I’m still slightly giddy headed after last Friday night’s feast of running rugby. Great to see both teams come out to play with the same agenda and surprisingly, a referee who was sympathetic to the ideal.
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Ravenhill rocked, not the least to the sight of so called ‘youngsters’ playing with a verve and confidence beyond their limited experience. The understanding in midfield between Spence and Marshall is a future worth watching.
The Ulster Rugby profiles of the young players on show are devoid of which school they attended. It is certainly reasonable to assume that most of them came through the Grammar school/ UR academy rugby system and most of them are studying at university.
Yet our Grammar school system, seen as successful in academic terms and in producing fine sportsmen and women, with a rich vein of rugby players is under ideological attack from sections of the political spectrum. The Grammar schools have been labelled elite, an inference that is designed to bracket them as being class structured and existing for an upwardly mobile sector of the population.
This is a grossly erroneous and cliché ridden type of statement that is designed to denigrate the Grammar school system and appeal to a strand of our society who see social injustice round every street corner and in every sector of society they don’t understand or participate in.
Yet if some of our politicians were to get out of comfort zone and stroll down by the riverside on a Saturday afternoon as I did last week to watch my son compete in a rowing competition, they would have seen in the order of 60 crew racing on the Lagan from schools as far away as Coleraine and Enniskillen.
They would have seen young people, from all shades of religious and social backgrounds competing against one another and the river.
So why are our politicians persisting in laying their agendas on systems that ain’t broke? Why are they probing every corner of our society that has regulated itself till now and continue to meddle in every aspect of our lives?
The Ravenhill experience on Friday evening was in a rugby context, a tremendous fillip to my morale and well being, a chance to relax from the daily grind of work, domestic and social mores.
Yet for all I enjoyed the rugby and the sight of young talent strutting their stuff, including the Rockettes, I was somewhat disheartened by the ever increasing influx of event sec staff.
Just what purpose the majority of these people serve is a mystery only compounded by the fact that they seem to be on the increase and increasingly interventionist.
Like the Justice Bill that included legislation to control the sale of alcohol at sports grounds, it seems that no matter if there isn’t a problem, the powers that be wish to exert an uncommon degree of control over our society and its behaviour.
The sale of alcohol falls into the same category as the attempted dissolution of Grammar schools and public health & safety as an unnecessary and unjustified interference by politicians.
The corralling of football with rugby and Gaelic in the stadium renewal was another example of politicians wielding a broad brush, when it is clear that football has its problems linked indelibly to the strand of society that is its staple of support.
I once sang the Sash along with my team mates in Cavan RFC clubhouse. I don’t recall the detail but I think some of the Cavan boys sang along too. It was sung in good natured way and nobody became a victim, no-one was beat up and we left on good terms with our hosts.
We also sang Athenry and fortunately no one was there with an iPhone to record the moment. It all seems a bit stupid now but at the time it was part of the high jinks after that game.
The point is that another time and place we might have found ourselves taken out of context and slammed by the uninformed but so called well meaning guardians of our society.
Rugby has continued to flourish through the dangerous times of the troubles and into the bright lights of the so called ‘peace dividend’ without really breaking stride or having to make any kind of off-field adjustment.
Yet as demonstrated by the attacks on the Grammar school system, the increased numbers of event sec and the claustrophobic demands of the Justice Bill, the delay in funding for stadium renewal and rugby finds itself as never before under a very harsh spotlight.
For the record, the Justice Bill’s desire to prevent sale of alcohol at sports grounds was thrown out.
Nevertheless we as a sport must continue to fight our corner and keep our self respect and belief in the value of the sport.
Apologise!
Apologising is all the rage these days. British Prime Ministers routinely apologise for anything from the poisoning of Socrates to slavery, to failing to quickly evacuate big money free lancers from the Libyan desert.
Here follows my grovelling bid for victimhood courtesy of Ulster Rugby.
In 1999 I had 6 tickets lined up for the Heineken Cup final before finding myself with none, two days before the big game. Ulster Rugby was undoubtedly to blame for this misfortune and the trauma I suffered in believing I would not get to the ball.
In 2006 some Ulster supporters and Mike Reid travelled to a match in the Borders and chanted “Ballpark!, Ballpark!” during the game. Afterwards MR bought them all a drink.
I want an apology from UR for failing to warn me they were going to chant my internet moniker, plus the shock of hearing the vile deed on the radio and finally Mike Reid telling me later I had missed out on a pint.
In 2010 and 2011 I bought tickets for the Terrace to all Ulster’s games and had to stood most of the time beside a crowd of boy scouts and the odd brownie baby, who chanted silly slogans, waved daft flags and generally behaved like baboons on a stag night.
If that that doesn’t warrant an apology from UR then a bear throwing sweets at me certainly does!! Failing that, I’ll accept an apology for a Mr. Ian Humphreys booting a rugby ball over my head!
Crouch, Tap, Pause…
There was the extraordinary sight of Holywood Mike being frog marched from Ravenhill by family and friends last Friday night less than an hour after the game had finished.
Mike it seems wanted to engage in some discourse with a Cardiff prop. I imagine Mike’s nihilistic attempt at dialogue with the Cardiff heavyweight would have went along the lines of, “crouch, tap, pause…” WHACKKKKK!!!
An exit from Ravenhill via a stretcher and an ambulance probably beckoned but for some friendly and meaningful intervention.
Wise Up!
Posters on the UAFC messageboard who moan PW and A Trimble failed to play their way into the Ireland team against the Scarlets should adjust their TV picture. Did Gordon D’Arcy play his way out of the Ireland team? Of course he didn’t, despite a commonly acknowledged dire performance.
Oh, never mind dears.
Corrections, comments or questions?