After another long break I've picked up the Blog again to bring stories of my massively un-glorious days of playing amateur Rugby League.
One of the highlights of my amateur days was whilst playing in the Pennine League, which is mainly made up of sides in Yorkshire with a few clubs from Lancashire adding a few numbers. As I lived in Lancashire I enjoyed these home-away days as it saved me about £10 in petrol! About half-way through the season I got a text from my brother reminding me that we would be travelling to somewhere in Cumbria and that our Mum would be coming to watch us.
It's rare to get a decent away following to amateur matches, as its pretty much boring as hell for wives/ family/ mates to come and watch you get twatted. However I had convinced my new fiancée and her two step daughters to the match for the first time of them watching me play.
So on arriving on some backwater pitch in the middle of Cumbria we did our usual pre-match routine of trying to look like we knew what we doing, I also took my favourite position on a Rugby pitch...... The Subs Bench. Our opponents didn't look like much, and usual we spent about 5 minutes just watching the opposition warm up to try and judge whether they were any good. The team consisted of about 5 "Rolly-Pollys" 1 Stone Cold Steve Austin look alike and then a bunch of kids. Seemed a fairly easy match considering we were top of the league and flying high.
Before the match; dreaded away-flu had hit some of our players, and a couple of decent players dropped out at the last minute, meaning we had 14 players with me being the only sub on the bench. I was on the bench for all of about 3 minutes before the right hand centre came off with an injury. So much for my easy match.
What followed was the most gruelling match I have ever took part in. The "Rolly-Polly's" I'd watched earlier suddenly turned into driving machines who were taking an absolute age to drag to the ground. What's more we were completely took by surprise as their biggest RollyPolly Prop turned out to be a fantastic ball handler and kicker. We were massively under the cosh and for most of the first half we were getting pinned on our own try line. With about 35 minutes on the clock we'd finally managed to get on their 30 yard line, but we were already about 3 tries down. I picked up the ball from the scoot and surprisingly found myself in a bit of space, after making about 20 yards I was tackled and managed to quickly play the ball. Straight from that my brother ran in for our first try rounding both the centre and Fullback.
As I started trudging back to our end our number six ran upto me with one of best lines ever "Fuck me why don't you fucking run like that ever week". Now this was either a massive compliment or I was being told that most weeks I was running like a spastic most of the time. Personally I'm guessing the second one.
As the went into the second half we slowly started clawing our way back into it, complete with a trademark 60 yard dash by both my Brother and our Winger with stupidly long legs. There was no chance I was trying to keep up with them.
At about 70 minutes in I went down with the injury that I explained in the blog last time courtesy of the Stone Cold lookalike
As I was dragged of the pitch the physio and centre who had been injured earlier tried manipulating my knee into some sort of use. Which to be honest is a goddam painful thing. So I let out a bit of yell (probably more of a girly scream to everyone else). Only to then hear the voice of my mother "Oi shut up", I sat up to explain that it was bloody painful only to see my two step-daughters stood clutching my Fiance's legs in absolute terror. I sheepishly stood up patted one on the head and fucked back off onto the pitch without saying a word.
We had just scored another try and according to the coach we needed one more try. We were lining back up and I'd just taken up my place on the centre and would try and just do some last defending for the final five minutes to keep 13 men on the pitch. The kick predictably came my way and was caught by the winger next to me, who in his infinite wisdom called out for me to take a drive in. I politely reminded the young lad that it was foolish as I was currently injured, and perhaps it would be better for him to take it. Or words to that effect......
The final whistle blew at about tackle 3 and I literally just dropped onto my arse, pissed off I'd gone through all that for naff all. Strangely the Cumbrian team weren't celebrating either, they looked massively dejected. Turns out our coach had decided to lie about the scoreline to try and keep us all on our toes, arsehole, we'd won the match by 4 points.
I hopped back to the changing rooms with the other 13 lads, there wasn't one player on our team who wasn't injured or hurt in one way. I suppose that's how you can tell whether you've been in a good game or not. Its always that game that makes me think about playing again. It wasn't because I scored any tries or even a man-of-the-match performance.
It's simply because I walked off the pitch feeling that despite aching all over, bleeding, bruised and possibly broken. I'd been in an match a where I had genuinely put in the best I could have, for a change, and we had come out on top. The satisfaction was immense.
