The Rugby World Cup is Class

I’ve always had an interesting relationship with rugby. The earliest game I remember watching on TV was an Ireland v Wales game in what was then the Five Nations. I was about fourteen and working in a pub in my home town labouring away one Saturday afternoon, cleaning ashtrays and the other general detritus left behind by the previous night’s revellers. I had the upstairs lounge to myself and while I cleaned tables I turned the television on for company.

I can’t remember the result or anything else about the game, but for some reason it has lodged in my memory. I think it’s there because it throws up the contradictions that rugby causes me. The very fact that I was working in a pub at the age of fourteen is a give away. I come from a firmly working class background where the only way I could procure a bike to get me to school was to get a job and pay for it myself.

Rugby, then as now, was played by the sort of middle class toff in Ireland that I generally despised and would have harboured dreams of putting up against the wall come the great revolution. As a child, we played soccer on the streets, Gaelic Football at school and at the local club and aped the sports we periodically saw on television, be it Wimbledon or athletics. We never played rugby. I don’t even know anyone in my town that had an oval shaped ball.

And yet, I remember being fascinated by that game. I think the technical rules appealed to my intellect and I’ll admit that the sight of eight burly men driving eight others down the pitch while the crowd howled “heave” appealed to my animal sentiments too.

As I got older, I continued to battle with class sensitivity while my friendships and amorous intentions pulled me towards the middle class. My favourite social destination in my late teens was the rugby club disco on a Saturday night, where you could meet the Doctor’s daughters who lived on the hill that overlooked the terraced house that I grew up in. 

I balanced precariously on the dividing line between my working class past and my middle class future, often falling on one side or other depending on the company I held. I was a social chameleon, comfortable singing off-colour songs at Arsenal matches, while discussing the merits of playing a forwards based game in wet weather at Twickenham with my professional actuarial colleagues.

However, it took me a long time to build up the required social capital to be a true rugby devotee. I had contacts in the soccer world to secure tickets for international matches. But getting access to rugby tickets was a different matter. They were the preserve of people who were members of clubs that would never have me as a member.

I solved this by finding a girlfriend who had social capital I could only dream of. So, it turned out that the first live game of rugby I attended was the World Cup Final in 1991. I followed this up with another visit to Twickenham the following spring to see Ireland lose 38-9 to the old enemy, England (I have to thank Wikipedia for that score as my memory is weaker than Ireland’s defence that day).

I do remember being in the toilets under the West Stand in the immediate aftermath of the match. A rotund English gent in a sheepskin jacket with a large red rosette ambled up beside me.

“Bad luck, old Chap”, he bellowed when he noticed my Ireland scarf.

My most recent direct encounter with England fans was at a soccer international and my old self kicked in.

“Thanks, but you know where you can stick your fuckin’ chariot”, I replied.

After that girl dumped me, I lost my easy access to rugby tickets but maintained my love for the game. I’ve been to most of the great stadiums of the world to see the oval ball game played and it has provided me with some of my best days out.

And now I find myself living in New Zealand, a country supposedly obsessed with rugby. I thought I would become immersed with the game in the way I was with AFL when I moved to Melbourne. It hasn’t quite worked out that way.

To start with New Zealand is not quite as fascinated with rugby as people overseas think.  The Maori and Pacific communities are into rugby league. The Chinese and Indians are into basketball and on-line gaming and many white parents are keen on their kids playing soccer.

The country only really gets into rugby when the All Blacks are playing and even then, the expectations that it will be an easy win takes away some of the excitement.

I’ve also noticed that I’m only really interested in international rugby. The Super 15 is the primary club competition in this part of the world, but I wouldn’t watch one of those games if it was played in my backyard.

Then the World Cup came along. This is the first one I’ve witnessed in New Zealand and the first one that Ireland went into as number one in the world. It was all looking good until the country of my birth and the country I live in came face to face in the quarter finals. The Auckland papers were full of references to Leprechauns and ginger haired Guinness drinkers in the week before the game. Ireland was patronised and written off before the game in a way that no other team would be. I had my reply all ready for posting if and when we won the match. It wasn’t to be, but sport is a fickle mistress as the Kiwis found out when England beat them in the semi-finals.

I’ll watch the final with a weathered eye, more interested in tactics than results. And may the best team win, as long it’s not England.