THE VILLAGE PEOPLE AT RAVENHILL (no I don’t mean those chaps from the bottom of Tates Avenue!)
Were you there? WERE YOU THERE? Where? Ravenhill of course, Saturday week ago for the Harlequins v Ulster Heineken Cup game. We are officially the only team to have beaten the Stoop brios now that the qualifying stages of the Cup are over. I was of course, almost blown off course by high winds. The game pretty awful as it was, was another step in the right direction for our emerging team, blended with a good mix of youth and veteran experience. Match reports are widely available for it, not the least on the front page of this site and I’m sure everyone is by now familiar with the game’s highlights, limited as they were.
Of course I wish to focus on aspects that embroider the periphery of the game and match day. I’ll start with having found myself in the middle of a crowd of Village People lookalikes, more commonly known on this site and to the slightly wider rugby community as the 2nd barrier crew. No handle bar moostash alter ego in the crew’s motley crowd or an Indian in headgear but forsooth, there were plenty of construction worker lookalikes in white construction helmets and McLaughlin & Harvey sponsored fluorescent PPE vests. For sure there is construction work going on at Ravenhill and it’s purely speculation on my part but someone amongst the crew made a connection between the building site appeal of Ravers and them standing beside the site fencing in construction worker gear.
Probably the Original Kimble dreamt this one up, but all them gay boys and the odd girl or two in construction gear on the Terraces last Saturday made me feel I was in the midst of a YMCA Village People video. The 2BC of course were in full voice as ever as the match stuttered its way through wind and rain, sorry hurricane style conditions. Ulster turned round at the half to play into the wind and rain gusting straight down the pitch from the Aquinas end and into the faces of the Yellow Tom standees, so the elements upped their scale of intensity. The Yellow Tom stand was eventually evacuated for safety reasons.
(Though as a structural engineer I work with later remarked, it might have been better to keep the punters seated in the stand to act as ballast.)
As this titanic event was taking place, the 2BC ‘choir’ began chanting, “part time supporters, part time supporters” in the direction of the unfortunate evacuees from the stand. Honest to gawd, standing in the middle of these charlatans and dressed in normal supporters gear I was, as the late James Young might have said, absolutely mordified! It was if the orchestra on the sloping decks of the Titanic had begun yelling, “chickens,” at the departing passengers on that stricken ship.
I understand that UR are mounting a public enquiry into the 2BC chanting ‘part time supporters’ at the Yellow Tom evacuees as there is suspected collusion between the 2BC and a strong wind gusting down Ravenhill that day. I’ve been unreliably informed, Judge BJ Botha will chair the enquiry, as he was in bed with the flu at the time of the incidents. The cost to UR will likely be high, say about 5 season tickets, 2 Kukri Ulster tops and a load of flags.
The findings of the enquiry will be released at the URSC’s end of season BBQ when it is expected that several 2BC members will be censured for an afternoon of gaiety, dancing in the aisles, (Freddy Benson & Gemma) and chanting on the Terraces.
Punishment will mean that a new 2BC playpen will be erected at the end of the newly reconstructed Terrace well out of sight of the corporates eating prawn sandwiches in Ravers state of the art hospitality sheds. After all you don’t want these salaried types having to peer between Japanese, South African and Ulster flags just to see if the match has ended or not.
WHAT NOW FOR THE WEATHERMEN?
I work in close proximity to a land surveyor who attends Ravenhill at the Prom side on a regular basis. The not so famous Shamus takes a keen, if morbid interest in the weather during the week leading up to the big day of the match.
Monday week ago was no different when I arrived at the desk and noticed ‘not so famous’ scanning the Beeb’s weather chart for the week. He generally addresses me with a face like a thunderstorm and regales me with a steady drip, drip of wet weather, doom and gloom pronouncements. As I don my wet weather nuclear option visage in suitable echo of his own, Shamus lightens the atmosphere with a jaunty precursor along the lines that the Beebs weather forecasts change quicker than a barometer in a bathroom. The Beeb more or less got it right for the Harlequins game but that did not stop Shamus from playing out his little early morning weather routine from Monday through to Friday.
A weatherman with egg on his face was none other than that redoubtable chicken farmer from down Tyrone/Fermanagh way. Normally farmers can be relied upon to emerge from their stylish farm villas early morn, lick a finger, stick it in the air and predict rain at precisely 15.35 and 42 seconds on Saturday 17th January 2009 somewhere in the vicinity of Ravenhill.
Alas poor Roost! A little birdy had told him it would rain between 3 and 4 in the afternoon on that particular day and he had proclaimed as much to the UAFC faithful. It’s not known as yet ‘weather’ he will gain the sort of reputation Micheal Fish did after a similar attempt at forecasting.
CONSPIRACY THEORY INCORPORATED
Irish provinces helping each other in the Heineken Cup? Aw come on, you can’t be serious! Well let’s have a glimpse of the facts as presented by yours truly.
Ulster knock the livin’ daylights out of Munster at Thomond Park, just weeks before an important Cup game. Cue much breast beating amongst the bogmen about how they have lost something in the transition from old Thomond to new. A right kick up the bum for Munster and out they come inspired at new Thomond rocked along by the faithful.
A struggling Leinster meet Edinburgh but it’s not Castres iron that progress to the next stage will be made. Cue Ulster old boys McCall and Davidson putting out their strongest side against Wasps, Leinster’s rivals for QF spot. Exit Wasps and Leinster’s passage to the QF’s is sweeter than it might have been. Mind, ask me what Leinster and Munster have done for Ulster in the Heiny and ………………….
BRING BACK THE BIRCH
Well it might sound a bit like one of those anachronisms from the past, but like the birch, a good shoeing in rugby would soon sort out those denizens of the inappropriate places to take a kip during a match. He’s not alone of course, but Saturday week ago Phil Vickery plonked himself down on the wrong side of a ruck during a match with Leinster and made no effort to get out of the way. The ref wasn’t interested in Mr. Vickery’s illegal loitering with intent to disrupt but Mal O’Kelly was and promptly cuffed Phil’s head with his boot. A potentially dangerous act for which he got a 2 week ban.
(BTW. Mal was last seen chatting amicably to Leinster’s mascot, Leo the lion and obviously running out of friends to talk to.)
Now I’m not condoning O’Kelly’s actions but somehow referees have either got to remove the likes of Vickery from the play by penalising them or let the natural forces of the rugby boot return to mete out a good stud down the back. All but the most maosochistic player will get the message.
I ask this. How does a team ruck the ball in the manner required by the IRB, i.e. on their feet, when some 18 stone prop lies sprawled across the back of the ruck on the wrong side and you can’t lay a foot on him for fear of being carded and at worst be banned?
The IRB would be better off cleaning up the games current blight rather launch a raft of further laws that will only compound the existing dementia amongst certain types of player as to how the game should be played. I said bring back the birch, well the birch and a shoeing have something in common – pain. Whilst some folk actually enjoy pain, by and enlarge most fear it in repeated doses.
This blog calls for the return of a good shoeing in rugby. Do you agree?
WHAT AGE IS HE?
Our youthful prop and president of the FRU, the redoubtable Justin 52 or 64years old, Fitzpatrick has come under the microscope of Sunday Times journalist Peter, I can’t find Ulster on my road map, O’Reilly, with this little vignette.
On Ulster’s 99 triumph, Peter is relating a ‘where are they now’ summary of the class of 1999.
‘Justin Fitzpatrick: Still playing for Ulster and maintaining the uncertainty over his exact age’
Could this be FRU factoid nos 7,8,9 & 10?
What age is Justin?
This story is likely to run and run and run……..
A life in the day of ED’s ‘cookry’ sock has been deferred to next week. Don’t miss it, as there are revelations (no i don’t mean Trimby’s bible readings), in the Ulster changing room from Saturday 17th January, when Ed’s sock was hung out to dry again.
As BJ Botha might say, chat soon!
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