Standing in the crowd at Ravenhill for the Ulster Munster match, one had a feeling that I and the rest of the spectators around me were on a bus trip from the cuckoo’s nest and had been dropped off at a sports ground to wile away the hours before returning to the funny farm. This is how I might view the game should this unlikely scenario actually occur.
I found myself standing on a terraced concrete area overlooking a grass playing field with two ‘H’ shaped posts at either end. I was standing like everyone else but across the playing field there was a big shed with an open front under which many people sat. A lone figure in a red shirt, black helmet, dark blue shorts and red socks trundled unto the grass from across the playing field to a smattering of applause from the crowd. He looked a little uncomfortable being there alone and for a few moments stood embarrassed, looking round him before being joined by 14 men of various shapes and sizes, from the rotund to beanpole, all dressed up in the same attire as the first lone ranger. Muted applause heralded their appearance as a man with a microphone bawled into the sound system, swiftly followed by some singing about standing up for the Ulstermen which we were already doing of course, (standing up I mean).
15 men of various shapes and sizes attired in white shirt and shorts with red socks and a few of them sporting black helmets emerged from in front of a wall with a clock on it, to greater applause than the ones in red. A third team had somehow miraged, consisting of 3 men in yellow shirts, one of whom had a whistle and positioned himself in the centre of the field whilst the other two with flags ran along the side of the pitch. The man in yellow blew his whistle and the red and white shirts intermingled briefly before separating behind respective imaginary lines facing each other. The red ones booted the oval shaped ball high into the large shed across the field in an oft repeated act, by red and white.
The oft repeated act was interspersed with collisions between red and white shirts, the oval ball being thrown about occasionally but mostly being kicked very high indeed and the man in yellow blowing his whistle a lot whilst having a dialogue with both red and white shirts.
In between there were lots of stoppages whilst both teams lined up opposite each other and one or the other threw a ball into their midst from the side of the playing field. The man in white faired very badly and drew groans from lots of people standing round me as he found it easier to lob the ball to the red shirts than his own lead footed white ones.
Then there were stoppages for red or white shirted men collapsing on the grass and having ice packs or sprays applied to various areas of their anatomy by other men in tracksuits. All the time the man in yellow with the whistle fussed about them like a mother hen. More stoppages, this time as 8 men each of the red and white teams formed a wedge shape and interlocked whilst a small, bald as a coot, red shirted man threw ball into the middle of the heaving mass. Sometimes it was the white shirted man with the dreadlocks turn to demonstrate how he could throw the ball in and retrieve it at the back of the heaving mass and boot it high into the air whilst other white shirts raced after it up the field and tried to flatten the red shirt trying to catch the ball.
The heaving mass I was reliably told is a scrum, though confusingly there were also more chaotic versions of the scrum appearing all over the pitch. “A ruck!,” the man standing beside me intoned when I questioned him. For by now the man, El Monty, had adopted me as a complete idiot, (which I was) and was ‘schooling’ me in the basics of rugby. He introduced himself as a ‘thug’. At least that’s what it sounded like. However a companion of his seeing my shock at being in such company explained that my mentor was a ‘First Ulster Guru’ or FUG.
By now thoroughly confused/peed off at the stop/start nature of the contest I was surprised to see the two tall strong looking men in white shirts suddenly combine in a demonstration of red arrow like precision. It started with a scrum and finished with the blonde one powering through a gap in the red shirted wall, before gracefully sliding to a halt near the ‘H’ shaped posts.
“TRY!!!” the guru exclaimed whilst around me several waved their arms and others shouted and cheered wildly as though celebrating the end of a war. I felt like one of those ice skating judges and wanted to reach for a card and hold up my 5.6 out of 6.0 scoring for the very graceful swallow dive by the blond white shirt.
This was the third “TRY” of the game and the third one by the white shirts who got by far and away the most cheers and of course the most moans and groans when it all went wrong.
In between the TRIES the crowd seemed very subdued with lots of muttering, ironic guffaws, except for ironic cheers when the man in the white stood at the side of the playing field and threw the ball to one of his own teammates for a change. “It’s a lineout,” the guru informed me and for the white shirts it was all going pear shaped apparently due to an intricate equation not being calculated properly by the jumpers x the mass x the speed of throw x the timing of the throw. Seemed to me, there was too much name calling, shuffling and switching of positions. One very tall fellow with a white shirt and spikey hair shouted, “on me,” leapt like a salmon and caught the ball cleanly, to ironic cheers. Seemed to be the way forward, this simple and uninhibited method of lineout.
Ironic cheers and tries aside I felt a bit like a liferaft in a sea of seaweed, I checked to see if there was a sign Saragossa Sea but all I could spy was a neon lit board which read ULSTER 19 MUNSTER 9 with a digital clock beside it. One young man in front of me waved a red and white flag which looked suspiciously like the Taiwanese National emblem. But in a seemingly unexpected metaphor for the way the game was being played the flag refused obstinately to fully unfurl in the breeze leaving the young man to rein in his errant emblem and continue to support his team in a less high profile manner.
As the uncooperative, unfurling flag, died in the lack of breeze, so the game spluttered out. Ones bus was waiting to take one back to the cuckoo nest.
As I left the concrete Terraced area a small group of men and youngsters lingered on the Terracing like marooned crabs after the tide had gone. One held a banner up with some statement about standing up for an Ulster women and votes. I had had enough for one night, it was past my bedtime and I reckoned it was past their’s too.
El Monty the guru invited me back for the game on Saturday. He was clearly pleased that he made an impression on someone with his rugby guruship, even someone as daft as me. I would have to find an excuse to get out of the funny farm. They would tell me I was mad if I said I wanted to go to a rugby match at Ravenhill. I was, but this time I’d bring a book. -
‘Addicks Guide to Structural Engineering in Norman Castles’ would see me through all those long passages of broken play and medicinal theatrics. Perhaps I might find some insight into how to build a fortress, though I recall someone telling me this was fortress Ravenhill. Certainly with the myriad number of FUGs around me it would have been an intellectual property!!!.
BP – I learn some more at the Glasgae game- read the next blog………
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