Heroines and hoofprints
It seems that everybody loves a gallant loser.
Some of our favourites are the Boer War, Gallipoli, Dunkirk, Australia v England Rugby World Cup final 2003 and Rocky (the first one, not the sequels). And let's not get started on Abba's tear-jerker The Winner Takes It All.
And here at Friday Club HQ, we're no different. We excel at losing gallantly, or if not gallantly, just losing.
Which brings us back to France in the middle ages for the continuing saga of The Hundred Years War (fact check: it lasted 116 years). Last week we revisited our schooldays and rejoiced in England's famous victory at Agincourt (hurrah!), without mentioning that England actually lost the war.
This week we'll touch on the battle that French students studied, The Battle of Patay in 1429, which ended this rather long war. This battle was a crushing defeat for the English. We know this because at least half the English army was killed and the rest ran away (a sure sign that you've lost).
The French were led by their heroine, Joan of Arc, cantering at the head of the army on a mighty horse. She looked stylish and proved that women can do anything a man can do without spilling food on their shirt.
Her words and deeds inspired an army of artists. The French had to build extra roundabouts in little villages to accommodate all the statues of the mighty maid.
Friday Club has unearthed its own version of the heroic Joan. Jie Cheng has emerged from the ranks of our combatants to sweep all before her.
Having won division three two weeks ago, Jie repeated the feat last Friday with the top score of the day, a miraculous 44 points. Jie boldly galloped to the front of the field from the start of her round. Fortunately she left her horse at home or course superintendent Peter Donkers would have had a heart attack!
Dale Ronald was runner-up, but was 14 points adrift. The rest of division three was put to the sword.
Division two was a tight tussle, although the scores were nothing to write home about (so why am I writing about them you ask?) John Lennard, also having won the previous week, scored back to back victories to edge out this hard-working scribe on the unkindest of margins, a countback. (This is where the gallant loser theme comes back into the story although some unkind people would call it choking!).
Dave Collett, another player frequently mentioned in these dispatches this year, went one better than his previous effort with a sparkling win in division one, the home of mighty knights in shining armour.
Dave, a heavy ground specialist, amassed 40 points, just enough to shade the ever-competitive Michael Smiles by a point.
