Boxing Day is, I’m sure you’ll agree, ideally suited for honing your couch potato skills and burning off all the delightful, wanton, excess off the previous day.
However tradition dictates that this obvious path to feeling better should be ignored and instead you are pressured to gorge yourself further, to drink further quantities of ale and if you are really unlucky (or still in a state where you’ve yet to rid the body of Christmas booze - come on Liver that’s why you’re available on e-bay) you get to play a game of Rugby.
This noble tradition is most certainly a surviving relic of the old days when the "third half" was far, far more important than getting your knees dirty in the game itself. For some time now I’ve been promising to don the shorts again and partake in a little of the oval ball fun and frivolity (one of the reasons I finally got contact lenses was so that I could actually see while playing as no one has yet invented a Rugby ball with bells inside to aid the optically challenged) So I was actually really looking forward to the big match BUT.... I couldn’t find my kit! Or perhaps more accurately my wee sister, Clare, couldn’t find my kit; well you don’t have a dog and bark yourself do you? The upshot of this failure is threefold:
1) I’m missing a cracking pair of Puma (Aussie John, please confirm this is correctly pronounced "Pew-ma" and not "Poo-mah") rugby boots. Now as I have the same size feet as both of my brothers, both of whom play Rugby, it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to know where to start looking.
2) Also missing is my gumshield / mouth guard. Now my brothers may be a bit iffy but I doubt that even they would have swiped that. Besides, Chris, the youngest of the three of us, is certainly in the clear on this one. He’s a walking demonstration that years of popping open beer bottles with your pre molars will eventually break them, so now he has precious few gnashers left to bother with a mouth guard
3)The traditional Boxing Day game pits the same opponents against each other. The game hosted by the Birmingham Civil Service, the Midlands most friendly club (go along for beer, singing, Rugby and maybe even training, definitely in that order - see the website at www.bcsrfc.com for details) has seen the English play the Celts (who are in fact made up of members of the great race itself or anyone who isn’t actually English. We’ve seen Nigerians, Americans, Bajans, Aussies and even a few Englishmen who are repentant for their error of having been born in the wrong place, all turn out for the "Celts") and here is the problem. The English won Rugby’s World Cup in 2003, it was absolutely imperative that they didn’t win the coveted Balti Bowl (a Balti is a wok like dish used in the preparation of a Kashmiri "curry" which is exquisite and the quintessential food of Birmingham; you’ve gotta love the Commonwealth!) Thus it promised to be a crunching affair and as all and sundry know the English are a punchy bunch of buggers (Celts, purer than the driven snow of course) so a gumshield is essential. The simple equation is this:
NO GUMSHIELD = NO DIRTY KNEES = GO DIRECTLY TO BAR (AND TAKE $200 AS YOU PASS THE ATM )
The game itself is a thunderous, take no prisoners sort of affair and it is played at ludicrously quick pace. The pace would be break neck at any rate but then throw in a local ground rule of no kicking (the ball, any Englishman in a prone position is fair game) and it makes Star Trek Warp Factor 9 seem like a Sunday afternoon stroll in the park. Well by a cruel twist of fate and probably some dodgy line calls by Dave Green (yep he’s English) the better side, us obviously, were robbed 17 - 19 despite playing with great pride and passion. An honorable mention at this point to my older brother Paul who, after coming on as a substitute, scored both a fine try and a points victory in a fight. A most satisfactory personal performance for him.
Anyway, in my position as self appointed judge on all matters, we won the fights and the third half.
The bar was, almost needless to say, but I shall regardless, much fun. Except that is for those who were standing beside me as I attempted to hold my Guinness and I inexplicably committed that most heinous of party fouls, spillage. Not just a drop or so; but a whole delightful, delectable, delicious pint o’ the black stuff. HORROR! As I was slipping into a serious state of shock, made even worse by the fact that half the pint had gone down the left leg of my light coloured trousers I was saved by three things:
1) Our wonderful niece, Eloise, had picked up some tissue and was dabbing the beer off my boot - meltingly cute!
2) Jimmy MacPharland’s Irish Terrier, Murphy, was proving his lineage by licking the beer off my trouser leg.
3) The other half pint went all over my brother’s (Chris) back.
These were the dim silver linings to a large black cloud, or perhaps, black puddle.
Other notable Boxing Day mentions should go to Branty who, as well as looking remarkably like Ming The Merciless, pulled a wee snack from his inside pocket. It was a full Turkey leg and then some, well it’s a festive affair
and Heide confirming her Celtic affiliation (the Vikings were probably just Celts who could sail and let’s face it the US is full of Celts) by getting herself decked out in a Wales cap, no not one with Free Willy or something of a similar ilk on it but one with the emblem of the small country to the west of England.
After a few more quiet beers, all of which were successfully consumed, followed by several loud ones, which were similarly supped in the appropriate fashion, we made our way to Chris’s house to raid his drinks cabinet and test his skills as a pizza chef; which I’m sorry to say were about as good as my pint control.
All in all a good day out and who knows?.... maybe next time we’re in the UK for Christmas I’ll be able to help the boys win back the Balti Bowl!
