A St John’s football team, St Legend’s College Johnsbridge Invitational XI, found themselves with unexpected financial clout on Sunday after winning a  raffle held by CUSUents at Club Twenty Two. They claimed the top prize of £1,000 and weekly queue-jump, free entry and champagne.

The team is carefully considering how best to invest the money. Amongst the options are a charitable donation, a tour to Oxford, a games console and a quad bike. It emerged last night that the current preference is for the procurement of a stuffed polar bear, to be set on wheels and taken to matches. The team’s website purports to support the awarding of league points for “banter”.

Raffle competitors included the Girton Rowing VIII and the Peterhouse 1st XV Rugby team. The winner was announced at 1am. St John’s 3rd XI football team captain Malcolm Reid told Varsity how he “vaulted into the DJ box, kissed the guy on the cheek, grabbed the microphone off him and proceeded to yell semi-incoherently to tumultuous booing! I then took my shirt off, almost got a proper beating off the entire Jesus rugby team, and bought a £40 round on my credit card”.
Captain of St John’s Football Club Ash Simpson welcomed the money as “very good for the college” and said he had been encouraged by the “very good job” Malcolm Reid is doing. He expressed his hope that the funds would be used “to benefit John’s football as a whole”.

In October the St John’s 3rd XI football team were a sad sight to behold. Ten men in an array of dishevelled clothing, limping to and from matches with a goal difference which resembled the Faroe Islands’ odds for the next World Cup. Their rebirth began when first year Malcolm Reid was appointed captain after previous incumbent Jimmy Longman’s dramatic resignation.
Vishnu Parameshwaran explained that “over the Christmas holidays we gained more than sponsorship and kit - snug pink lycra vests, on the back of which is inscribed “Sign On”. We gained an indomitable team spirit and an unquenchable resolve”.
The Invitational XI’s inaugural match was against the widely feared Trinity Hall 2nds. Manager Charles Marshall donned bishop’s robes and mitre, jodhpurs and the “Linehan sausage necklace”, which was presented to the man-of-the-match afterwards. The team has imposed a strict ban on training and warm-up exercises and chose to spend the period before the match carefully choreographing goal celebrations. A posse of midfielders were spotted enjoying French cigarettes shortly before kick-off. The team were led onto the field to the strains of “Highland Cathedral from a lone bagpiper.

One player told Varsity the entrance was a reflection of the team’s “fierce Scottish traditions”. Johnian confidence proved misplaced as Trinity Hall swept to a 3-2 victory.

Orlando Reade