RUGBY

When I was younger, so much younger than today, I used to play Rugby Union every weekend. If you are not too familiar with Rugby, there are two codes, Rugby Union and Rugby League. The rules are somewhat different for each game. If I wanted to stick my neck out (which of course I don't), I would say that Rugby League is crap and boring. It is for thick working class Northerners whose tiny minds cannot appreciate the nuances of the game as it is supposed to be played. Of course, I would never dream of saying anything so shocking and clearly untrue on a public blog. I've often wondered if it would be more fun if there were two codes for other games. Perhaps Swimming Union and Swimming League. Bowls Union and Bowls League. I think some bitter rivalry and frequent mutual derision would liven things up a bit.

One day I was playing E-mail Picture Insult with my brother John who lives in Ireland. This is a fantastic game and I recommend it to anyone who cares to have a go. The idea is to find or make pictures on which you then write the word 'You' and an arrow pointing to something in the picture. I will give a couple of examples to make it more clear.

The first picture I received from my brother as his opening gambit was that of a small bird with the word 'You' and an arrow pointing to the bird. I didn't have to visit an ornithology site to guess that the bird was a great tit. I responded with a picture of a gentleman taking part in The Highland Games caber tossing competition, once again I added the word 'You' and an arrow pointing to the kilted fellow. We carried on in this fashion for a number of rounds until my brother sent a picture which to my mind broke the rules. He sent a picture of a spanner with the words 'You big' and an arrow pointing to it. I have been playing Picture Insult for many years and throughout that time it has always been forbidden to write anything other than the word 'You' on the picture. It is still possible to achieve the effect that my brother was aiming for. All you have to do is make a copy of the spanner and shrink it, then put the two spanners in a picture together and write the word 'You' pointing to the larger one. It seems that in Ireland the rules of the game have slackened somewhat and I don't think it is for the better. Where is the skill in just writing 'You big'? There is none. So from then on my brother and I have decided that there are two distinct games. Picture Insult Union (the beautiful, pure and original form) and Picure Insult League (the completely ruined, all fun removed, might as well not bother playing it is so rubbish form). It has to be stated in the first e-mail which rules are being adhered to for the rest of the match.



Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent as I was originally going to tell you about one of the most remarkable rugby matches I ever played in. If you aren't interested in rugby or sport in general, please don't switch off yet, because the story is really not about the sport, but about the remarkable thing that happened in this particular game. That year I was very fit indeed. It was a time when I was a fitness trainer and following a very healthy lifestyle. If you knew just how healthy, it would get on your nerves. Anyway, I had not played rugby for a while. I can't remember why, maybe an injury or just too busy. When returning from such a break it is customary to be placed in one of the lower teams for a couple of weeks to get back match fitness. So I found myself playing for my club's third team. No offence meant to the players who are regularly in the third team, but the pace of third team games is usually quite a lot easier than first team rugby, so together with the fact that I was very fit at that time, I was expecting the game to be pretty easy physically.

The night before, I had been out at a pub and a pretty girl in high spirits had put a fake Hawaiian style garland of flowers on my head. It was basically a circular piece of elastic with fabric flowers all around it in many colours. You could wear it around your head like a crown. When I got up the next morning ready to set off for the rugby match, I saw the garland and a plan began to hatch in my head.

Later that day, I ran out onto the rugby pitch with one extra piece of kit. I was met with a few whistles and sarcastic comments from spectators, the opposition and even my team-mates, but I ignored these and began the match wearing the garland. Rugby Union is generally played in short bursts of activity followed by set pieces (scrums and line-outs) where the game stops and is started again in a formal manner. When the referee blew his whistle for the first line-out, I took off my garland and raced 20-30 yards up the pitch into opposition territory, placing the garland on the touch line where the bright colours could be seen by all our team. I continued to do this throughout the game, my level of fitness making this extra exertion possible. Now, you may be starting to think I am making this up. I have, after all, been known to slide into fiction on occasion. But this is a true story. Every time I did this, my team managed on the next play to gain territory until they were more or less right where the garland was. This continued until we inevitably crossed the try line, at which point I retrieved the garland and put it back on my head in celebration until the next kick-off. This continued all game. People who were watching the first team game on the club's main pitch started to wander over to see what all the commotion was about, until by the end of the game we had more spectators than the first team. The final score was somewhere in the region of 60 points to nil. It was a remarkable experience and one I will never forget. A match that didn't really have any importance, but which made everyone who watched or played in it (even the badly defeated opposition) stop and think: "Wow, what the hell just happened there?"