OUT OF RETIREMENT AND BACK INTO IT!

It’s been a while since I wrote to you all, but my return has been induced with the gift of a personal computer. Clearly, the new webmaster is more generous than the last fellow, who used to make me use an old typewriter (and I mean old) to produce an error-free manuscript. However, it has taken me a while to master this modern convenience, and I could blame my long absence on that. More to the point, it has been that Mrs Chips is more adept than I on this machine and she has discovered the internet. She tells me it is full of plenty of sites about golf and that of course occupies most of her time when she is not away playing that confounded game.

She’s been on a trip with the Bowens again, so I’ve had some peace and quiet, though to be frank, my health has been ordinary, keeping me from the football. Once again, the good Mr Hardman, whom I taught all those years ago and had to chastise him so often for cutting the queue at the tuckshop, has come to the rescue and has dropped around video recordings of Old Xaverian games, so I have developed a new understanding of tactics by listening to the voices of the coaches during the games. From listening, I’ve also developed a new understanding of coarse language, it must be said, so the hearing aid is now turned off as I settle back with a bottle of fine red from cellar to watch proceedings.

My health issues notwithstanding, wild horses couldn’t keep me away from a clash with the ancient enemy. After an anxious morning anticipating reunions and thinking about how the game might unfold, I wound up the old car and headed along Glenferrie Road. Thoughts of days long ago came flooding back to me along the journey. I recalled how proud I was as a young student when we heard the news that Xavier had been admitted to the APS. That must have been around 1901. In the main, this meant I would have the opportunity to officially test my sporting prowess against my Presbyterian neighbours, who lived either side of my dear parents’ house in Hawthorn. “You are a rose among thistles, a rosary bead among the thorns” my mother used to remind me often when I’d come back from all-too-regular scraps with the Presbyters in an otherwise peaceful but predominantly Protestant precinct. When I think about her now, and the rumours she used to spread about them eating haggis, even on Fridays, even on Fridays in Lent, I blanch at her sectarianism. None of us anticipated what lay just a decade or so ahead and though we’d brawl on the field against the Calvinists, the big life-and-death scraps abroad brought us all together in uniform to fight those of imperialistic intent. “Godless Lutherans,” mother remarked more than once, much to my better educated father’s amusement.

Still, when the Great Interruption finally came to an end, some former Xaverians decided that continued fraternisation with our old APS foe might be more fun if we could resume hostilities with them in a sporting sort of way. Thus, the Old Xaverians Football Club was born in 1923.  These days we know them as the “Red ‘n’ Blacks”, but for years, the colours were listed as“Cardinal and Black”: I do not know or remember if this was, or was not, a dig at the Scotsmen for having the hubris to call themselves “the Cardinals”, given the lack of such high office-bearers in the Calvinist tradition. I suppose it is preferable to being known as “the Moderators”.

When one goes so far back into one’s memory, it takes some time to return, particularly in my advanced state of confusion. And here I was already, outside the gates. I turned left up the driveway and saw the manicured sporting fields on my left. Ahead of me, the chapel and the magnificent Scotch College Oval. After dodging street cars along the journey, finding a park was surprisingly easy. As I put on my topcoat and fetched my shooting stick from the trunk, I was glad inside that this time-honoured tradition of amateur footballers returning to their alma mater to play an ancient enemy had been so wisely re-established in recent years.

My mind wandered again as I strolled down to my preferred vantage position. I thought of recent clashes here – Xavs being carved up by Mr Gerstman in 2004, a smashing win in 2006 and a closer day in 2008. In my mind’s eye I recalled Mr Santalucia and Mr Gidley’s good deeds of recent years. As I drifted back into history, modern marvels exited my mind in favour of Curtain and McKenzie and Capes and Higginbotham and Hoppe and others who had done fine things here. I snapped to, and suddenly realised I was all alone. Not a striped blazer or a pair of red sweatsuit pants in sight.

For a moment, I thought that without me realising it, the good Lord had called me home. I discarded that notion reasoning that as beautiful as that old school is, heaven it is most certainly not. I wondered immediately about the lack of activity on the field and the total lack of a crowd. I knew that the Cardinals weren’t enjoying the best of seasons, but surely this clash would bring the spectators out, even if most of them would be dressed in red and black.

After some moments, perhaps quite a number, I encountered David Burnes, who had arrived to present his annual trophy to the best afield in the Xavier College First XVIII curtain-raiser . “Sir,” he rasped, respectful after all these years “we must be early.” Having taught Mr Burnes, I have long known of his lack of punctuality. “No, Master Burnes, you are never early. Something is evidently wrong” He pulled out one of those new wireless phones and made a call. “Mr Chips, they’re playing at Camberwell,” he said, both reverence and disappointment evident in his voice.

After half an hour showing me street maps I couldn’t really see, he apologised that he had to dash off to another engagement. I assured him I would be able find the Camberwell ground. After driving around too many blocks time and again, being stuck behind street cars, slowed by speed bumps, apprehended for driving too slowly and having to undergo an eye test. I passed that one, due to the fact that I’d memorised a lot more in my time than multiplication tables and a few Latin verbs), I finally made it. At about four-thirty.

Anxious for some action, I peered through the fence on Camberwell Road. All I could see was a goal to Scotch. And another. And yet another. The red scarves were waving, Scotchies backslapping and squealing with delight. It clearly hadn’t been Xavs’ day and it certainly hadn’t been mine. I turned on my heel and walked away in horror. After all these years and so many victories, the party was over and I wasn’t about to take sherry with them, much less buy one.