For my American readers, brace yourself, I know how devoted you are to your version of Football, but these here snaps depict the Rugby Football League, in England, quite a different take on the global concept of a big bunch of massive blokes chucking a ball about and beating the heck out of one another to get it back.
Rugby Football League evolved through the actual players, not by laws of any outside authority, deriving as a direct descendant of a version first played in Rugby School in Warwickshire in 1823.
An impressive museum inside Billy Williams Cabbage Patch (Twickenham Stadium, home of England Rugby, which was first erected in 1895 on the site of a market garden) displays an array of colorful rugby jerseys of the past 100 odd years, surprisingly similar to those still worn by the strapping lads of international rugby today.
Simply could not bring the boys to Twickenham to visit family without taking a tour of the stadium, totally scored with a private tour seeings as the British schools were still in session and not a lot of mid-week tourism in the rugby fanatic department at that point!
Sat in the Queen's seat to experience the vantage point over the stadium occasionally viewed by HRH, though I gather that it's far more likely you'd spot the two younger royal princes tucked away in the back of the VIP box in their England Rugby supporter jerseys than opting for the royal treatment as official guests with union jack at mast and all.
Liked the idea of the 'sin bin' chair for naughty tackler's time-out! And the fact that a local falconer comes into the stadium to scare off the pigeon population was pretty cool, too.
Only 21 days of Rugby season per year, with two to three matches per day, the rest of the time the stadium is used for conferences and pop concerts, the Rolling Stones in particular, as Mick Jagger lives just down the road in Richmond. Despite the fact that he's a mere stone's through (couldn't resist that one) from the Stadium, he still insists on the temporary removal of six cast iron, claw foot bath tubs (the oldest remaining fixtures in the building, used to ice and heat mud encrusted, battered players) from the locker room to house a pool table in his makeshift dressing room.
Had a peek into the Rugby Football League President's suite, the super-plush Nike Box and discovered that it has long been the tradition to hang numbered shirts upside down 48 hours before each international game to ease creases.
Doorways into any area a rugby player may have to enter or exit are seven feet three inches tall to accommodate the lofty lads. A fully equipped mini operating theater with dental and x-ray facilities looked like it had earned its keep over the years, the century of its sport having made a mess of many a fine looking face.
According to our volunteer tour guide (a very nice, newly retired rugby-lovin' chap who was only slightly disconcerted to hear that the boys play lacrosse) there's a ghost in one of the private boxes in the older section of the stadium. Appearing at night for no apparent reason, the figure of a lone woman causes the temperature to drop in that part of the deserted stadium. Wonder who she was and why she can't let go of the game?
Rugby is, by most accounts, a gentleman's sport, with many players having studied the law and medicine and the likes alongside muddy mahem on their university teams. Its history and rules of etiquette are intriguing to an outsider such as myself. For fans (and former players such as my brother-in-law and most of his five brothers) its a true religion.
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