Never let a wishbone grow where a backbone should be

Oh jolly well lost sir!

True story ... I took our cricket team, underage level, to one of the more desirable schools for an annual game ... we were one of the early games "warm ups" in the season for their school's fine set of lads to magnificently display their skills, after which, over a drink in the staffroom, I'd be told, "Hard luck sir ... your boys were plucky today."

That's the way the narrative was meant to have gone and the reader knows, by my even including this story ... that it did not go that way.

Now, whether it was me opening with our spinner, an unheard of thing, and collecting the opener and first drop, or whether it was the entire demeanour of our boys, the determination to "come to play", or whether it was the opposing master, miffed, taking me aside afterwards and speaking of how, "at this level of the game", we just teach the finest principles of the game, at which point I smiled and agreed: "No place for win at all costs then?" 

Whether it was any of these things or the lack of RP accent, though my language was RP ... nevertheless, I was hauled up Monday morning by our Principal, was read the letter from the opposite number at that fine school and reminded that it was a hard enough job securing that annual match in the first place ... etc.

Yes, I'd clearly misread the whole underlying game, which most certainly had not been cricket ... we had stayed not only within the laws but within the spirit ... it's just that we'd played with a great deal of "take no prisoners" spirit and our boys were afterwards right chuffed by the whole thing.

I believe the following year, a more acceptable master took our lads, to be told to bend over and pick up the bar of soap ... and he'd gladly "played the game, as it should be played". Result a foregone conclusion of course.

Why mention this? 👇🏻