferred on me.  And, as I say, it is an Oxford University Degree … albeit a Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) and not a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree.  I didn’t buy it over the internet or from from some agency that no-one’s ever heard of (except their clients) … but I was never an undergraduate, a member of the University.  That’s why I say that I got into Oxford through the “backdoor”.

Let me explain.

Oxford University claims, according to their website, to be “one of the leading universities of the world” … and quite rightly so!  It is the oldest university in the English speaking world and traces its history back to the 12th century when foreigners (including a number of English scholars) were expelled from the university of Paris.

Unlike most universities, it’s not a single monolithic organization but a collegiate organization, a federation or a collection of thirty odd independent colleges and ten “halls”, (Permanent Private Halls or  PPH), with a central administration and various departments which carry out research.  The oldest of these constituent institutions can trace it’s history back to 1221, whilst the youngest was founded in just 2008.  In order to study at the University, undergraduates (students) have to belong to one of these Colleges or Halls, and, given the history and reputation of the place, competition is fierce.  Although independent, the colleges do work together and with the central administration to ensure that the “best” applicants are offered a place even if it’s not at their preferred college.  Selection is based upon a combination of examination results (either existing results or predicted results), submitted examples of written work, interviews and special admission tests.

Although there are lectures – and I went to several very good ones which I remember well to this day – teaching is based mainly on the “tutorial” where an individual or small group of students (usually no more than four) meet with their tutor (or “don”) to discuss a topic and/or the students’  work, (essays, etc.).

Now, the problem is that the college I attended is not, (was not – it doesn’t exist anymore as the result of a “merger”), in the list of those thirty odd colleges and ten halls.  Indeed, when it was founded back in 1851, it wasn’t even in Oxford.

Westminster College, was based, (as the name implies), in Westminster, London.  It only moved to Oxford, (actually to a purpose built campus on the outskirts of Oxford – on the other side of the newly constructed Ring Road by the time I got there), at the end of the 1950′s.  The Horseferry Road site in Westminster had been small and restricted the activities and growth of the college.  The buildings were requisitioned during the First World War and the college had nowhere to continue its work and so ceased to function for the duration of hostilities.  So, as early as the 1920′s plans were mooted to move from its Central London location.  Then, the original neo-Gothic buildings were damaged in the blitz during the second world war, and they were never repaired, (… they were eventually demolished in the 1960′s and the headquarters of the Channel 4 TV station now stand on the site).  Finally the college moved to its new home in 1959.  The new campus featured a mix of Oxford style “quad”, a ‘New England’ style of architecture, and a large and distinctive chapel, (being a Methodist college, the chapel was designed to be the focal point of the campus).

Originally the college specialized in training teachers for Methodist schools and had a close relationship with the University of London. Following the move to Oxford, it offered a number of Theology and Education degrees which were originally validated by the Council for National Academic Awards (the CNAA), but when that organization was abolished, four of the Colleges of Education, (Teacher Training Colleges), entered an academic partnership with the University, allowing their students to read for degrees of the University through the Department of Education.  Westminster was one of those four colleges.  It was never officially a college of the University of Oxford, but over the course of time undergraduate students who “read” for their degrees at the college were entitled to become members of Oxford University Student Union and the Oxford Union and once they graduated, to associate membership of the Oxford University Society, (the alumni association of the University of Oxford).  They received their notification of results from the University, not the College. Degree certificates bore the crest of the University of Oxford and were issued by the University Offices, with graduation ceremonies presided over by University officials in the Sheldonian Theatre. Subsequently, although these students were not “matriculated” by the University throughout their studies, they are entitled to call themselves University of Oxford graduates.

Apparently the move to Oxford confused a lot of people … For example, back in the 1960′s, a famous politician accepted an invitation to speak at the college … he arrived late because he thought it was “just down the road” from the House of Commons!    Then, there were stories of students who applied to the college because they thought it was in London, (well, they would, wouldn’t they, given the name name “Westminster College” … however, I can’t help wondering what was going through their minds when they wrote the Oxford address on the envelope when they posted off their application forms!).

When I applied, however, I wasn’t confused.  I knew it was in Oxford.  I didn’t, however, make the connection with the University … or anticipate the confusion that this would entail later on.  My reasons for choosing to apply to Westminster included:

• it was not far from home,
• it was a Methodist college, and
• it offered me the opportunity to continue my studies in my two “favoured” subjects … Religion and Mathematics … allowing me to chose a career either in the Church, or in teaching.