Saturday 3 March 2012

You Never Know....

You never know what you'll encounter next in Cambridge. Wandering past Gonville and Caius playing field I heard the sound of insistent drumming. Some kind of music or dance going on? A sudden female squeal. People chanting in a strange tongue. A shrill whistle. I rounded the corner to find the cause of the excitement - a soccer match being played by 22 Koreans with a largely Korean crowd of supporters.


In fact it was a match between the Korean Societies of Oxford and Cambridge Universities, a Varsity match of a kind I suppose. I'm used to seeing some rough, tough matches but surely university-educated Koreans would behave impeccably. Wrong. Tackles were flying in from all directions and Oxford seemed to be having the worst of it.


Injured players were helped from the field. A scrap broke out amongst the teams. Penalties were awarded and players booked. The drummer bashed his drum and the crowd of onlookers got very excited.


I'm not sure what the final score was as I left before the end but I'm fairly certain Cambridge would have been victorious since they were much the better side, scored the only goal that I saw and had the happier set of supporters.


Take care.

5 comments:

  1. looks to be a great day for a walk. Colourful images of the game, and I look forward to your 'other' photos from Cambridge too.

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  2. That is a brilliant goalkeeper photo John - worthy of being printed in a newspaper!

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  3. Looks like you not only saw the goal but caught it on camera - ace!

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  4. They take soccer very seriously, it seems! I like the idea of big drums beating during the game.

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