 I’ve been trying to remember what happened on the school’s first overseas rugby tour, to France in 1984. And despite serious effort and middle-aged habit, I can’t honestly claim that things were better in the old days.
Spending a week in a disused police barracks outside Toulouse was not many people’s idea of fun, even then. Nor do I imagine, back in the twentieth century just as now, that many nutritionists or tourist board officials would have approved our welcoming dinner of boiled horse. There was also the challenge of braving deepest French rugby country with masters-in-charge who were experts in English and Chemistry.
Perhaps it was linguistic confusion, then, which had us playing local youth teams for whom everyone was eligible as long as they’d once been a youth. And finally, in the last and climactic game of our week-long tour, it’s hard to forget that we were marched off the pitch shortly after half-time to save us from bodily harm.
Strewth. It was a fabulous trip. So much so that after University I made my way back to France to play in the Championnat, an ambition first seeded in the bloodied mud of Toulouse. I discovered, thanks to that tour, that there was a wider world of rugby where I wanted to spend more time.
I loved the difference of it. By the end of the week, we had encountered many of the intriguing mysteries of French rugby. It turned out, unlike in Radley College Shop, that shorts came in other colours than navy or white. The first team we played were kitted out in eggshell-blue, the second all in yellow. The French teams were already so sponsored and glamorous they gave a glimpse of what rugby would one day become.
Even the balls were a novelty, only previously seen on the BBC at the Parc des Princes – the Wallaby leather balls with black tips, symbolic of all that was exotic and other about the French game. They had dugouts for the managers; they had managers. And we played every match under floodlights, for most of us a new experience.
That pioneering tour was not pre-season, but in the week between the end of term and Christmas. It was therefore a reward of sorts, though in many ways a rugby tour is like a variation on the old joke about the army. Travel the world, meet interesting people, and get beaten up by them. For those of us who were leaving after 7th term exams, it was an introduction to what the adult world of non-public school rugby might have to offer.
Rain, mostly. Torrential rain every day of the week. That was the first offering, but as Toulouse was a kind of pilgrimage nobody expected it to be easy. The pilgrimage idea came from Mr Waller, backs coach and rugby visionary, who was an early disciple of Pierre Villepreux, the former French full-back putting his innovative theories into practice at Stade Toulousain. These included heretical notions such as the mobility of prop forwards and the obligation of three-quarters to ruck and maul.
We played three times in a week, and I can’t remember whether we won or lost. I do remember how we played the game: fast and wide, converts of Radley’s honorary French flairiste, Monsieur Walleur. We soon discovered, however, that Villepreux’s ideas had been adopted at Radley College before they’d reached the Toulouse Colts.
For the final match of our tour, rain had closed the main Toulouse stadium. We were relocated to an outside pitch made primarily of water and gravel, the puddles silver in the floodlights, but for our first try we ignored the weather and sprung the rush defence with a long, unplanned cut-out pass to winger Tom Johnson. I’ll never forget it because I passed it. I was under the Villepreux-Waller spell. Everything was possible.
It was at the back of the next line-out that the Toulouse Number 8, the ball long gone, turned towards Chris Sheasby and calmly bopped him on the nose. It was entirely pre-meditated, almost apologetic, but from then on all sixteen forwards were repeatedly forgetting the ball to experiment with mayhem and violence. The backs did the double teapot and watched – at least no-one important was going to get hurt.
Can’t remember who won the fighting, either, though our mobile prop forwards were much better at running away. It was when our giant second-row Julian Beck started getting really angry that Mr Johnson decided to call a halt. Touring is partly about an encounter with real life, but you can have too much of a good thing.
Or can you? Late into the night, after the game, we were in town watching the Toulouse front-row bind together and rush aluminium garage doors with their heads. I’d never seen anything like it.
And we did in fact get to meet the legendary M. Villepreux. Before that fated final bust-up, we had lunch with the opposition. Now, there’s a hoary old story in rugby, nearly always associated with clubs touring in France. Both sides sit down to a slap-up meal, with wine a go-go, and then when it comes to game-time an entirely different home fifteen brightly take the field. I was recently assured by a younger OR that this had happened to us on our tour to France.
I’d love it to be true, but I doubt it is. That meal was more like a last supper, all of us very nervous. I remember a long table with, at the centre, Pierre Villepreux offering sermons on the penultimate man and the killer inside pass. Unfortunately, for those of us not taking French A-level, the guru might just as well have been talking Hebrew.
No such problems await in New Zealand, but hopefully other, equally stimulating adventures. I congratulate Niall Murphy and his squad on their ambitious choice of destination, and I can only admire a club that has held fast to the values of overseas touring after such an inauspicious beginning. May your lives be enhanced and your memories enriched! Allez les Rouges!
Munster Munched
Heineken Cup Quarter Final 2007
 red, white, grey, blue army Yup, it’s on. You the Munster faithful have the tradition, the genial company, the unyielding quest for (forward-based) excellence. But I suspect the real reason Munster is most people’s second favourite European team lies with the Irish Pub.
It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, a Paddy Foley’s or a Molly Malone’s or a plain old Irish Pub will be showing the Munster games. Support Edinburgh or Calvisano if you like (and I’ve a soft spot for both of them) but you’ll never get to see them on the telly abroad or, for that matter, in the knock-out stages of the Heineken Cup.
For the European Cup quarter final 2007, I’m a Gloucester supporter in Strasbourg, so naturally I’m in The Irish Times thirty minutes before kick-off to cheer on the reds. My second-favourite team. At first, this doesn’t seem a popular way of spending a wet Friday night in central Europe. The pub is mostly empty except for some confused French couples who’ve come in for a pint of Guinness and a slice of Ireland. They’re watching Ireland play cricket against England on the big screen, and thinking hurling isn’t half the game it used to be. Mind you, the changes must have worked or it wouldn’t have become so popular in Guyana.
The UCC student behind the bar flicks over to the Sky preamble at Stradey Park. It’s amazing. The Red Army have taken over the stadium. Ah, no. Though at this distance I’m not sure I can tell the difference between red and scarlet. Maybe in Llanelli they’re trained to know the difference from birth.
Before long, my Strasbourg pal Ashley, Cork born and bred, comes in with his wife Tara. Asked to write something about the match for Red Alert, I’d wanted Ashley to be more of a mad Munster fan than he actually is.
‘You’re not even wearing the jersey.’ I say, immediately disappointed as he approaches the bar in muted Euro smart-casual.
‘The jersey? Haven’t even got a proper accent anymore,’ Ashley says, though he does still have a proper regional thirst. ‘My six-year-old daughter’s got the shirt,’ he says, taking the head off the evening’s first pint, ‘but when you’re away from the homeland things can go a bit pear-shaped. She supports Biarritz.’
For dramatic effect, I wanted him to be the stereotype of a Munsterman, crying if Munster lost and buying us all drinks if they won. In fact, it’s his wife Tara who’s genuinely into the rugby, and she’s from Belfast. And even though Ashley and Tara are doing more for the cause of Irish harmony than, say, Trevor Brennan, I soon find out that the Ulster/Munster thing was never likely to cause any problems. They’re united forever in an eternal dislike of Leinster.
I’m quickly brought up to date on the internal workings of Munster rugby. Limerick provides the soul while Cork provides the spokespeople. It’s ‘Stab City’ for the blood and guts; cosmopolitan, sophisticated, intellectual Cork for everything else. I can’t say for sure, but there may have been some prejudice at work here.
But the match, the match. The Sky commentators mention that tickets in West Wales have been changing hands for ridiculous prices. Which seems strange from where we’re sitting, because at the Irish Times in Strasbourg you can watch it for free from a nice seat at the bar. The Munster clamour is provided by nine students from University College Cork. They’re on an Erasmus year in Strasbourg, and in the even-handed spirit of that wise Dutch humanist they work behind the bar while also providing most of the custom. The girls are drinking that old Carrigaline standard – white Russian with mint – and the lads are in their Munster away jerseys because this year for them it’s always an away game.
These jerseys are blue and red. Munster run on to the big screen in grey. This is perhaps the first sign that things are not going to turn out well.
After nearly two decades of the Red Army marauding through Europe, this ghost-like grey requires a certain adjustment, especially for a neutral primed to support the team in red. Though not that much of an adjustment. Concentrate on the shorts and socks. Black with white piping – that must be Munster, the same colour as the drinks.
Llanelli seem happy to exploit this unexpected crisis of identity. They’re in the red and right from the kick-off they play like Munster, and have their first score on the board within five minutes.
Ashley decides we need more atmosphere, so rings up Kevin and Robby who are sure to be watching. They’re out. Llanelli score again. We were hoping for a re-run of 2006 glory and end up watching a horror movie. Nightmare on Cullen Street. May even be a sequel.
‘C’mon Ronan’ the UCC students groan, and the Sky stats screen is now reporting back on Munster’s rare visits to Llanelli’s 22. It seems an odd way to describe what’s going on, as if Munster just popped down there for tea. From what we’ve seen, it’s not quite as friendly as that.
As half time approaches the Red Army in Stradey seem to have forgotten their responsibility to those of us watching on TV. So it’s bad on the pitch, but you guys in the stand look every miserable point of the 17-0 down at the break. We can see you don’t believe, like the guy with the red Cork City Council hat. He’s had enough.
‘Breast-fed shovels,’ Ashley says, but I ruin it by being foreign and needing an explanation. ‘Leaning on the shovels, breasts on the handles. Best-fed shovels in all Ireland.’
Ah yes, the unmistakable voice of the Guinness talking. Not that at this time of night it needs much encouragement, but the Guinness now decides it’s time to start a debate about whether Alix Popham dyes his hair. The consensus is that it’s sunnier in Wales than most people realize, but his sideburns are definitely fake, stuck on with Velcro.
Seasoned supporters will recognize that talking rubbish is a valid and effective way to ease the pain, and already by the sixty-sixth minute the Munster fans in Strasbourg have become magnanimous in defeat.
‘A Llanelli masterclass,’ everyone agrees. ‘Llanelli look really good.’
And they do. For those of you at Stradey Park it seems too much to bear, many of you adopting the crash position with hands on red hats. Even in Strasbourg, it can’t be easy for a true believer, and one of the students disappears into the streets of Strasbourg, where the weather has come out in sympathy and is lashing it down. Poor old Fionan in his outdated Munster away shirt. He’s no doubt out there bashing his head against a fourteenth century beam in the pretty medieval streets of Strasbourg, and cursing the day coal was ever discovered in the Welsh valleys, colliery managers were recruited from English public schools, and rugby balls were brought to a region full of strong fierce men with a point to prove who created a proud sporting tradition that lasts to this day. Dammit. It could all have been so different. No coal in Wales and Munster would now be safe in the semi-finals.
Back in the bar, the Munster lads have explanations. An Englishman at this point might be saying oh dear, oh dear (or words to that effect sometimes spelt with an f), but the Munstermen are muttering O’Connell, O’Connell, and the difference the big man might have made. The grey jerseys come in for a bit of a pasting, and grumbles about Manchester United trying the same thing and losing 6-1 to Southampton. Players couldn’t see each other, apparently.
A guitarist starts up with Knocking on Heaven’s Door, the TV switches back to hurling from the Caribbean, and for the next few hours I find out more about Gaelic football than I possibly needed to know. We also discuss Clonakilty, snow on the beach, and squirrel stew, while discovering that Guinness and pastis is much under-rated as a mixture of drinks.
By the time we leave, in this city of pavement cafes and sauerkraut restaurants, we unanimously agree that this business of going to a pub on a rainy Friday night and watching rugby and drinking stout and yakking with strangers is an idea who’s time has come. You should try it in Ireland sometime. I’ve a feeling it might catch on.
from www.theeastterrace.com 02/9/05
In a surprise move, Sir Clive Woodward unveiled Neil Back, Richard Hill, Ben Kay and Will Greenwood as his first official signings for the Southampton Academy football team. At yesterday’s spontaneous press conference, Woodward said he was disappointed by the lukewarm reaction to his first meaningful act in football. In particular, he said he was astonished by the criticism that his new players were too old for the game at academy level.
‘That’s such a conventional way of thinking,’ Woodward admonished reporters. ‘At my first training session I immediately identified the major weakness in age-group soccer. Basically, the players are too young. It’s like boys against boys out there, and the likes of Backy and Kayey can bring valuable experience to our opening fixture against Portsmouth Under-18’s.’
Woodward added that this is exactly the kind of innovative thinking the Saints can expect from him as a World-Cup winning coach. Nevertheless, his unique vision of the academy first team has Greenwood and co not only playing out of position, but in an unfamiliar sport. Woodward’s enthusiasm remains undimmed.
‘They all had at least one kick-about during their school days, and anyway, positions are just a number on the back. And soccer is just letters in the alphabet. When all’s said and done, both games are played with a ball.’
Woodward’s shock move means no place in the Saints academy line-up for local prodigy Eric ‘Ginger’ Purves, scorer of 103 goals in last year’s Hampshire Schools league, and already linked with Manchester United.
‘Don’t get me wrong, Ginger’s a great player,’ Woodward admitted, ‘and the life and soul of the squad. But he’s only sixteen. If we’re going to win the Bacardi-Breezer-With-A-Straw-Please Junior Challenge Cup we need experience. That’s why I’ve brought in the Hills and Backs of this world. These guys have won World Cups. We know they can handle the pressure.’
Woodward asked to be judged not on short-term results, but instead on the final of the coxless fours at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
 if you build it they will come
Programme Notes for Guam vs India 18/06/05
To meteorologists, Guam’s region of the Pacific is known as Typhoon Alley. Occasionally, a big wind comes and blows everything away. At the end of 2002, Super Typhoon Pongsoona devastated Guam, but somehow the rugby posts on the miraculous Wettengel Rugby Field remained upright. It was a sign. Rugby was here, and it intended to stay.
Guam’s Wettengel Rugby Field, with its impeccable grass, its stands and scoreboard and lights, has become an island landmark. It provides a focus for all those drawn in by Guam’s remarkably inclusive approach to rugby. This international-sized arena, fringed with palm trees as a natural barrier against the jungle, features in the sharpest memories of all those newcomers who first played rugby here, on this field. It has captivated grizzled veterans, school-children, boys, girls, the truly athletic and those who thought they’d never see their toes again.
So why is this achievement so special? A mere nine years ago, the island of Guam had no rugby at all, no players, no pitch.
The field itself is only the most obvious and visible symbol of rugby’s burgeoning presence on the island. Arguably more important is Guam’s dynamic development program. Three years ago, on their own initiative, a passionate core of Guam’s rugby people decided to find and fund a Youth Development Officer. They went to Australia, and in a startling demonstration of the ‘can-do’ attitude, brought one back.
This energetic approach to spreading the good news quickly paid dividends. Within a year, touch rugby was a popular game in eight of Guam’s Middle Schools. This year, in a triumph for persistence and vision, the Independent Interscholastic Athletic Association of Guam (IIAAG) has sanctioned contact rugby as an official competitive high school sport. This accomplishment needs to be put in its true perspective – right here on Guam, right now, rugby has become an official school sport within the federal parameters of the United States educational system. Years from today, when rugby reaches its full potential as a genuinely global sport, this pioneering achievement on a small Pacific island may seem a significant step forward in rugby’s wider international development.
Not that Guam’s school-children are much bothered with their part in history. They just love the running and passing, the tackling and being tackled, the camaraderie and sporting fellowship that comes with the rugby package. The official High School League is a competition of increasing quality, full of enthusiasm and outrageous skill. And that’s not all. The girls on Guam aren’t going to let the boys monopolise the fun. There’s also a high-school league for girls’ teams playing ‘tag’ rugby. On Guam, everyone gets to join the party.
This admirable situation, like the Wettengel Rugby Field, was created from nothing. The sheer quantity of good faith and hard work that has gone into making such a situation possible makes it that much more likely to endure. Look at the pitch. A once rocky, hilly patch of jungle will today host its first IRB World Cup qualifying match. The Wettengel Field is a thing of beauty in June under brochure-blue skies. It also has solid foundations. As well as being pretty, the home-built irrigation systems can drain monsoons and deal with the toughest of Pacific storms.
No wonder, then, that Guam is already an international rugby venue. The island’s annual True Grit 10’s has welcomed visiting teams from Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Saipan, Korea, and France. All have been enriched by the experience, whatever bumps and bruises they’ve taken away as part of the learning process more commonly known as rugby. This weekend the Field becomes an international venue in the true sense, staging Guam’s first ever 15-a-side Test match, against India. Such a proud outcome is a lasting tribute to all the otherwise sane men and women of Guam who have worked so hard to share the joy of rugby.
Today’s Test match and ARFU mid-year Council Meeting are undoubtedly significant milestones in the history of Guam rugby. Nevertheless, the greater ambition has been to get rugby going here for everyone. This weekend’s celebration is therefore not an end in itself. The boys and girls of Guam are learning a love of rugby in the schools. As they increasingly indulge that passion by rushing down to Wettengel at the weekends, Guam can be optimistic that this is only the first of many similar memorable events.
Guam is also looking forward to benefiting from its transfer to the Asia Rugby Football Union. As well as making logistical sense, it means that Guam’s national squad can aim to compete with teams in the region of a similar standard. On the pitch, Guam has developed a reputation as a close-knit group of hard-hitting and tenacious players. They look fit and well organised, partly because of conditioning schedules that include long runs through the lush interior of the island. It must be tempting for promising youngsters to join in just for the adventure of the training.
Off the pitch, visiting Asian Unions can be confident of a warm rugby welcome. This kind of cultural interchange, generously funded by the IRB, is one of the many benefits of a qualification series for RWC 2007. Neutral observers all over the world are looking forward to the fresh rugby rivalries and friendships that will last from now for a hundred years. For Guam, the nostalgia starts now, or if you prefer, these are the golden years when India and Guam first clashed on the once homely Wettengel Field.
Back in the here and now, Guam has a flourishing rugby community developed exclusively during the professional era. The island can therefore provide a valuable example of how best to develop the game globally in the twenty-first century. Rugby on Guam succeeds in blending traditional virtues like commitment, hard work, players and members volunteering skills and time (in return for a huge amount of fun), with a clear-eyed vision of how best to exploit partnerships with business and government.
The money for the impressive Wettengel Rugby Field, for example, comes largely from a $75,000 sponsorship deal with Budweiser. The club has involved Shell in junior rugby. Continental Airlines flies in the referees for the True Grit 10’s. The corporate sector is involved and enthusiastic about Guam’s plans for further development, including a second pitch and leading today’s high school players into tomorrow’s local championship of at least six senior teams. This island league will then feed players into a national squad to compete throughout the region.
The rugby people of Guam have achieved miracles, and not small ones, either. Given sufficient resources, Guam’s development program offers a model that can be perfected and rolled out across schools in Asia and the US mainland. Meanwhile, with IRB support, the Guam Rugby Union will continue to combine official funding, local enthusiasm and corporate involvement to ensure the growth and good health of the game for many years to come.
 only in France Times Column 02/04/05
The Heineken Cup is back, though if you live in mainland Britain none of the glamour or vigour is happening near you. French clubs earned home advantage in three of the four quarter-finals, but because the French remain generous in providing most of the tournament’s exoticism, one of those matches is actually taking place in Spain.
Olympique Biarritz host Munster tomorrow afternoon in the Basque city of San Sebastian, adding an even newer sound to the tournament’s many bells and whistles. Despite ten years of familiarity since Toulouse first dominated the competition, French clubs retain their talent for the unexpected.
Thankfully so. Rugby has always needed the French. They have a habit of seeing things differently, and offer the best living proof, in this era of attempted expansion, that the game can meaningfully transcend its Empire origins. So how, even after professionalism, have French clubs succeeded in maintaining their distinctness?
One reason is that they’ve always been ahead of the game. France was banned in 1931 from the then 5 Nations because the clubs were paying players, a full sixty-five years before rugby went professional. That’s forward-thinking on an epic scale. They’re already prepared for global warming, and on the hard sunlit pitches of South-West France the players run faster which means less useful work for props and better-looking teams all round. This in turn puts them in advance of their European rivals when it comes to marketing their stars. Nude photos of a fit and tanned Fred Michalak do a roaring trade on gay internet sites. The French were also unsung pioneers of nutritional supplements, recognising exceptionally early the need for a decent Bordeaux with any protein-based main meal.
The result? A vigorous championnat that accommodates an inexhaustible supply of magical backs, but also ferocious front-rows and the coaching input of Dean Richards.
So there it is, vive la difference, except these days a more significant difference is probably the absence of a salary cap. This means that Toulouse can put together the heady cultural mix of Isitolo Maka and Trevor Brennan in the back row, Clement Poitrenaud and Gareth Thomas competing for the red and black No.15 shirt. The big French clubs don’t do either/or. This is the ‘and’ generation, which is why the likes of Stephen Jones, Dan Luger and Nathan Hines are lured across the Channel. The French clubs don’t need them, but seeing as they could possibly come in useful, they might as well bring them in.
The richest clubs like Stade Francais and Toulouse are only interested in the best players, which means they mostly buy French. In this way, the scale of the transfer traffic doesn’t always get through to us. It explains how Biarritz end up with Betsen, Harinordoquy, Yachvilli, Brusque and Damien Traille. Stade Francais are more cosmopolitan, introducing Peter de Villiers and Brian Leibenberg to their inner Frenchman, as well as recruiting the best of the Argentines and Italians (Agustin Pichot and the Bergamasco brothers). The French super-clubs, unrestrained by a salary cap, are already testing out the limits of a Real-Madrid style team of Galacticos.
It would be nice to think that this concept is equally likely to fail in rugby. Every year, almost single-handedly, Munster demonstrate that a passionate sense of belonging is always worth points on the board. Stade Francais bought their way to one European Cup final, where they were overcome by the intact soul of a salary-capped Leicester. Only Toulouse seem to have found the secret of protecting their native identity while gradually changing personnel, and this is why they’re perennially the most likely of the French challengers.
Another big difference, this year, is that none of the French players covet a spot with the Lions. The Lions? I was so doing so well – not a single mention until now, but the Lions selection is compelling exactly because it’s a type of home-nations galacticomania, only without the money. For the first stirrings of the real thing, in the professional age, look at the prototype teams running out this weekend in France. And Spain. The French clubs are exotic because they’re French, but also because they’re the future.
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About Me
About Richard Beard
I'm a novelist and non-fiction writer, and recently took up the post as Director of the National Academy of Writing. As time goes by I'm gradually transferring the material from the old site (stories, articles, squibs) into the categories tabbed aboved. There's information on each of my books, with summaries and reviews, and now that I'm permanently back in the country I'm available for events and readings. Email me using Contact, below right. I'll get back to you.
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