I
said, "Do you speak-a my language?"
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
And he said,
"I come from a land down under
Where beer does flow and men chunder
- Men At Work
The bewildering
Rugger phenomenon
By Seshanka Samarajiwa
Despite
being born a Sri Lankan I have spent most of my life growing up
in Perth, Australia. As such, I believe I can consider myself enough
of an outsider to express the complete bewilderment that overtook
me when I attended the Royal College versus St. Anthony's rugby
match, on June 21. I was not bewildered by the size of the Royal
Sport's Center, although it was impressive. What I was bewildered
by was the fact that the entire sports complex was filled to capacity
with what seemed to be an age group of men that had graduated from
high school a very long time ago.
The Sports
Centre was packed , primarily, with men leading into their middle
age and some even further on in life. All of them cheering raucously
as if the action on the field was in fact between two international
test teams, to merit such excitement and enthusiasm. I venture to
call this "The Rugger Phenomenon", that being the act
of older men attempting to, perhaps, re-capture their youth by being
active spectators at high-school sporting events.
What astounded
me most was not that a large group of men were raucously enjoying
sport, as this is not out of the ordinary. It was surprising to
me that the men were not students, they were grown people who had
graduated high school, most likely having wives and children of
their own. It was this type of men that were loyally and whole-heartedly
supporting their former school teams.
This was strange
to me, and I felt somewhat alien because I have grown up in a culture
that is far removed from this in the area of school spirit and loyalty.
In Australia, when one graduates from high school all ties are severed
and any loyalties or pride that one may have once had in the school
are forgotten. Some people may never again visit their school grounds
to say 'hello' to a former teacher. Therefore, to witness such enthusiasm
and raw emotion for two teams comprised of boys no older than 19,
was very strange to me.
The atmosphere
could be compared to that of a game of "footy". That is
to say Australian Rules Football (AFL), which is supported with
equal amounts of enthusiasm and vigour. Old and young, men and women
share in the common knowledge of the game, and the nation is divided
more by a person's chosen team rather than territorial boundaries.
Any given AFL team's fan base can only be described as fanatical,
much the same as the crowd I witnessed at the Royal - St. Anthony's
game.
While in essence
the enjoyment derived from supporting one's team with raucous cheering
is the same, complexities of the game make it very different from
the "rugger phenomenon" found here. The athletes that
play AFL are paid. And their incomes are quite large. There is also
the lucrative aspect of sponsorship by major sporting labels like
Nike or Adidas.
This is not
the case with 'Rugger'; the players are students, who do not earn
money from it. There is very minimum official merchandise. Therefore,
the fact that the boys on field are doing what they do for their
school and the love of the game, as well as seeing the spectators,
who were mostly former students of the given schools, was quite
stirring.
Travelling around
Colombo has made me realize that this school pride and loyalty that
the respective school's ‘Old Boys’ have, goes much further
than the Rugby field. It extends to the bumpers of one's car being
adorned with the crests of respective schools, as well as going
further to define the very identity of a man.
It is interesting
to me that in general social conversation customs dictate that men
are labelled as "so-and-so, who was (Royalist), two batches
ahead of me". And through this the man is recognised; "ah,
yes he was in my brother's batch".
None of my
friends or I would consider ourselves "Old Fraynians"
(having attended a school called Ursula Frayne Catholic College
in Perth). Such things are unheard off, many of us have rarely gone
back to our old school or contributed to it in any way since we
left. It is not done; neither is it asked for or expected.
I should not
like to be misunderstood, I do not have a pro-Sri Lankan stance,
nor do I have an anti-Australian standpoint in relation to these
things. It is simply the way that the respective societies work,
and has done so for many years. These are simply my observations
of certain social aspects in Sri Lanka in comparison to similar
ones in Australia.
Keeping
score
The visiting team was surprised to find that there were no scoring
facilities at the village ground. The captain approached the opposing
leader.
"How do you keep score?" he asked.
"Oh, we
keep it in our heads, " replied the captain, a burly blacksmith,
"and if there's any argument we settle it behind the pavilion
after the game."
Please
play for us
A small village side clubbed together and sent a request to a famous
cricketer to appear with their team for a certain sum of money.
The cricketer
sent a telegram: 'Will accept double your offer or count me out'.
Later that day the famous player received a telegram: '1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, ...'
Beers
off
At the interval, everybody rushed to the bar, where a local publican
had thoughtfully provided a case of light ale. Unfortunately, the
ale was off and halfway through the second innings, everyone was
so ill that they abandoned the match. It was a case of bad light
stopping play.
Signifies
not out
An
American who knew nothing of the game had been taken to a few cricket
matches by a friend and was now studying the end-of-season averages.
Every now and then he came across an asterisk and the words: 'Signifies
not out.' Finally, he turned to his friend and said:
'Why don't you get this guy Signifies to play for your side? He's
never out ! |