ON THE top of the Puskin library, the most important event of the Roses weekend took place.
Brian Cantor was due to play but was busy buying less seats for the library, so Tim Ellis was paired with croquet veteran Jane Grenville. The pair defeated the Lancaster Student Union President and some hippie who’s been up Everest, in a gruelling effort to lift the trophy probably called the Croquet Cup.
In a game golf, but with mallets instead of clubs, upright horseshoes instead of holes and bigger balls, York, I have on good authority, won. Lancaster’s bearded climber clearly struggled with the differentiation of the two sports, on occasion taking a swing at the ball which wouldn’t have looked out of place in baseball.
This confusion cost the Lancaster pair as their mountain-conquering Chancellor seemed to be struggling with his memory. The startling accuracy of the old woman from York and the practice sessions Tim Ellis had in the weeks running up to the game saw the pair past the post first, as the Lancaster duo could not match form.
The sun played its part in influencing the scoreline as all four players forgot their sunglasses, with Ellis at one point missing the ball completely.
The immense 15 strong crowd got up and left as soon as the game ended, not waiting to see the raucous celebrations. This zero pointer tie arguably completely changed the outcome of Roses, with the York team soon becoming complacent after hearing news of the victory.
The croquet match might be a bit of light-hearted fun but this article certainly is not.
The author should be ashamed of this. Insults like “some hippie who’s been up Everest” and “the old woman from York” are just necessary.
Also, I fail to see how it was played “ON THE top of the Puskin library” – do you mean it was on the roof of the *Ruskin* library?
Yep those comments were totally “necessary” Dan. (Jokes). Look, Ben was only trying to make croquet interesting to a mass audience and I also think by 3pm on Sunday afternoon he was tired, (and hungover), and thus wrote exactly what came into his head.