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Marham Bulls USA Tour 1999 - Part 1

 

Midge 's Letter from America' Part One.

 

After months of preparation, blood, sweat and tears Marham Bulls Rugby Club were about to follow in the footsteps of Christopher Columbus.  At last we were set to join the hundreds of religious exiles, prisoners, perverts and social misfits who, over the years, had taken the long arduous journey from the shores of merry England to the New World.  So armed with a toy phone, shower cap and a tube of Analsol for comfort, Marham Bulls set sail to conquer America…

 

On arrival at Heathrow the players sorted out their immediate priorities by collecting and booking in their luggage, chatting up the 'trolley dollies', raiding the duty free counter and piling into Burger King.  It was decided that this was the most professional thing to do as we needed acclimatise to American food and drink as quickly as possible in order to make the tour successful.  I may not be a food critic, but as a loose-head prop, I know what I like and the mega whopper certainly fit the bill.  So fully loaded up with cheap booze and cholesterol we waited for our flight to be called over the loud 'clinking' of ice cubes in our pre-flight lemonades.  The flight across to Washington was great and we were certainly looked after by the Virgin Aircrew staff. 

 

Capt Mike Wallace, who was the skipper of the Fort Myers Rugby team and was our liaison during our stay in Washington, met us at Dulles Airport in Washington.  As a couple of the team were in the Royal Air Force, we managed to arrange a couple of fixtures against American Military teams.  This meant we were able to use the American Military transit accommodation, which helped us keep our overall accommodation costs to a minimum.  Fort Myers is situated slap bang in the middle of Washington DC next to Arlington Cemetery and is the home of the Military Honour Guard whose job is to conduct all the VIP and ceremonial duties in the capital including the White House.

 

Now by a strange twist of fate or a case of rather bad planning, we had managed to arrive in Washington DC on St Patrick's Day.  So we decided that it would be rather rude not to fully integrate with the locals and enjoy the celebrations and festivities.  This was a great day all round with copious amounts of green coloured lager being drank all round.   The last thing I remember was talking to a local in an Irish bar in Georgetown who was telling me how great it was to be  'Irish American'.  Being a bit worst for wear by this stage, I then asked him whether he was actually born in Ireland.  Upon answering 'No' I asked if his parents or grand parents were actually born in Ireland.  Again, he answered No.  I then told him that effectively made him 'American of Irish descent' not 'Irish American' and that he should just be 'proud to be American'.  In response to this I received a torrent of abuse.  I then tried to explain that if the British were to follow the same criteria we would all be 'Anglo-Roman, Norman, Viking, Celt, Germanic, Irish, Scottish, Indian etc.  Upon hearing this he replied that I was being ridiculous. Some times you just can't win. 

 

The next two days prior to our first game mainly consisted of a mixture of training and sightseeing, with the training taking place in the morning before the midday heat and humidity kicked in.  Training was mainly focussed around the organisational side of play, with set plays, moves and lineout drills being practised endlessly to help integrate the guest players.  A special effort was made with regards to our rucking technique when clearing out the contact area.  This had been highlighted as being a potential weakness by the RAF chaps who had played several American Military Teams before.

 

That evening the team decided to go out into Chinatown for a meal prior to our first game.  Several hours later, we all rolled out the 'Golden Dragon' Chinese Restaurant fit to burst.  The food was absolutely gorgeous and relatively cheap so we really did tear the ass out of it.  As we wandered down the road looking like a collection of 'Baby Buddha's', in search of the only Irish bar in Chinatown, it soon became apparent that our overall ranks had been swollen by a couple of new members.  As we left the Chinese a couple of the players had decided to join the 'CLO' or 'Crustacean Liberation Organisation' and had accidentally 'borrowed' three crabs and a huge lobster the restaurants fish tank.  It quickly became apparent that we were now stuck with them and we had to get rid of them sharpish.  You might not believe me but no girl will get off with you once you have told them you have crabs, no matter how large they are!

 

In a fit of desperation we decided that a local Diet Coke vending machine would be the ideal habitat. We subsequently placed the creatures into the hole where the cans are normally dispensed.  Heaven help the poor fucker you desperately needed a cool refreshing can of coke that night!

 

It was at the point that I heard one of the funniest quotes I have ever heard.  (It is right up there with the conversation I once overheard on the esplanade at Edinburgh Castle between two American tourists.  The husband turned around to his wife and said "Isn't Edinburgh Castle beautiful?" to which she replied "'Yes, its just a pity they built it next to the railway!")

As we were walking along the street Ginge Mac was approached by a rather unsavoury and dodgy looking character.  He subsequently produced a clear plastic bag from his pocket containing drugs and asked Ginge whether he wanted to buy some 'Rock'.  Now Ginge was a great guy however, he had been brought up in the Outer Hebrides and was somewhat naïve at times.  'Rock'.  In response to the dealers question regarding 'buying Rock' he replied ''Definitely, my gran loves rock, do you have any spearmint flavoured stuff with the lettering 'White House' or 'Washington DC' written through it?"  

The drug dealer took one look at Ginge as if to say "what the fuck are you on?" and quickly disappeared while the rest of us fell about laughing our tits off!

 

FIRST GAME - FORT MYERS VERSUS MARHAM BULLS

The game was due to kick off at five 'o'clock at Fort Meade, which is located on the other side of DC.  The team arrived early at about three 'o'clock to give enough preparation time prior to the game.  This basically meant that a couple of the players had the opportunity to 'warm up properly' by having a couple of fags.  Sheer professionalism!

 

The team was announced, warmed up and raring to 'kick butt' however, there was only one slight problem – there were no rugby posts.  The pitch that we were playing on was adjacent to a row of houses inhabited by American Military Generals.  Unfortunately the American Army hierarchy had taken a dim view of the sport of rugby at that time.  With the help of a few of our players, the temporary posts were found and eventually erected and the game could begin in earnest.

 

For the first ten minutes of the game Fort Myers held the Marham forwards on the halfway line with neither team managing to gain any ascendancy.  A loose ball was won from a ruck by the Fort Myers forwards and box-kicked towards touch by their scrum half.  Unfortunately for Fort Myers, the kick fell short and was picked up by Daz Alderton, the Marham winger.  Daz collected the ball and then subsequently ran it back 70 metres to score.  This was the start Marham needed.  The early score gave the whole team a real boost and increased our confidence and self-belief.

 

The Marham forwards dominated the majority of the game providing good, quality ball to our ever ready scrum half, Al Maxwell.  Al Maxwell along with Taff Williams ran the back division superbly and with the excellent lines of running adopted by our centres John and Scotty, the effect was devastating.  Along with the backs, Andy Russell, Martyn Jones and Brett Login showed themselves to be quality back-row players, despite their dodgy haircuts.  In addition, the lineout work was not short of astounding with immense jumping at the front of the line by Andy Currie.  Throughout the season, this was the area of our game that we had worked on the most and now we were on tour, we were staring to see the benefits.  Midway through the second half, with the scores at forty points to five, Marham were attacking the Fort Myers 22 when a trumpet blast sounded out from a pitch-side tannoy system.  In response to this the Fort Myers players instantly stopped playing and turned to face the nearby American flag.  This totally confused the Marham players as we had the Fort Myers line at our mercy with no effective opposition.  The RAF players quickly made the rest of the team aware that the American Military had to stop whatever they were doing when they heard the ' bugle call' at the end of the day and subsequently face the flag, standing at attention until it was lowered.  I was certainly glad they let us know as it could have become rather embarrassing rather quickly if we had used the opportunity to score. 

 

In the 75^th minute, a miss move saw the ball placed in the faultless hands of our replacement prop 'Sponge' Beattie who crashed through three tacklers, only to be brought down short of the line by the Myers full back.  This was no mean feat as Sponge looks like a Zeppelin in Knickers at the best of times.  From the ensuing ruck a move started by the scrum half continued with a sublime miss-pass out to the Marham winger to score our try.

 FINAL SCORE: FORT MYERS 5          MARHAM BULLS 57

 

This was an excellent game and a fantastic result for Marham.  All the hard work put in by the players prior to the tour had paid off.  The only down side to the match was the injuries that some of the players received during the game.  John Purvis had unfortunately dislocated his collarbone and Taff Williams had to have five stitches after a clash of heads.   The team had worked hard and done us all proud and now it was time to play hard.  The team hit Washington with a vengeance and all had a good night.  Lots of bars were visited, lots of beers were drunk and a helluva lot of songs were sung.  This included one ditty about a chap called Father Abraham who cordially invited us to remove all our clothes, which we duly did.

 

It wasn't until the next morning, when we awoke to find our winger, Paul Jones without any eyebrows that we realised how windy Washington Dc can get at night.  There must had been a freak gust of wind or a gale during the night as his eyebrows appeared to have been 'blown' off his face and completely disappeared.  Mind you, we did find him lying asleep on his bed next to an empty can of shaving foam and a disposable razor.  We spent the rest of the day gathering up our kit and belongings and loaded them into our hired mini-buses.  The next stop on our whirlwind American Tour was Fort Bragg in North Carolina.     

 

From: Midge

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30/05/2008 22:43

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