Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Allez les blancs!

Those of you who know me will know that rugby is not my strongest passion. Any interest I might have felt for the sport was beaten out of me on a school rugby field (not a private school I might add, but a state school that was trying to imitate Eton and failing miserably). It's hard to think of a more inappropriate sport for teenage boys who are all developing at different rates. At 14 I was still waiting for my height spurt to kick in, and in the meantime I was being knocked around the sports field by guys my age who were already pushing six foot. The headmaster at the time must have thought this kind of pointless humiliation built character, when in fact it taught me how to discreetly avoid a rugby ball without the teacher noticing.

However, over the last few weeks the Rugby World Cup has been kind of hard to avoid over here. Everyone in my karate class tonight was congratulating me on the England win, though quite what I did to make it happen, I'm not sure. And it did mean that my pupils were kind of subdued on Monday morning, which I'm always grateful for.

So I do wish the England team all the best in the final this weekend. I won't watch it myself, but it would be nice to have a team that's the best in the world at something, for a change.


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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

We're not exactly setting the world on fire with football now, not that I give 2 hoots about any bunch of overpaid poofy hairdressers whether it's football or rugby. Oh and Colin's typing a reply at the same time, wonder who'll get there first....

Anonymous said...

Beat ya Colin!!!

Colin Cleavage said...

Having had exactly the same experience at school, I still distrust rugby as it has associations with organised violence and sexual perversity which are hard to shake off. Once my friend was in a scrum and the teacher punished him for some mistake by hitting him so hard on the bakcside it left a bright red hand shaped mark on his cheek, which his mother complained about. Nothing happened of course as this was in the good old days before trendy teachers and social workers ruined everything.

M. le Prof d'Anglais said...

Some people don't give two hoots about the overpaid divas who pass for footballers, some couldn't care less how far Henman gets in Wimbledon (Can he win this year? No! Next question), others don't give a monkeys about drugged up blokes in lycra huffing and puffing their way up and down the French Alps every summer (though at least there's scenery).