There are five of The Team from The Match* at the zoom reunion–looking a lot older than we do in the snap taken immediately after the whistle blew on that cold, wet October day in 1958.
Muddied, bloodied and smirking like a team of artful dodgers after a successful pickpocketing escapade.
Standing from l to r: Rodney, Terry, ?, Robin, Michael, ?, Bertie Bellis (house master); Kneeling, centre: Nigel, far right, Lynn
In truth, none of us can remember very much about The Match–except there was a goal scored and a goal saved–but that doesn’t interfere with the pleasure we get from talking about it.
We have met rarely since that afternoon–but mention The Match, and we at once re-form into that winning team (or a part of it) and have an off-the-peg displacement activity to get us started.
Five grown men–going on 80–meeting in a ZOOM room to talk about a soccer match they played in over 60 years ago— pretty silly, you may be thinking.
Well, YES (and incidentally not a wife in sight!)– but we are shameless, so here goes….
Four forwards: Rodney Brody, Lynn John, Michael Detsiny and Nigel Colne– the “forwards” and ME in goal.
Not at the ZOOM meeting: Terry Fowkes, center-half, (completing our inner circle of friends).
Our House Master (manager!) and his wife, Bertie and Joan Bellis, were cheering us on from the touchline.
Amazingly, ALL of the above are still alive–the much-loved latter two now into their nineties!
We didn’t expect to win this second-round house-match against Grindal House, the favourites.
(My American wife thinks it sounds increasingly like Harry Potter!)
It was a steal! Grindal’s housemaster certainly thought so. He lodged a complaint in the Senior Common Room the following day, accusing Heathgate--us–of flagrant gamesmanship when our right-back handballed a shot that was heading into the net, round the corner.
I saved the resulting penalty–not hard when it was aimed straight at me!–and full-time followed minutes later.
We won 1-0–the goal scored by winger Michael Detsiny–a fact of which he never fails to remind us.
“Well done Michael! Superb reflexes! Brilliant goal! Can’t think why you didn’t make a career of it!”
We lost the next match–the semi-final–3-2 (we was robbed!)–but we were champions that afternoon.
Aaah! The bonds formed, the investments made, the experiences shared at school over those ten formative years….
Don’t they earn the right to a bit of sentimental self-indulgence? And The Match, a perfect tool to bring into focus those indefinable connections that spell “friendship“.
Glory re-enacted in Heathgate colors: Lynn, Rodney, Nigel, Michael
- Highgate School, House Match semi-final on Far Field, 1958
Robin Ellis 