Are You Chaving A Laugh? Oxford Initiation Lax Taste

Cambridge’s lacrosse co-captain has fired an early shot across Oxford’s bows by claiming that the dark blue’s initiations were “as dirty as their play”.

The Oxford lax team came under fire from the national press last week after photos of their initiation ceremony were lifted from Facebook.

And now Blues co-captain Laura Plant’s comments are likely to raise the temperature before the sides meet in the BUCS league in two weeks time.

The Oxford team chose the theme of “Babies and Teenage Moms” for the initiations, which took place last Wednesday.

Chaving a laugh?

Freshers dressed in nappies and bibs, sucked dummies and drank alcohol from babies bottles.

Current lax team members were meanwhile dressed as chavs in tracksuits and gold chains.

The “mothers” shouted abuse at their “babies”, shoved food in their faces and “fed” them alcohol from their bottles.

The “babies” were also made to roll around on the floor and to eat baby food.

The initiations began in a student house before moving onto several clubs in the Other Place. An estimated 60 students, both freshers and upper years, attended the event.

The photos were removed from Facebook the day after the event, but not before the press managed to get hold of them.

The Daily Mail called the initiations “shocking” and “degrading”, while the Sun was distracted from its moralizing by the fact that they were “pretty female students”.

One  ex-member of the Oxford lax team said “The lash culture of the lacrosse team made me feel uncomfortable during my time on the team and I fear that freshers will have felt pressured into drinking too much and embarrassing themselves.”

A second year at St. Edmund’s said: “I don’t have a problem with initiations in principle, but these look disgusting.

“I don’t understand why so many people at Oxford find it funny to dress up as disadvantaged people and then get ‘battered’”

Jane Dougherty, the captain of the Oxford Lacrosse squad, refused to comment on the ceremony.

Speaking to The Tab, Cambridge co-captain Plant said: “It’s obvious that the Oxford Lacrosse initiations are as dirty as their play”.

She continued: “And it’s a shame the Oxford student newspapers don’t show the same support for the teams as their Cambridge equivalents do”.