This week, the University magazine ‘Isis’ has featured our colleague and esteemed editor of the ‘Draconian‘ magazine, GC (‘Cheese’) Vassall, who has been helping get sport going again in the undergraduate world with the same verve and enthusiasm with which he conducts himself at the OPS.

Mr Gilbert Vassall

I S I S   I D O L  N o. 4 9 5

MR GILBERT CLAUDE VASSALL

(Hon. Treasurer, Oxford University's Athletics Club, 
 Rugby Union Football Club and Association Football Club; 
 Hon. Sec. of the Blues Committee)

As some people in Oxford may still be unfamiliar with his 
appearance, perhaps I had better describe him: it would be a 
pity if he were not recognised, for he is playing a big part 
now in the re-ordering of the undergraduate life of Oxford.

He is a well-set-up fellow, aged about 43. He is clean-shaved, 
has lightish hair and nice pink cheeks. He has an expansive 
smile and does not smoke. He often wears an 'Authentic' tie, 
but, in other respects, he is careless about his dress. I am 
not even sure that he has a tailor; he certainly has no hatter. 
So, if you see a man in the Parks, or on the running track, or 
on the Iffley Road Football ground, looking like this, you will 
know that it is 'V.'

He won countless athletic trophies. He appeared many times for 
the Old Carthusians and was 'capped' for England, but preferred 
to captain Oxford against Cambridge on the day of the match. He 
played football in France, Canada and America, and in such 
forlorn and dangerous places as Liepsic, Prague, Vienna and 
Buda-Pesth.

For many years before the War he acted as judge in the inter-
Varsity sports. As a cricketer he was never in the running for 
a Blue, but he was thought good enough, after he went down, to 
appear for Somerset..

Of his characteristics as a football player I cannot speak, for 
the finer points of the Association game are a mystery to me, 
but I know he has broken a cross-bar and a goal-post. On the 
field I only met him once, and he struck me as being a 
particularly brutal player...

He understands how things should be done, and he will give his 
opinion with a directness which may be disconcerting, but which 
will certainly command respect. For his opinion will be based 
upon principles which do not admit of pettiness or brag or 
insincerity. He will help Oxford to take her rightful place again 
as leader in all that is best and most untainted by false ideals.