“Someone said to me during our weekend trip to Glasgow that The FRU wasn’t as funny as it used to be and, you know what, they are right!
We started to take ourselves too seriously, ………”
In keeping with the new age of enlightenment as espoused by the FRU’s illustrious editor last week this blog has decided to follow suit and seek to engage the reader, as opposed to enraging them, by being totally light hearted. Jocular even. Mind, is Dewi’s conversion to the jocular approach anything to do with writer’s block or was it a case of writer blocked which caused writer’s block!! Best not to speculate, since I am going to mime a light hearted blog this week, As a result I regret that I will be unable to mention Ulster Rugby, Ulster players or Ulster’s last half dozen games.
Reggie Corrigan has been lamenting the Lunster supporters in the Sunday Times ahead of next week’s Heineken semi final. Lunsters are Leinster folk who’ve in Reggie’s eyes done the dirty and jumped on the Munster bandwagon because they (Munster) are a winning team. Begs the question, had Leinster been half as good or twice as successful as Munster then you wouldn’t have any Lunsters at all and in the latter case you might even have Meinsters. Given the much lamented existence of Lunsters it would seem strange that we Ulsterians have a few Uleinsters in our ranks, a sort of half breed Lunster.
I am going to request a name change to Mulster for our much maligned team to try and inveigle it with some of the right stuff. Reggie I’m sure wouldn’t go along with this as it’s in keeping with imbuing teams and supporters with a winning mentality and very much in band wagon jumping mode of the positive kind. So from next season I will be supporting Mulster and hoping our rebranded identity which will involve being sponsored by Skoda, renaming Ravenhill, Ronanhill and adopting a little grey squirrel as our logo will give us a refreshed approach to rugby below the shiny mini Thomond lookalike stand.
Using an unusual pair of goggles this weather gave me a slanted view of the rugby world, I discovered there is a safari taking place to South Africa involving Lions. What is odd about this is that it’s normally humans go on safari to see the Lions but in this instance it’s the Lions on safari hoping to clash with Springboks. Odder still has been the talk about the confrontational nature and physicality of the Springboks. Naturally I’d always been led to believe that Springboks ran like hell when confronted by one Lion let alone fifteen. Further investigation has revealed that the Springboks are in fact made up of Cheetahs, Lions, Bulls and Sharks. As if to confound things further the Lions themselves have Ospreys, Sharks and Wasps in their ranks and a very rare breed known as Scots!!. I took the goggles off before I confused myself any further. Suffice to say I can’t wait till June rolls around and the Lions tour of South Africa begins, with special mention to and hoping Ferris the Lion gets on famously. One wonders if BJ the Springbok might get the call to pack down against Andrew the Shark.
Thoughts turn to closer to home, next week and the URSC Barbecue at Newforge. The URSC’s marketing department have got together to do some original brainstorming and have come up with the Original Barbecue in honour of the great leader himself, the Original Kimble. The menu will comprise of Original Kimburgers, hot Kimmie dogs and Original Kimble steaks all served with Original barbecued Kimble sauce served on a bed of Original Kimblettuce. Someone in marketing called the Cap’n suggested the Cap’n Grumpy Barbecue but had been ruled out of his mind when it was noted that Grumpy burgers might not appear to suggest much bon appétit.
In keeping with the big brother world of political apathy, the URSC have announced their supporter’s club budget for the coming season. Season ticket holders, the real power behind UR will face a 10% hike in fees for joining the URSC. It’s back to the bad old boys of Club Ulster moaned one insider. However there is confusion about the efficiency savings announced by Chancellor Bill. Not a byword for cuts or job losses for bus drivers chimed the URSC’s chancellor but observers are wondering what else cancelling bus trips to Glasgow and Edinburgh might be. To confuse the issue further it was discovered that bus journeys to Glasgow and Edinburgh had been cancelled this year. Observers are speculating on how efficiency savings can be made cancelling cancelled bus journeys.
Further scandal mildly enveloped the URSC when it was discovered that one of the URSC’s backroom staff, a man called Stanley was found to be writing e-mails rubbishing the Great Leader’s election opponents. Before resigning Stanley was alleged to have found Dewi Barnes madder than Dead Ball. What became truly odd about this was that Dewi Barnes, himself every bit as fictional as the Great Leader and Dead Ball, was not standing for election and Stanley was not known to exist within the ranks of the URSC. Muttered a URSC insider, there was a Stanley in our ranks but he was better known for speaking out of turn on the radio than writing underhand on the net.
As BJ Botha might have said whilst shopping in Tescos, chat soon.
Corrections, comments or questions?