Sunday Saturday. I am in the TV room at the gym with three other men, watching the tense final minutes of the England-New Zealand Rugby Union thriller. We are hunched forward in our comfy chairs. One bloke has been shouting elaborate instructions throughout. Now we are all shouting. A woman walks in behind us, fresh from some form of aerobic activity.
“Ooh,” she says, “have they done their new haka yet?”
“Yes, a long time ago,” explains Mr Wannabe-Coach.
“Oh bummer,” she says, and leaves.
Anyway. The point of this post is to tell Hak Mao, new Kiwi immigrant to the UK, that the All Blacks are spawney cheating gits and to begin the call for the banning of Klingons from Earth rugby internationals.
Sunday? Watching a video? Didn’t catch it live?
That’s the second time I’ve done that in a week. That’s what joblessness does to you.
The way they trawl the South Pacific islands for imported players the ABs will soon be an all Klingon team. Now where did I put my bottle of blood wine?
I quite like the fact that it’s a multiethnic team, no matter that the ethnic origins might be the planet Klingon. I can only think of six black players who’ve represented England since I started watching rugby in the seventies.
Actually, I can only think of five.
Like so many of these things in Britain, it’s not really about race; it’s about class. You might as well complain about the lack of “diversity” in English rowing. Rugby Union is “the gentleman’s game”. Most black and mixed race pupils attend crappy comprehensives, very few of which take Rugby Union seriously, but even the crappiest teach football, so (it’s interesting that) there’s a disproportionately large—relative to their presence in the general population—number of black professional footballers.
Rugby is only a gentleman’s game in England – in Wales (not known for its upper class) its the only game that matters, so everyone plays it. We haven’t had many black players because its not a particularly multiethnic country. But we still managed to beat Australia on Saturday (man of the match, Colin Charvis).