RWC2015: Wales v Australia at Twickenham

I was bought a tickets for Wales v Australia in the Rugby World Cup 2015 by my elder son Howard. He bought himself one too. Feeling generous myself I returned the favour and bought us both new Wales shirts for the game.

Just a few days before the game my sister, Mandy, announced that she had managed to get a couple of tickets too and was going with her son Joseph. They came up for the day and stayed with us overnight.

Originally when we got the tickets we thought that the final game against Australia would be one that we would have to win to get out of the group but with England losing twice both sides were through and so the match was something of a celebration too. The result still mattered as the winners would be facing Scotland next rather than South Africa.

My sister got here at lunchtime and we went to the Bistro on Ham Parade for some serious stocking up on food before the beer onslaught.

The beer started at the White Cross on the riverside at Richmond, one of my favourite pubs. It was already packed and while there were plenty of yellow shirts as well as red ones it was the Welsh who won the singing contest and I joined in a little with Bread of Heaven, Delilah and Sloop John B (!?!). Next stop was the Eel Pie near to the river in Twickenham and finally The Albany next to the railway at Twickenham. This had the advantage of a large car park and we all stood out there to drink.

Howard and I were in Block L21 Row 37 Seats 61/62, and this is the excellent view that we had. The price seems to have been £175 which is as much as I have ever paid for anything, including Glyndebourne.

The weather was fine and stayed dry despite the threatening clouds at times. The beer was a limited choice so I had a Heineken followed by a Murphy's. The game was pretty good too, apart from the result.

The final score was 15 - 6 to Australia but Wales should have had a try in the second half when they were camped on the Australia line for a long period, and they missed a fairly straightforward penalty too. It would not have needed much of a change of fortune to conjure a 15 - 16 win. Let's hope we get some of that luck against South Africa.

Disappointed but not distraught we headed home via the Tide End at Teddington where we had some more beers and something to eat. The veggie burger was quite nice if not that original.

We got home around 10pm, about nine hours after we left, and I quickly decided that staying in was a better bet than trying another pub, even though I knew that people would be down the Fox and Duck.

It was a busy and atmospheric day, and a good opportunity to spend some time with some of the family in gentle preparation for our holiday together later this year. It was just a shame about the result.

New shirts from Leeds and Wales

A recent splurge in spending has provided me with a few more shirts to wear and the chance to demonstrate some of my sporting loyalties.

I like traditional cotton rugby shirts  but the Liberty ones I bought twenty years ago are dead or dying.

The first new addition is a Leeds Carnegie (Rugby Union) home shirt.

I normally buy away shirts on the grounds that I no longer live in Leeds but that is only available with short sleeves so I went for the home shirt instead.

The away shirt, which is mostly white like the magnificent Leeds United, is still on my wish list and may appear here once Spring comes.

This shirt should get its first official outing at London Welsh v Leeds Carnegie in Richmond on 25 February.

I already own a Welsh rugby shirt but a recent display of patriotism at Welsh Water in Cardiff, where everybody (and I mean everybody) wore a rugby shirt to work ahead of a World Cup game, showed just how old mine is.

It is so old that it does not even have a sponsor's name on it. I like it a lot though and am wearing it now as this is a Six Nations weekend.

The new shirt is much flashier that the old simply-red one with its tailored cut and white features.

It is also made of modern materials (i.e. some sort of plastic) so it is not as warm as the others which should make it a Spring/Autumn shirt but Wales are playing Ireland tomorrow so I'll give it a go. Who cares about a cold snap?

Oddly, I will also be wearing this shirt on 25 February as England are playing Wales at Twickenham after the Leeds Carnegie game.

The first game I'll see at the ground and the second in a pub in Richmond. In both cases I'll be wearing the away shirt so it could be fun!

The final shirt is the best.

I am a fan of Leeds Rhinos (Rugby League) and have wanted a shirt for some time but the blue and yellow colours of the home shirt do not suite me.

So I've bought the new away shirt instead.

This comes in three variants, authentic (i.e what the players wear), replica (like the authentic but not as tight fitting) and cotton.

I've gone for the cotton one for the comfort and warmth.

It will get worn before then but it's official debut should be at London Harlequins v Leeds Rhinos on 30 June.

All three shirts are very welcome additions to my wardrobe and make something of a change from the usual rock band black t-shirts.

Emirates Airline London Sevens

A friend bought a number of tickets for the recent Emirates Airline London Sevens at Twickenham so I went to the first day to see what the fuss was all about.

We were in row 24 on the lower level on the west side which gave us a good view of the games, as this photo taken without any zoom shows. Only the lower level was open so I guess that there were around 15,000 people there, most of whom seemed to be wearing either the country's club colours or bizarre fancy dress. For some reason Kenya seemed to have attracted the most supporters, it certainly had the most enthusiastic ones.

The tournament started with a group stage with some unusual countries (from a rugby perspective) making up the numbers, I never expected to see Germany play for instance. This, combined with the open play that makes sevens attractive, led to some of the games being rather pointless and scores of 40 - 0 or worse were not uncommon.

That said, the rugby proved to be entertaining enough and we were all duly occupied for some eight hours. We arrived later than some and left earlier than a few but we were there longer than most. It seems that the opening day was something that most people were happy to sample just a bit of, particularly if they had children with them.


While the day was billed as a rugby tournament a serious amount of effort was put into trying to entertain us between the games. This included cheer leaders (here getting ready to welcome the England team on to the pitch) and various competitions that involved the cameras picking somebody out in the crowd who was acting madly when instructed to do so. You will not be surprised to hear that I did not join in any of these, nor did I join in with any of the Mexican waves or singing Macarena. For me all the entertainment was a distraction from what I thought was the main event, the rugby.

The other attraction for us gents was the bar. The beer was OK but came in plastic and cost an unreasonable £3.70 thanks to the bar's monopoly. The food was little better and somehow even managed to make chips look unappetising. I was surprised, and very pleased, to find a decent veggie burger at one of the stalls that ringed the outer boundary of the stadium.


From the outside, Twickenham Stadium does nothing to hide its concrete and steel construction and it looked reassuringly strong with the afternoon sunlight full on the west stand. Unfortunately it looked almost as industrial inside too with the concrete terraces only slightly softened by rows of hard plastic seats. But the worst bit is the no-man's-land between the inside and the outside where absolutely nothing has been done to soften the concrete underpasses. Some paint would do.

All told it was an entertaining day out but not quite entertaining enough for me to rush to do it again.

Beer, rugby and more beers

For reasons that are too complicated to go to here, I found myself watching the recent rugby internationals in an Australian pub in Covent Garden, London wearing a Wales rugby shirt.

I was with a friend of mine from my time working in Prague around 15 years ago and a group of twenty other people who were tempted by the prospect of beers and rugby. It proved to be a good mix!

The pub had free wi-fi so I was able to email friends in South Africa and Australia at half-time to crow and again at full-time to bemoan the local team's bad luck as, on the day, England, Scotland and Ireland all lost to southern hemisphere opponents. At least Wales had beated Canada the day before :-)

England 19 - 26 Wales

I was brought up on Welsh rugby in the 70's when the large Welsh flag was brought out of the garage and draped over the TV and we warmed up for the games by listening to Max Boyce. In those days Wales usually won and always played attractive running rugby. Since then times have been a little lean but I always wear my replica shirt on match days. So I wore it yesterday and sat down to watch the game with little hope and no expectation. The rest is history.

In a glorious 40 minutes in the second half, Wales came from 16 - 6 down to win convincing 19 -26, the first win at Twickenham for ten years and a sweet revenge for the 62 - 5 mauling also at Twickenham just five months ago.

There are other hard games to come and this may not be the start of a great season for Wales but that does not matter, we beat England.

Come on Leeds (United, Rhinos and Tykes)!

It's crunch time for Leeds United in their efforts to remain in the football Championship and, like all good supporters, I am still confident that we can do it; and get promoted back to the Premiership where we belong next season.

But while there is still some concern over Leeds United the other Leeds teams are both top of their leagues.

Leeds Rhinos beat the previous league leaders, Bradford, last night to go top of the Super League.

Leeds Tykes are top of the English National League 1 and should be promoted back to the Premiership, though we do still have to play Earth Titans.