Today capped off the Christmas season. As part of the festive melee, Mark and I went to a rugby game somewhere in the quasi-suburbs of southwest London. It was part of his Christmas gift, you see.
Anyways, the stadium is near the national rugby stadium at Twickenham. The Harlequins were playing Leicester. I asked what city the Harlequins actually represented and was answered by a puzzling glaze. But that's not the important part. Key here is that it was my first real-live rugby 'match'.
The stadium was relatively small, with a sell-out crowd barely topping 10,000. It was a nice sunny day, and when the sun was out it was not too cold, which I thought was key! As the stadium was small, we were relatively low down and close to the action. While I had a bit of trouble following the ball at times, that was probably mainly because of my novice viewer level. The game started out well enough, with the quins getting a couple, um, uhhhh, let's just say field goals and they went up 6-0. There were some scrums and some occasions of throwing people up in the air, both of which I found quite exciting. The other fans for the most part seemed relatively normal, and aside from being in the considerable female minority and American, I didn't feel particularly out of place. There weren't any songs like at the Southampton game, just occasional chants of 'Harlequins'. There were two mascots, both bears, one called Harley the other called Charley. Within my notice, one stole someone's beer and the other one managed to get some guy to pick him up and twirl him in the air. It was cute.
Things sort of went downhill in the second half. And quickly. Leicester was up 42-6 before the quins finally managed to score a, um, oh wait I know this one, a try, and the final score was 42-13. So much more respectable to lose by less than 30 points. Anyways, overall it was an enjoyable experience. The game wasn't too long, there was plenty of action, and a lot of short shorts.
3 comments:
Now that you brought up shorts -- what is with the "shorts" worn by basketball players these days? I find all that fabric very distracting. I much prefer the shorts style worn in the 1970s. I think I better stop commenting on shorts now, being the mom and all.
How nice that there was sun and blue sky. I've forgotten what that's like.
At one point I saw one guy's head firmly wedged between another guy's legs. I got the impression that if the shorts weren't fitting there would be too much tangling. You don't get that kid of interaction in basketball.
it was a good time...it was my first non final or special occasion league match and i left thinking i might get season tickets next year!
its a shame that all my teams in the various sports i follow are all doing really badly at the moment!
Post a Comment