Today's Post is About Rugby
Dec. 20th, 2013 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
netgirl_y2kAnd comes, once again, in list format.
-Rugby Union is the sport I follow the closest. I mean, I watch a little bit of football, mostly the international tournaments, and a little bit of the English Premier League. Watching the Scottish Premiership is genuinely like following a Sunday pub league; also supporting the Glasgow teams-- a lot of it is just idiocy and casual sectarianism with a thin veneer of football thrown over it as an excuse. I watch a little bit of cricket in the summer sometimes, but as the friend who introduced me to the game said, you have to think of it less as a sport, and more as an excuse to get drunk in a field in the sunshine.
-The Scottish rugby team are pretty shit. But that's okay, because 1) the Scottish everything team are shit, 2) they're less shit that they used to be, and 3) it's possible I'm overstating here (we're, like, 9th in the world) because nobody is as underwhelmed by the Scottish rugby team as Scottish rugby fans.
-Then again, being 9th in the world isn't much use when you play in a tournament of six.The team who comes last in the Six Nations gets a thing called the wooden spoon; and I was once at a Scotland - Italy game where they were handing out actual wooden spoons to the spectators, with the Italian flag painted on one side, and the Scottish flag painted on the other.
-My favourite Scottish rugby player is a chap called Richie Gray; partly because he's an excellent player, but largely because he's like eleven feet tall and looks like Thor.
-The warm up act at home internationals are something called The Red Hot Chilli Pipers, who are, you guessed it, bag-pipers; I'm not sure what the logic behind this is, except that after a bit of piping nothing that happens on field can possibly seem that bad.
-The last time I went to a live rugby match I had a pint of beer and a venison burger; the last time I went to a live football match I had an (unidentified) meat pie and a mug of bovril; and for any of you who didn't have the pleasure growing up, bovril is beef tea. No contest, really.
-I have a friend who every time Scotland play England, he puts a fiver on Scotland to win; I love an optimist, I really do, but if he's looking to give away fivers I'd be happy to oblige him.
-The last match I went to, our tickets were for the cheap seats, the last row all the way up in the gods; me, and not a few other people, had to stop halfway up to catch our collective breath. I am not blind to the irony of attending the a sporting event and being too desperately unfit to reach your seat on the first attempt, I don't plan on doing much about it, but I am not blind to it.
-I once broke my wrist at a rugby match; I wasn't playing, I was rolling down the grassy hill outside the stadium like a six year old.
-For the record, I think Wales will win the Six Nations next year, Scotland will beat Italy and come fifth, and I will take to wearing a false moustache and affect a Welsh accent.
-Rugby Union is the sport I follow the closest. I mean, I watch a little bit of football, mostly the international tournaments, and a little bit of the English Premier League. Watching the Scottish Premiership is genuinely like following a Sunday pub league; also supporting the Glasgow teams-- a lot of it is just idiocy and casual sectarianism with a thin veneer of football thrown over it as an excuse. I watch a little bit of cricket in the summer sometimes, but as the friend who introduced me to the game said, you have to think of it less as a sport, and more as an excuse to get drunk in a field in the sunshine.
-The Scottish rugby team are pretty shit. But that's okay, because 1) the Scottish everything team are shit, 2) they're less shit that they used to be, and 3) it's possible I'm overstating here (we're, like, 9th in the world) because nobody is as underwhelmed by the Scottish rugby team as Scottish rugby fans.
-Then again, being 9th in the world isn't much use when you play in a tournament of six.The team who comes last in the Six Nations gets a thing called the wooden spoon; and I was once at a Scotland - Italy game where they were handing out actual wooden spoons to the spectators, with the Italian flag painted on one side, and the Scottish flag painted on the other.
-My favourite Scottish rugby player is a chap called Richie Gray; partly because he's an excellent player, but largely because he's like eleven feet tall and looks like Thor.
-The warm up act at home internationals are something called The Red Hot Chilli Pipers, who are, you guessed it, bag-pipers; I'm not sure what the logic behind this is, except that after a bit of piping nothing that happens on field can possibly seem that bad.
-The last time I went to a live rugby match I had a pint of beer and a venison burger; the last time I went to a live football match I had an (unidentified) meat pie and a mug of bovril; and for any of you who didn't have the pleasure growing up, bovril is beef tea. No contest, really.
-I have a friend who every time Scotland play England, he puts a fiver on Scotland to win; I love an optimist, I really do, but if he's looking to give away fivers I'd be happy to oblige him.
-The last match I went to, our tickets were for the cheap seats, the last row all the way up in the gods; me, and not a few other people, had to stop halfway up to catch our collective breath. I am not blind to the irony of attending the a sporting event and being too desperately unfit to reach your seat on the first attempt, I don't plan on doing much about it, but I am not blind to it.
-I once broke my wrist at a rugby match; I wasn't playing, I was rolling down the grassy hill outside the stadium like a six year old.
-For the record, I think Wales will win the Six Nations next year, Scotland will beat Italy and come fifth, and I will take to wearing a false moustache and affect a Welsh accent.
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Date: 2013-12-21 11:47 am (UTC)I did not know beef tea was a thing! The things you learn. *g*
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Date: 2013-12-21 02:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-22 02:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-23 03:06 pm (UTC)Yeah, I didn't think it was a big thing in the states. I'm basing this opinion on once having seen the USA rugby team play; some of them did have smashing beards, though.
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Date: 2013-12-23 03:18 pm (UTC)I found rugby to be as wonderfully violent as hockey, but without the ice. And perhaps slightly more violent.
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Date: 2013-12-23 03:35 pm (UTC)Just us, though, not the opposition.
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Date: 2013-12-23 03:40 pm (UTC)