Photo: A rugby match at my old school - and no - I am not in the photo!On my late afternoon walks I often pass through a park that I have come to call, "The Field of The Inner-Child."
It's a place where men my age stare wistfully at football, (soccer) goal posts and kick a ball around by themselves. A brick wall becomes a competitive opponent in the final of a Grand Slam tennis tournament. A man in his late fifties flies his glider, while another of similar age prefers a kite.
There is an elderly couple who stroll hand in hand to the bay to launch a model boat. Middle aged men in business suits stand on the edge of the water with brown paper or plastic bags filled with stale bread to feed the ducks. A woman in her early fifties uses the basketball hoop, oblivious to the late forties lady hockey player in full uniform dribbling the ball along a painted white line. Actually I notice her - but that's another story altogether!
Once we were kids - and for an hour or so a day - we are again.
Maybe that is why a placard on the side of the road caught my eye today. "Local Rugby - mature aged players needed".
"I can do that" I said to myself and began to think about applying.
OK, let's be honest about this - I qualify for the mature aged bit but to call myself a "player" may be a bit misleading. I have played twice since I was forced to play the game in school - once in Ireland in 1980 and once in 1994 against a team of mixed gender six and seven year olds. Both times I got injured - and the last game was "touch rugby".
Taken out by a six-year old
I bet you are wondering how anyone can get injured playing touch-rugby against ankle-biters. I will tell you. Because the nuns who organised the game and asked if I would like to help out, forgot to tell a little six year old girl what the word, "touch" means in such a game.
The concept is quite simple - instead of tackling or bringing down a player, you touch the opponent and that constitutes a tackle. Unlike the girl who realising I was heading towards the try line, said to herself "I'll get you Jimmy" and hurled herself at my ankles.
Normally if I was fouled by an opposing player I would eyeball him and say,"Come the second half mate, you're history" but you can't really say that to a six year old girl and somehow, "I hope your Barbie doll gets dandruff" doesn't have quite the same menace.
In Ireland however - my injuries were not caused by the opposition - but by my male-macho-pride.
Wide eyed and legless
I had landed a job as manager of a travel agency in a small village in Ireland, and the owners encouraged me to socialise. I was 24 and more than happy to oblige.
Not long after I took up the position, I was socialising heavily at the local pub, (it was a hard job but someone had to do it) and the conversation turned to rugby. Because I came from Wales, a land famous for its love of the game, my fellow drinkers assumed I too could play. Filled with Guinness and anxious to impress, I slightly exaggerated my experience. "Oh yes, I played for my school team" I informed them.
Actually it was true. I played once - when the coach decided to rest both the first and second teams in readiness for a big game later on.
My audience however, gained a different perception and told me they were a man short for a game the next day. Thinking it would be just a knock-about social game, I told them I would be glad to help out - and carried on drinking.
The next morning I was picked up and taken to the ground. It was then that I began to have doubts about the nature of the game.
I had expected a park with goal posts marked by piles of sweaters or anoraks. This ground not only had goal posts and a dressing room - but also a grandstand and spectators. Once in the dressing room my doubts turned to, "what he hell have I done" caused largely by the menacing war cry coming from the opposing team's dressing room.
This was not the game between mates I had expected. It was a local league match - and that meant war!
Five minutes after the match started I was given the ball. Not really knowing what to do with it, I decided to run. I managed to gain about three inches before being crash tackled by a huge opposing forward. I picked myself up, dusted myself down and with false heroics shrugged off the, "Are you OK lad?" concerns of my team mates.
A few minutes later I found myself on the ground buried underneath a player who quite frankly, was as we say here, built like a brick shit-house.
Sod this for a game of tin soldiers I thought and decided to lie there groaning.
You can pull the mask of the old Lone Ranger - but don't mess around with mum
This time I did not pretend everything was all hunky-dory. I groaned as much as I could. From the sidelines two men came running on to the pitch carrying a stretcher. Helped by team members, I was put on the stretcher and carried off to the sound of rapturous applause from my team's supporters. I was even patted by a couple of girls as I was taken through the spectator area - a hero for five minutes!
I assumed I would be taken to the dressing room - wrong. Still on the stretcher I was carried straight in to the club's bar. Two guys helped me to my feet then settled me at a table. Without asking, the barmaid brought over a pint of Guinness and told me "Get this down you love." Who was I to argue!
I was joined by Seamus, the brother of my employer and a character straight out of "The Quiet Man." Seamus was a stockily built former rugby player in his mid-fifties and had been known to roll his sleeves up now and then to participate in the local pubs idea of conflict resolution. As we shared a pint and a yarn, in walked Kitty, his slight, elderly but formidable mum. She had Seamus well and truly in her sights.
"What on earth possessed you?" she asked as she slapped him on his arm. "Didn't you realise the lad was not fit to play?" this time slapping his other arm. "The boy could have been hurt - just look at him will you". Slap.
I tried to assure her that I was perfectly OK, just a little winded. She told me to keep out of it. I immediately decided that was a damn good idea.
Comeback?
Will I make a comeback? Having thought about my last two experiences with the sport they call, 'the game they play in Heaven' I think I will take the advice of Fagan in the 60s musical, 'Oliver."
I think I'd better think it out again.
Footnote: Do you see the mountainside in the photo? We used to slide down the slope on thick pieces of cardboard using our school shoes as brakes. The local shoe shop did a good trade in new shoes!
