Will a football hooligan ruin your day on the River Cam? It’s unlikely today.
At secondary school in Cambridge, I was friends with an extremely strong boy. Let’s call him Alan.
Once, all the boys in our year were involved in a rough version of rugby. You had to get the ball from one side of the playground to the other and could use any means necessary to get the ball off your opponent. Most of us didn’t want to hold onto the ball too long for obvious reasons. But Alan went the whole length of the playground, jaw clenched, taking a torrent of kicks and punches like a badge of honor. He was a warrior who did not register physical pain. For that episode, we all got lined up and told off by the headmaster.