I am reminded of the film The Producers, in which two fading Broadway guys overhype a musical to investors and plan to run off with the proceeds when the play turns out to be deliberately staged as a flop.
They hire the “duffest” director around and stage the worst play in history which is a gay romp about Hitler featuring a hippie type playing the roll of Adolf himself. The plot backfires on them when audiences interpret the play, not as a glorified retelling of the Adolf Hitler story but rather a satire on Nazi Germany.
The films main song ‘Springtime for Hitler and Germany’, proves to be a hit. The musical is a success and the producers plan to blow up the theatre where it is being staged but end up in prison after being caught red handed so to speak.
Ok, so the plot isn’t quite the same but Mad Max Guzzini’s European rugby adventure, featuring his very own team Stade Francais of Paris and fall guys Ulster rugby will be the story of one man’s unique brand and how he spread its rugby gospel to Belgian rugby pagans. The plot calls for Max’s team to arrive in Belfast for a game of rugby with underachieving Ulster.
All Max’s team have to do is turn up and beat the Ulstermen before playing them in the return leg, not in Max’s backyard, but a wee bit further up the road from Paris in Brussels and in a large football stadia.
Max plans some pre match entertainment involving dancing girls and cheap seats before this team ake the field and wipe the ass of those underachieving Ulstermen. Max pockets some dosh and claims to have spread the rugby gospel to those low life Belgians in the process.
The story so far is that the plan worked as far as 1.35p.m. Saturday 12th December when Max’s team took the field at sun kissed but chilly Ravenhill and were rudely welcomed by some enterprising rugby from the Ulstermen. Max’s team mentally dissolved in the face of this unexpected twist to the plot and found themselves beaten and in trouble for bad behaviour on the field of play.
At this point the plot required some re-writing as Max’s team were the subject of much unfavourable media coverage and minus a key player who had decided unwisely to show how deft he was as an apprentice eye surgeon. The showpiece in Brussels began to look like another away game for Max’s team and the pundits declared Max’s venture into virgin territory a spectacular backfire.
Things began to look even more ominous when amid statements of contriteness from the production team of Stade Francais they also began to question the authenticity of reality, claiming photos of their bad behaviour had been doctored to show them up in a bad light. When this rebounded Max and his team resorted to the ultimate sanction and called in a weather front to ruin any prospect of a game in Brussels.
As a sub plot he also noted the Boys on Tour had actually made it to Brussels and decided that he would rewrite history accurately, a second time by moving the game to Paris. Readers of this site will be aware of Boys on Tour propensity for turning up in the wrong place for a game by involving Ulster and Stade Francais when they famously found themselves in Ostend and the game being played in Paris..
So far this Sunday morning 20th December 2009, Max’s plan to bring the game back to his home ground in Paris appears to be working and the plot can only backfire if the lowly underachieving Ulstermen make it to the ground and play his team off the park. Of course divine intervention may yet ruin his best laid plans by actually bringing in another weather front and upsetting his pink apples once more. Best result to this epic saga would be for the Ulstermen to go out and teach those pink ladies a real rugby lesson. It would make my Christmas given the twists and turns of this unlikely epic European rugby venture.
Meanwhile back at the UAFC they have a climate change disaster on their hands, With so much hot air circulating the messageboard there is every prospect that forum warming will cause it to sink in its own verbiage. Even the once notorious White Knight staged a minor comeback on the subject of gouging, claiming he was new here before being stamped on by a vigilante poster with a curt, ‘no your not!’. Fortunately the authorities have caught up with White Knight and he has been returned to captivity before any lasting damage has been caused to the minds of all right thinking and genuine message board posters.
The waiting begins to find out if Mad Max’s plot to wreak revenge on the beatific red hand of Ulster will actually succeed on the snow kissed lawns of a Paris suburb. If there is any justice the Ulstermen will turn logic on its head and return virtue to its lofty pedestal and beat Stade Francais this afternoon. Unfortunately the TV cameras will not be recording this thrashing for posterity and the pleasure of the Ulster rugby population, except those hardy souls who have fought their way to Paris to support the Ulster team. Even the Boys on Tour may well defy Mad Max’s best laid plans and turn up to add their considerable ire to the voices of the Ulster faithful.
As BJ Botha might say, “Let the games begin!”
Corrections, comments or questions?