Balls

It was all about baskets today. Katherine was dropped off early for her pre-match training, in order to give us enough time to chat to her coach about how best to tape up the finger she injured at last night's training session. I had bound it to the finger next to it and secured it with a safety pin - which I knew wasn't going to be suitable. So a lovely lady took her away to be more professionally taped up, but was at least kind enough to say I'd done just the right thing. As it happens, Katherine is allergic to the tape used so pulled it off after 5 minutes of the match. But, she was able to carry on to another famous victory, so I guess it can't have been that badly injured. Katherine is, I think it's fair to say, not the best player on the team. Fair enough since the others have all been playing for five years or so. But it was gratifying to hear cheers from the crowd for her (they were big fans of her no-nonsense approach to 'tackling' - though I'm not sure her coach was so keen on the fouls she gave away....)

Then on to Conor's first 'plateau' (set of league matches). Somehow, two of his team members were missing, so instead of having five members - three playing at any one time and lots of substitutions - like all the other teams, Conor and his two friends just played on and on and on. Conor's confidence was obviously boosted by scoring a basket within 15 seconds of the start of his first match, and soon the three of them fell into a rhythm and worked out what each was good at. With Conor, this was hanging around within range of the basket and scoring. Which he did a lot of. By the end of his four matches he was an exhausted, sweaty, famished, happy boy.

Soon, we will be feasting on ribs and potatoes to celebrate the victories, but I'll leave the last words to Katherine. She was explaining their team-boosting chant to me the other day. Which goes:

BCV (the team) attaque!
BCV defense!
BCV ensemble! (together)

But, she clarified, when they win, at the end they do a different chant:

BCV victoire!

I asked what they chant instead when they lose. And she just looked at me blankly. "I don't know. I don't think we've ever lost."