Dover Sole

There is a playground game, or there was a score of years ago, which involves the contestants standing toe to scuffed leather toe with ink-stained fingers interlinked. The rules: the grip must be maintained and the feet must not move. The aim: to cause your opponent so much discomfort that they submit. The game is usually referred to by the word used to signal defeat. It is variously known as “Mercy” or at my primary school, for reasons that remain somewhat obscure, “Fish and Chips”.

There are two ways to win at Mercy. The first involves aggression, speed, making your opponent cry and the possibility of dislocated and/or broken fingers. The second involves a more defensive strategy coupled with a high pain threshold, a certain stoicism and the possibility of dislocated and/or broken fingers. If you hang in there long enough, the chances are that your opponent will get bored and go play kiss chase instead. This strategy is born from the knowledge that not every game is there to be won and a stubborn refusal to give in.

At 6.15pm there were 2 Tecumsehs. At 6.30pm there were 5. At 6.45pm, 8 plus one stranded at Vauxhall. Which is not the end of the world, (although residents of North London may beg to differ). Unless it’s your pitcher. The Tigers kindly gave us a few minutes grace and Shell emerged from the Southern Trains fan-unassisted oven that was the 6.31 from Victoria.

Having dispatched Aaron into centre field with the instruction to “make your self big and be everywhere” and flanked by Laura and Hils, it didn’t look too bad. And it wasn’t. At the bottom of 2 we were 6-3 down. As is so often the case, one bad inning did for us. But a few things need to be said apart from the headline score of 26-6.

We played some good, good stuff out there. A catch apiece for the girls and a couple for Aaron plus relay speeds that’d make a 100m runner blush and by the bottom of 3 the Tigers had been forced by the outfield to switch from fly balls to line drives.

Everyone had a good game on the field. The batting was always going to be tough with an auto-out. But we’ve lost to worse teams with bigger margins and a full team out.

Yes, we got mercied. And do you know something? So fucking what. Last night was much, much more about what didn’t happen. We didn’t put our heads down, we didn’t give it up and we didn’t let it phase us that we were a player down.

And, no, we didn’t lose the drinking either.