the rugger fields

[Donald the Great]

We were blessed with expansive playing fields at our boarding school. On most fine day we boys would be throwing around a rugger ball or getting smashed and buried in a ruck or maul. On another day I would be trying to emmulate my boyhood heroes St George greats Johnny Raper and Billy Smith. I loved setting up movements and chopping down runaway three quarters with a flying tackle. On another day we would hit the cricket pitch. I loved batting and I had a great eye.. also enjoyed flying thru the air to snaffle a diving catch. I was not much of a bowler tho. The playing fields at boarding school instilled in me a competitive nature and a sense of fair play.

[Nuggy14]

I enjoyed netball and relay racing at school, i was skinny as a teenager and could run like a whippet so i always ran the last leg of a relay race, i'd leave my competitors standing as i tore around the track! I'm into mountain bike riding now, i can still run but not as fast as i could at school.

[Pussywillow]

Ah yes the rugger fields at my shite grammar school. What fun. Many a happy 'lesson' spent on these.

We attempted to play hockey in the spring months, which decended into hitting each other with sticks. Damned hard game to play. And why did everybody have a bigger hockey stick than me ?

Oh, the rugga. Oh yes. As a 5 foot whippet the games master(s) thought it most amusing to play me as a hooker. Thus, I was suspended about 3 feet off the ground with my arms hanging around the neck of two 6 foot boys.

As an decidedly average, but couragous rugby back I was often picked as a last ditch choice for my house if I was unfortunate enough to be in the lower form when the season came around. I really wasn't very good and never got badly hurt despite trying to tackle some huge bigger boys, Hah. must have been my Welsh heritage. Strangely (or perhaps not in my case) I had the same rugby kit all through 5 years at this particular dump.

It always seemed to be raining when we did rugby in games and afterwards you did everything you could to avoid having a shower and ended the day covered in head to foot in mud and filth with your kit rammed as a soggy mass in your bag. How the hell my mother ever got it clean I really don't know. And the worst bit was having to clean those muddy boots, which of course you'd left in your bag from the week before and they'd be all wet and stunk like a polecat's ****. Again for some reason my boots we different from everybody elses. Oddly it may have been that I wore proper rugby boots rather than football boots. There was no football allowed at my school, although almost any footwear was tolerated.

I even attempted to wear this aforementioned kit in the sixth form at my second senior school for football (as it was all I had), much to the hilarity of the entire sixth form. I never played again in that school out of sheer embarrassment and shame.

Lastly, I recall we were never allowed to KICK the rugby ball. We never did conversions, even in house games. I still wonder why to this day and the best I can come up with was that a) we weren't allowed to kick as it would waste time chasing miskicked balls everywhere/mucking about and b) our rugby 'lessons' never involved a game as such just endless droning on about formations and wedges that seemed to obssess our games master(s).

[Silver Bear]

I went to the same sort of boy’s boarding school that Donald describes and played Rugger all the way through to my final year there (aged 18), both for House and School teams. The competitive spirit was at its most intense when we were playing inter-House (i.e. within the School).
In the winter and spring terms I played Rugger every day except for Wednesday when we had Cadet Corps. We often had matches on Saturday as well.

[Silver Bear]

The games masters were ex-Forces and strict but fair. My Rugger coach had a nice dry sense of humour.

We played in all weathers but the most extreme - and it had to be extreme.

Cricket by contrast was always being rained off mid-game and so we sat around in the pavilion wearing nice cricket jumpers but doing absolutely nothing.

[zabadak]

Our rugby fields were used by sheep when we weren't playing. Imagine...!

[Silver Bear]

Our rugby fields were used by sheep when we weren't playing. Imagine...!

You must have absolutely stunk out the changing rooms after the Rugger!

[80sChav]

Our rugby fields were used by sheep when we weren't playing. Imagine...!

I can imagine this Zabdak yeah ..... not as our had this but it was very much "Sunday Parks Stuff" with the added bonus of an immensley long hill/patch of grass ajacant to it to bike straight down at like 30 miles an hour - which easily covered a thousand or 2000 square feet if not a tad more ...... boys own stuff indeed!

80sChav

[80sChav]

You must have absolutely stunk out the changing rooms after the Rugger!

The question is here though SB mate - did you have the games where they where to an elite level (like I think Hatrbury in Glousc - though it's an FE place) and you have to be suited n booted and exchange Rugby Club or (for us like me who played the poor Man's Game Football/Soccer) Club Ties!!?

80sChav

[Mulletino]

I remember our winter rugby matches at school (on saturday mornings) where the field was muddy and been played on recently so had boot marks in but had frozen overnight, which made tackles quite painful.
We used to pour some booze from the drinks cupboard into our gumshield tubs the night before to soak then so we could neck the drink the next morning to take the edge of the cold off.