1st XI v Bede's School
Date: Tuesday 22 November
Venue: Home
Result: Won 3 - 2
1st XI v Marlborough College
Date: Thursday 24 November
Venue: Home
Result: Won 4 - 0
1st XI v Ardingly College
Date: Saturday 26 November
Venue: Home
Result: Won 5 - 2
‘You’re once. Twice. Three times a lady’ crooned the legendary Lionel Ritchie ‘And I love you’. Well we love the Charterhouse 1st XI at the minute. Three wins in a week; three wins in five days to be precise. And, though of course colours are absolutely gender neutral, the final victory was achieved in the prettiest pink strips you’ll ever see. And it was achieved with a new record. Charterhouse, as we all know, was in the vanguard of the development of the game of football. The old boys have been playing football since the 1860s, at a time when one third of British men had the vote, when Disraeli and Gladstone were waiting their turn to bestride the stage of Victorian politics and when many a common man and woman were wondering aloud about the growing but seemingly crazy festive German concept of installing and fussing over a tree in the house, adorning it with tinsel and various bizarre baubles and caring for it with diligence and genuine concern, before wantonly chucking it out the back to slowly decay. In all that time, in all that cacophony of historical happenings, with the rise and fall of empires and amid the great discoveries, enterprises and achievements, there has never been a greater concentration of hair bands, in one team, on one football pitch than on Big Ground on Saturday. Fact. And though of course hair bands are absolutely gender neutral, this combination of pink strips and assortment of hair accessories did lead the visiting players to make the odd observation to the contrary. Dispense with your stereotypes, overthrow your inhibitions and just go out and there and do it sister!
Charterhouse started the week with a tough league match against Bede’s, who haven’t been beaten in five years. They finished the week with a tough league match against Ardingly, who enjoy a similar run of success against the boys from C'house. But let the clocks be reset, dust off your almanacs and look elsewhere for a losing streak. The demons have been exorcised. ‘This house’ to quote Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, ‘is clean’. And in between was a fine win against a tough Marlborough side! Charterhouse were like the Prussian army in the Seven Years War this week. Shifting forces to cover three fronts in short time periods, against potentially massive foes, Charterhouse lost a few men along the way (though obviously not to eighteenth-century-battlefield-style deaths, but rather a bit of a sore throat and a slightly tight hamstring) but they stood tall and brave and emerged all the stronger for the experience. And Margarson was probably the closest to playing the Frederick the Great character, his little feet dancing in tight areas, manoeuvring himself out of tight spots and providing reassurance and leadership. Imagine picking him in the 3rd XI last season! Those idiots running the football programme! But there were heroes all over the park. From Big Ground to Pitch O and back to Big Ground Charterhouse scored 12 goals and conceded 4, but they were tough games and none more so than Ardingly, a game in which Charterhouse displayed magnificent resolve and character before Orlando Allen put us all out of our misery by dinking his way into the opposition box and scoring the goal that secured victory in the gathering gloom. It was wonderful. It was glorious. And, as Darkness laid down his heavy cloak it was difficult to withhold gratitude for the home side’s choice of kit. It would have been very difficult to see anything otherwise. ‘Why would anyone choose blue over pink?’ mused the mercurial Kanye West, ‘Pink is obviously a better colour’. He’s probably right. Charterhouse have two matches left. First up another tough fixture against Highgate next Saturday. And then it’s the quarter finals of the ISFA cup. Can’t wait!