The chances of Kay's in the inter-house Football Competition were notthought very much of by their rivals. Of late years each of the otherhouses had prayed to draw Kay's for the first round, it being acertainty that this would mean that they got at least into the secondround, and so a step nearer the cup. Nobody, however weak compared toBlackburn's, which was at the moment the crack football house, everdoubted the result of a match with Kay's. It was looked on as a sortof gentle trial trip.
But the efforts of the two captains during the last weeks of thewinter term had put a different complexion on matters. Football is notlike cricket. It is a game at which anybody of average size and acertain amount of pluck can make himself at least moderatelyproficient. Kennedy, after consultations with Fenn, had picked outwhat he considered the best fifteen, and the two set themselves toknock it into shape. In weight there was not much to grumble at. Therewere several heavy men in the scrum. If only these could be brought touse their weight to the last ounce when shoving, all would be well asfar as the forwards were concerned. The outsides were not sosatisfactory. With the exception, of course, of Fenn, they lackedspeed. They were well-meaning, but they could not run any faster byvirtue of that. Kay's would have to trust to its scrum to pull itthrough. Peel, the sprinter whom Kennedy had discovered in his searchfor athletes, had to be put in the pack on account of his weight,which deprived the three-quarter line of what would have been a goodman in that position. It was a drawback, too, that Fenn was accustomedto play on the wing. To be of real service, a wing three-quarter mustbe fed by his centres, and, unfortunately, there was no centre inKay's--or Dencroft's, as it should now be called--who was capable ofmaking openings enough to give Fenn a chance. So he had to play in thecentre, where he did not know the game so well.
Kennedy realised at an early date that the one chance of the house wasto get together before the house-matches and play as a coherent team,not as a collection of units. Combination will often make up for lackof speed in a three-quarter line. So twice a week Dencroft's turnedout against scratch teams of varying strength.
It delighted Kennedy to watch their improvement. The first side theyplayed ran through them to the tune of three goals and four tries to atry, and it took all the efforts of the Head of the house to keep aspirit of pessimism from spreading in the ranks. Another frost of thissort, and the sprouting keenness of the house would be nipped in thebud. He conducted himself with much tact. Another captain might havemade the fatal error of trying to stir his team up with pungent abuse.
He realised what a mistake this would be. It did not need a great dealof discouragement to send the house back to its old slack ways.
Another such defeat, following immediately in the footsteps of thefirst, and they would begin to ask themselves what was the good ofmortifying the flesh simply to get a licking from a scratch team bytwenty-four points. Kay's, they would feel, always had got beaten, andthey always would, to the end of time. A house that has once gotthoroughly slack does not change its views of life in a moment.
Kennedy acted craftily.
"You played jolly well," he told his despondent team, as they troopedoff the field. "We haven't got together yet, that's all. And it was ahot side we were playing today. They would have licked Blackburn's."A good deal more in the same strain gave the house team thecomfortable feeling that they had done uncommonly well to get beatenby only twenty-four points. Kennedy fostered the delusion, and in themeantime arranged with Mr Dencroft to collect fifteen innocents andlead them forth to be slaughtered by the house on the followingFriday. Mr Dencroft entered into the thing with a relish. When heshowed Kennedy the list of his team on the Friday morning, thatdiplomatist chuckled. He foresaw a good time in the near future. "Youmust play up like the dickens," he told the house during thedinner-hour. "Dencroft is bringing a hot lot this afternoon. But Ithink we shall lick them."They did. When the whistle blew for No-side, the house had justfinished scoring its fourteenth try. Six goals and eight tries to nilwas the exact total. Dencroft's returned to headquarters, askingitself in a dazed way if these things could be. They saw that cup ontheir mantelpiece already. Keenness redoubled. Football became thefashion in Dencroft's. The play of the team improved weekly. And itsspirit improved too. The next scratch team they played beat them by agoal and a try to a goal. Dencroft's was not depressed. It put theresult down to a fluke. Then they beat another side by a try tonothing; and by that time they had got going as an organised team, andtheir heart was in the thing.
They had improved out of all knowledge when the house-matches began.
Blair's was the lucky house that drew against them in the first round.
"Good business," said the men of Blair. "Wonder who we'll play in thesecond round."They left the field marvelling. For some unaccountable reason,Dencroft's had flatly refused to act in the good old way as a doormatfor their opponents. Instead, they had played with a dash andknowledge of the game which for the first quarter of an hour quiteunnerved Blair's. In that quarter of an hour they scored three times,and finished the game with two goals and three tries to their name.
The School looked on it as a huge joke. "Heard the latest?" friendswould say on meeting one another the day after the game. "Kay's--Imean Dencroft's--have won a match. They simply sat on Blair's. Firsttime they've ever won a house-match, I should think. Blair's areawfully sick. We shall have to be looking out."Whereat the friend would grin broadly. The idea of Dencroft's making agame of it with his house tickled him.
When Dencroft's took fifteen points off Mulholland's, the joke beganto lose its humour.
"Why, they must be some good," said the public, startled at thenovelty of the idea. "If they win another match, they'll be in thefinal!"Kay's in the final! Cricket? Oh, yes, they had got into the final atcricket, of course. But that wasn't the house. It was Fenn. Footer wasdifferent. One man couldn't do everything there. The only possibleexplanation was that they had improved to an enormous extent.
Then people began to remember that they had played in scratch gamesagainst the house. There seemed to be a tremendous number of fellowswho had done this. At one time or another, it seemed, half the Schoolhad opposed Dencroft's in the ranks of a scratch side. It began todawn on Eckleton that in an unostentatious way Dencroft's had beenputting in about seven times as much practice as any other threehouses rolled together. No wonder they combined so well.
When the School House, with three first fifteen men in its team, fellbefore them, the reputation of Dencroft's was established. It hadreached the final, and only Blackburn's stood now between it and thecup.
All this while Blackburn's had been doing what was expected of them bybeating each of their opponents with great ease. There was nothingsensational about this as there was in the case of Dencroft's. Thelatter were, therefore, favourites when the two teams lined up againstone another in the final. The School felt that a house that had hadsuch a meteoric flight as Dencroft's must--by all that wasdramatic--carry the thing through to its obvious conclusion, and pulloff the final.
But Fenn and Kennedy were not so hopeful. A certain amount of science,a great deal of keenness, and excellent condition, had carried themthrough the other rounds in rare style, but, though they wouldprobably give a good account of themselves, nobody who considered thetwo teams impartially could help seeing that Dencroft's was a weakerside than Blackburn's. Nothing but great good luck could bring themout victorious today.
And so it proved. Dencroft's played up for all they were worth fromthe kick-off to the final solo on the whistle, but they wereover-matched. Blackburn's scrum was too heavy for them, with its threefirst fifteen men and two seconds. Dencroft's pack were shoved off theball time after time, and it was only keen tackling that kept thescore down. By half-time Blackburn's were a couple of tries ahead.
Fenn scored soon after the interval with a great run from his owntwenty-five, and for a quarter of an hour it looked as if it might beanybody's game. Kennedy converted the try, so that Blackburn's onlyled by a single point. A fluky kick or a mistake on the part of aBlackburnite outside might give Dencroft's the cup.
But the Blackburn outsides did not make mistakes. They played astrong, sure game, and the forwards fed them well. Ten minutes beforeNo-side, Jimmy Silver ran in, increasing the lead to six points. Andthough Dencroft's never went to pieces, and continued to show fight tothe very end, Blackburn's were not to be denied, and Challis scored afinal try in the corner. Blackburn's won the cup by the comfortable,but not excessive, margin of a goal and three tries to a goal.
Dencroft's had lost the cup; but they had lost it well. Their credithad increased in spite of the defeat.
"I thought we shouldn't be able to manage Blackburn's," said Kennedy,"What we must do now is win that sports' cup."
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |