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I
said, "Do you speak-a my language?" The bewildering
Rugger phenomenon 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 "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 The cricketer
sent a telegram: 'Will accept double your offer or count me out'. Beers
off Signifies
not out |
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Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
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.
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.
