A Table with a View: A Night of Water Polo Mediocrity

There are moments in life when one is graced with a table overlooking the most breathtaking of vistas - a candlelit balcony perched above the glittering cityscape, a wooden deck extending over the endless azure of the Mediterranean, a rustic vineyard kissed by the golden embrace of the setting sun. Then, there are moments when one finds oneself perched on a wet, tiled wall, at a poolside table, armed only with a match sheet, a bottle of water, and a thirty-second clock. The clock certainly not foreshadowing events and performance to come… Such was the fate of your ever-romantic, ever-suffering author on this fateful evening, watching a water polo match that could generously be described as a love letter left in the rain - ink bleeding, meaning lost, a gesture once full of promise now reduced to smudged disappointment.

The game: Narwhals vs. Enfield 2. The final score: 7-5 to the Narwhals, a tally so uninspiring that one could only marvel at how bad both sides were. The first quarter, a mind-numbing 2-1 to Enfield, was an insult to sport and art alike. The water was barely disturbed by the efforts within it. As I sat at the officiating table, my thoughts drifted beyond the pool, beyond the damp and chlorine-stained surroundings, to somewhere more fitting for a soul of my disposition. Perhaps a rooftop terrace where the wine flowed as smoothly as poetic verse, or a coastal retreat where the only splashes were those of the waves against the shore. Instead, I had only my borrowed lady companion, a biro, and a front-row seat to nothingness.

The second quarter offered no salvation, a one-all bore draw. Desperate to escape the monotony, I threw myself into the pool to join the melange, eager to add some semblance of artistry to this tragic composition. Alas, fate, and more specifically, the referee, conspired against me. Two major fouls in quick succession, dealt to me with all the mercy of a guillotine’s blade. Unjust. Unfair. Unkind. A literary crime against one so gifted. I walked the tightrope of potential ejection as the game slouched onward into the third quarter, our team managing to find some semblance of skill, pulling into a 5-4 lead thanks to the artistry of Finch, Ogg, and Bowen, the elder masters of our craft, guiding our pre-Raphaelite apprentices toward victory.

Yet, with barely two minutes elapsed in the third quarter, tragedy struck. A third major. A second penalty. My swift and unceremonious ejection from the game. My time in the water lasted a grand total of nine and a half minutes. Barely worth the petrol. Dejected, I returned to my rightful place at the table, no longer the officiator but now the exiled poet, longing once more for a table that overlooked vineyards, not a pool filled with floundering amateurs. My lady companion was notably less thrilled by my return.

The fourth quarter unfolded in tense mediocrity, the Narwhals clinging to their slender lead like a drowning man to driftwood. As the final minutes approached, the score lay at an uninspired 5-5. Then, in the dying embers of this war of attrition, Oggy seized upon his moment, snatching the goal that would make the difference. With a single second remaining, Gio at last found his redemption, scoring a goal that spared him the need to seek solace in the distant landscapes of Portugal. The final whistle blew. Narwhals victorious. 7-5.

The shooting was woeful. The refereeing was dubious, yet commendably balanced in its incompetence. No one earned the dubious honour of a post-match exile to the Algarve. Man of the Match went to Matt Finch, not just for his hat-trick but for his unparalleled levels of wobbling, which were at times more engaging than the game itself. It is to be noted that at one point, a rather amorous opponent did try and remove his trunks… Oggy took ‘Moment’ for his decisive strike, while yours truly, the much-maligned savant, the tortured genius of the pool, earned ‘Fluffer’ for a participation so fleeting that even the most avant-garde of performance artists would have raised an eyebrow.

And so, the night ended as it had begun, not with a table overlooking something beautiful, but with a man wishing it did.

On to our next fixture. On march the mighty Narwhals.

Forza Narwhali