No . 133 The Trusty Servant it square !’), it was mastery of boys ’ psychologies that was his greatest gift as a schoolmaster .
In Winchester football , Fontes was the game for 40 years , as the Jacker ( HA Jackson ) had been before him . We coached side-by-side on the flint-haunted , heavily-manured KP canvases ( Stuart Churchill had to regrow the grass somehow ). Michael had seen off a string of OTH coaches . My good fortune was that he was in fin-de-siècle mood to give me cryptic tips , in the hope that Brown could provide more epic opposition in his sunset decade . He was always oblique in his teaching : he despised spoonfeeding .
Michael had known the Jacker , of course . I liked best his account of the Jacker in periphrastic flow on the importance of the Ad : Coll wind . ‘ In what circumstances , in a game of Winchester football , should a Captain win the toss and elect to play against the wind ?’ Pause for Edwardian comic timing . “ In NO CIRCUMSTANCES , in a game of Winchester football , should a captain win the toss and elect to play against the wind .’ And then a boy would supply the straight-man feed . ‘ Sir , what about in a black frost ?’ ‘ Not even in the BLACKEST frworrrssst does a Captain win the toss in a game of Winchester football and elect to play against the wind !” Michael ’ s own way of putting it was , ‘ Catch the train boys !’ for even on a still day a breeze blows above the Meads wall on which a flighted bust can hitch a ride . excellent use of the training facilities at various restaurants up town .
‘ We ( a royal We ) put a very high tariff on obstruction in open play (“ Free bust to Commoners !”) or the boys will do it all the time .’ There was a Rules Committee of coaches and captains , of course , but Michael ruled us all . He had developed the magnificent bustoff arrangements : you try to volley the ball , because only a kick can catch it , and he must put it down . Michael was said to be able to bust a soaked 1950s leather ball the length of the canvas , though doing so at the bust-off would be otiose , because you only get a behind . ‘ Bust it diagonally and land it on half a post .’
‘ I despise the padding on the posts . The boys need a rough game . We mustn ’ t take all the risk out of their lives . Have you read Running Wild ? That ’ s what will happen if we pad the posts .’ I had read it , as it happened , and we both used it in our divs . This imaginative flight from padding on the posts to a novella by JG Ballard was typical of Michael ’ s teaching , and his belief that all of it – the houses , the div room , the games-field , early music , watercolours , Economics , Gibbon and Johnson , 18 th -century horology and Mongolian cinema – is to be integrated . For those who were up to him for a half , for those who sat at his feet for a decade , for those who are pinned under a descending bustoff and sizing up a volley , Michael Fontes is a force quite undiminished by death .
A memorial gathering for Michael Fontes will be held in Winchester College on Saturday 26 November 2022 . More details will be published in due course .
Michael was an enthusiast for hotting ( and in those days a hot could trundle two posts and every offence came to the middle for a restart ). ‘ Hot low , Commoners , or Houses will push you all over the park !’ ‘ Did you like my all-Cantonese front row , Nick ?’ I hadn ’ t liked them one bit : they were very low indeed , and had made
College Tutors , 1986 . L-R GHG Doggart ( 58-60 ), RRMB Montgomery ( 60-63 ), MS Stephenson ( 63-67 ), MD Fontes ( 67-75 ) & JH Durran ( 75-90 ).
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