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A brilliant article by Brett Susan yesterday on the memories and dangers of Newlands got some great responses from members about their rugby memories.
It also got me to thinking about mine.
So I thought I might write this article as much to share my favourite memories as to hear from other Roarers their favourite/first experiences of rugby.
I have two – one as a spectator and the other as player.
My favourite as a spectator was on a trip back from Australia to New Zealand with an Aussie mate. We went to a Crusaders Match at Lancaster Park. He is a league fan but loved every minute of the experience.
The walk up from Moorhouse avenue, stopping for beers on the way of course, then getting to the game and having a night on the town on the Oxford St strip.
It must have been one of the last seasons before they tore down the terraces. The atmosphere was awesome. This was the Crusaders at their peak in the early 2000s when they scored 70-something against the Bulls.
Everyone was having a beer and a chat, mingling like you just can’t do in a seated stadium.
The usual one-eyed banter with the ref was partaken in. One call after Marika Vunibaka scored his third blistering try was, “Ref he’s been doing it all night send him off”.
And something that doesn’t happen in my new home town of Sydney, I just kept running into people I knew everywhere I turned.
Perhaps the main reason this memory stands out it they way it does was one of my last visits to Christchurch.
Since the Feb 2011 Quake none of these places exist any more and none of these memories can be relived.
As for my playing memory it is a bit unconventional as well!
I was never much of a player. I was fast, fit and strong but never got that innate feel for the game that came naturally to some of my contemporaries.
As such in my mid teens other sports took me away from the the game I loved the most, only for me to attempt a return in my late thirties fat, slow and weak.
Enough said about that disaster.
So my favourite memory as a player is not one of scoring winning tries or even one particular game.
It came as 12-year-old, and part of the Burnside Rugby Club’s tour of Australia. We were 100 boys from under 12s to under 16s.
As a naive kid from a small city, this trip included so many firsts.
My first flight, trip overseas, hotel stay (in Kings Cross I might add), theme park.
My favourite memories were the time spent with my old man.
There was 12 months worth of fundraising, digging potatoes, inserting leaflets into newspapers at 2am, digging garlic and every other crappy job imaginable. I place the garlic at the top of the crap pile – it was both back breaking and smelly.
But all of these were horrendous hours were spent just chatting with my old man.
He was the manager of our team and threw himself at the job, giving up precious sleep as a shift worker to attend meetings and fundraising events.
So there we would be most weekends, musing on when Canterbury might win the shield back from those evil Aucklanders or if John Kirwan was a better player than Craig Green or how hopeless the Aussie teams were going to be when we got there.
It’s the sort of father-son time you can’t manufacture and often only comes from a shared passion for sport.
As for the Aussie teams, they weren’t hopeless. We won one and lost two.
But much like the experience as a spectator, it was not so much the outcome but the journey that made these my two rugby memories.
Or maybe it was my last game after all. Playing outside of one of those centres who did have an natural feel for the game, he put me in four gaps for four tries.
But of course as I get older I now remember stepping 15 players and busting 10 tackles to score each try.
So what’s you favourite rugby memory?
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.