The Rugby Match

I've had a cultural experience that I think warrants a return to the blog from which I've been delinquent. I passed a delightful evening two nights ago at a rugby game. Rugby match. Rugby conflict.

The home team was called the London Welsh. So obviously they play in Oxford. The game began with — what else — a recording of male choral music, which got louder and louder until it was all I could do not to stand up and place my hand over my heart in tribute to the rousing anthem. The players came out in red (our side) and black (the bad guys, of course). As a side note, I noticed that the other team had the word DOWNTON stamped mysteriously across their hindquarters. No idea what that was about.

These were voluptuous men, blessed with thunder thighs and, on several of them, what can only be described as bosoms. Bedecked with tea cozies on their heads, they carried out their struggle in a manner that reminded me sometimes of 18th-century warfare.

They showed prodigious creativity in their methods of interacting with the ball. When it was thrown in from outside the line, two players would grab a third by the thunder thighs and lift, and he would rise gracefully above his teammates' heads like a porpoise to meet the ball high in the air. Often two players, one from each team, would do this simultaneously in an elegant pas de deux.

Other times several of the players would crouch down and interlock their limbs to form a solid, crab-like organism, and they'd scuttle around doing mysterious things until the ball popped out from under an edge somewhere. This, I am told, is called a scrum.

One of the key differences from American football (which obviously I am an expert in) was that when the player with the ball was tackled, play did not stop. Men kept running towards the tackled player and leaping gleefully onto the growing heap, while those at the bottom squirmed and kicked and clawed at the ball as if it were a giant jar of Marmite. When the secret signal to stop finally came, players would untangle themselves and emerge from the manpile in various states of undress, with bellies hanging free or shorts around their knees. Methinks a belt would be a splendid addition to the uniform.

The audience was positively magnanimous. (Audience? Congregation? There must be a better word than "crowd.") When we scored a touchdown thingy, we cheered. When the other team scored a touchdown thingy...we cheered. (n.b. I believe the technical term for a touchdown thingy is a "try," but that sounds far too indecisive to me.) As the match progressed and the opponents' score crept ever higher, this generosity of spirit never wavered with respect to the other side, although dissatisfaction with the (Oxford) London Welsh increased in amplitude.

The audience was diverse, and expressed their sentiments in a variety of accents and styles. The general drone of manroar was punctuated with little gems of English linguistic diversity. The group next to me shouted abuse and instructions while up to their elbows in bags of snacks. A bald man in a floral hoodie erupted into lusty hymn singing at one point. Somewhere there was a bark of "Phlogpog!" in a tone that indicated the speaker had said exactly what he had meant to say. Behind me an elderly gentleman in tweed kept saying things like, "Oh yes, old chap, but you see of course there's no forward bumble. He mustn't press the trier without the scrum flummox in the dolphin." Or something like that. I'm paraphrasing.

We lost fairly spectacularly in the end, but it was a great evening. The weather was warm, almost balmy, and the company couldn't have been better. After a short night’s sleep, I packed myself off to Grantham, where we’re putting on my opera Cantata Eliensis this evening as part of the Gravity Fields Festival (more on that at www.annakrause.com). Come along if you’re in the neighborhood!