Every year in November Eton College celebrates St Andrew’s Day with an open day for the families of the students to come and see various events and activities at the school.
One of the key events on St Andrew’s Day is the Wall Game match between Collegers (King’s Scholars) and Oppidans (the rest of the school), the main match in the year of this unique Eton sport. It is a tough game and one in which it is incredibly difficult to score a goal. In fact, no goal has been scored in this match since 1909. In the Wall Game two teams of ten players try to prevent their opponents moving the ball towards their goal, which develops into a static scrum. Although no goal has been scored for over a century, it is possible to win by scoring shies (won by lifting the ball against the wall with your foot).
It is played on a strip about 5 metres wide against a wall built in 1717 that runs between Slough Road and the Playing Fields. The goals are a door in an adjacent wall and a tree.
St.Andrew’s Day Wall Game, action shot, 1910 [PA-A.44_45-2013]
College Wall group photograph with Logie in the centre, 1912 [PA-A.177_39-2012]
Plaque depicting Logie Leggatt in Wall Game clothes. Elkington Ltd., bronze, 1921 [MEL.111-2010]
This plaque was exhibited in the Verey Gallery during In Memoriam. Great War Remembrance at Eton in 2018, alongside a 20th century scarf in the College colours of purple and white, similar to that which Logie Leggatt would have worn.
By Rebecca Tessier, Collections Cataloguer and Museum Officer
