When I were a lad I was passionate about rugby union (American readers need read no further…) Those were the days of great Welsh players like Gareth Edwards, JPR Williams, Barry John, Mervyn Davies et al – and of the flying and dashing England centre David Duckham (whose autograph I once secured at the Middlesex Sevens). I stayed loyal to the game in the era of Serge Blanco and yes, even Will Carling. He won’t appreciate being outed in this connection, but my old friend Chris Bohn (aka Biba Kopf) was a fellow enthusiast. (We stuck out like sore thumbs on a number of occasions at Twickenham…)
One day I realised northern hemisphere rugby had become unbelievably tedious and attritional – a percentage game almost completely devoid of entertainment value. In the last decade, rugby has become a game about little other than power.
Every so often I make an effort to check in with the game – and invariably end up regretting it. Yesterday I sat or rather yawned through a stultifying Six Nations game between Scotland and England, most of which was devoted to reorganising collapsing scrums. I could not for the life of me understand why anybody had paid to attend this event.
I doubt I’ll bother to watch the next Rugby World Cup, though there are still players in the southern hemisphere (and in France) who see the game as at least potentially beautiful.
2 Responses to WHAT IS THE POINT OF RUGBY UNION?
Well, Barney, I disobeyed your warning and read all the way through, but as I’m not much of a fan of team sports, even here in the U.S., it was all geek to me. What interests me is your confession of a passion for following rugby in your youth. Among the North American rock writers I’ve known personally, several were consummate fans of major league baseball in their adolescence — Billy Altman, Rick Johnson, and Phil Dellio come to mind — a devotion that mutated into a comparable obsession with pop music as they got a bit older.
And their interest in baseball never completely vanished, no matter how involved they became in music writing. Rick Johnson, for instance, showed me the fantasy baseball game he compulsively played (just like Jack Kerouac did throughout his life) when I visited him in Macomb. Rick determined his “players”‘ moves with a spinner borrowed from a board game (I think Kerouac preferred dice), but otherwise it was the same.
Lester Bangs was an exception (as he was in so many other ways) to the baseball-before-rock obsession path. As he recounted in a Rock-a-Rama in CREEM sometime in the ’70s, Richard Meltzer had taken him to see a big-league game, which Meltzer promoted with the concept that baseball was good *because* it’s boring — but that was too perverse even for Lester. His conclusion: “I foghat[sic] who won the game.”
So it happens here, too, Barney. In the meantime, you should consider trademarking “Collapsing Scrums,” as that would make a great band name.
Well, chuffed (as we say) that you disregarded the warning… but not even sure now why I posted on RBP on this subject! Generally I keep sport (football or “soccer” being my principal obsession) very much apart from professional life as a music writer/editor. That way it functions as a true reward and respite from work.
I do LOVE the picture in my mind of Meltzer taking Bangs out to the ballgame!