VARSITY MATCH

I am off to Cambridge today to join in a Cambridge University AFC celebration; an annual event where players, old and recently new, join together to watch the Varsity match, this season played at the Abbey Stadium, home of Cambridge United FC. The Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, were an important part of the founding of the Football Assocation and they had much to do with forming the Laws of the game, as football emerged from the violent and sometimes unlawful "Mob games" in the 19th Century. Once the laws were established and the game more civilised, the universities were invited to play their annual Varsity match, at Wembley Stadium.

University teams were full of top amateur players at the time when the FA decided that the Varsity match, like rugby and cricket, should be played at the "National Stadium", Wembley. From December 6th 1952, students were privileged to play on the hallowed turf. This year, The Band of the Grenadier Guards played the two teams on to the pitch and the players were presented to the Lord Mayor of London. As if there was an attempt at "divine intervention", a fog came down and with the pitch barely visible, the game was abandoned. What a disappointment. A crowd of about 25,000 went away presumably with their entrance fee returned?? The match was replayed  on March 7th 1953, under the same programme, although it was the Irish Guards playing the tunes with only 6,500 attending. (I could never understand why the biggest match of these universities' seasons was played half way through in December. Something to do with academic study in the Lent Term before summer exams? The Rugby Varsity match was just the same.

The matches had been played at a variety of venues prior to Wembley's foundation in 1923. A hundred years ago, the venue was Stamford Bridge, a match won by the Dark Blues 0-3! Players in the Light Blues, included two Old Carthusians (boys from Charterhouse), two Wykehamists (boys from inchester College), 2 from Aldenham School, one from Bootham and others from Darlington GS, Middlesbrough HS and Bishops' Stortford. 

The Dark Blues included four players from Charterhouse, possibly a reflection on the captain having be educated at Charterhouse! Other schools included QES Kirkby Lonsdale, Shrewsbury School x 2, St Olaves, Oxford HS, Repton and Basingstoke.