A first-term Etonian wants to know who is winning the Wall Game, and the school’s most experienced players explain that the question is not how it works.
ETON, England (Eton College) – A new boy in his first term at Eton College asked a senior player on Tuesday what the score was in the Wall Game, and was advised to check back after he had finished his A-levels. The senior player, who holds the office of Keeper, described the answer as “perfectly honest” and offered the newcomer a biscuit.
The exchange took place beside the Furrow, the long strip of ground along which the game is played, and it was observed by two housemasters, a groundsman, and a retired Colleger who has been standing in the same spot since breakfast. “I wanted to know who was ahead,” said the new boy, who is thirteen. “Everyone laughed in a kind way, which I think means I was right to ask, and also that I will never get an answer.”
The Rules, Briefly (They Cannot Be)
The Wall Game is played on a strip of ground five metres wide and 110 metres long next to a brick wall erected in 1717. The ball is soggy by tradition and soggier by Wednesday. Players push against one another in a crowd that moves, by common agreement, at the speed of a glacier with a mortgage.
The rules, which were first written down in the nineteenth century and have been revised several times since, contain the sort of fine distinctions that only an old school can produce. A profile of the game’s customs notes that face-mashing is tolerated, while eye-gouging and punching are not. Pupils say this is the most comforting sentence in the rulebook, because it shows that someone somewhere once stopped to draw a line.
A Spectator Sport in the Technical Sense
Visitors often ask what makes the Wall Game worth watching. A long-running magazine feature once described it as brutal and incomprehensible, a review the school has since framed and hung in a corridor, as every great institution eventually does with its worst notice.
The student paper surveyed the crowd on Tuesday and found the following:
- Forty percent of spectators believed the game was still in the opening phase.
- Thirty percent believed the game had been won, but quietly.
- Twenty percent were parents who had stopped asking.
- Ten percent were pigeons.
Dr. Nigel Thorpe-Willoughby, a long-serving master who has attended more Wall Games than any living person, said he was “delighted by the engagement.” When asked who was currently winning, he looked at the wall for a long moment and said, “The wall.”
Two Holidays on Two Wrong Dates
The new boy’s confusion deepened when a prefect explained the school calendar. St Andrew’s Day, one of the school’s biggest holidays, is not held on the actual date of St Andrew’s Day, which the archive describes as one of Eton’s quirks. Its summer cousin, the Fourth of June, is likewise not held on the fourth of June. It now falls on the Wednesday before the first weekend of June, which makes it possible to celebrate a birthday by looking at a calendar and choosing a different day.
“So the holiday for November thirtieth is in November, but not on the thirtieth,” said the new boy, writing it in his planner. “And the holiday for the fourth of June is in June, but not on the fourth. Is anything at Eton on the day it is called?” The prefect thought about it for a while. “Absence,” he said. “Absence is at the time it says.”
How to Revise the Wall Game Way
Teachers at Eton have begun recommending the Wall Game as a model for pupils sitting exams between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. The method, which has been tested on several cohorts, runs as follows:
- Choose a task that cannot be completed in a single sitting.
- Push against it in a group for as long as possible.
- Do not look up to see whether you are making progress.
- Wait for a cake.
A Year 11 pupil who followed the method for his GCSE history revision reported that he “did not finish” but “felt a very strong sense of occasion.” His teacher gave him credit for the occasion.
Orwell Would Have Understood
Among the famous Old Etonians who have played the game is George Orwell, who later wrote a story about animals taking over a farm and running it badly. Readers of farm.fm will recall the report of a copy of the book that came back to its library 31 years late, which is about as long as a Wall Game takes to reach its first interesting moment.
Orwell, for his part, understood the value of the long game and the bitter ending. If he were alive today, the new boy suspects, he would have asked the same question and received the same biscuit.
The Biscuit
At the end of the afternoon, the new boy was invited to the post-game tea, where the sponge cake is a custom nobody questions. He asked the Keeper whether he could join the team next year. The Keeper said it was possible, but that the new boy would need to accept the rules, which would be explained to him in due course.
“When?” asked the new boy.
“Next century,” said the Keeper, passing him the cake. Readers who want a fuller tour of the school’s customs can consult the British satire archive at the London Prat, where the Wall Game has been explained eleven times and understood by no one.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/