- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Opinion
Welcome to the first in a new series of articles from rugby’s coal face. These are the stories of people who live and breathe rugby, almost exclusively volunteers, all of them with a passion for the game and a tale or two to tell.
These are the writer’s own stories, told in their own words. My role is strictly to collate and edit, to help bring them it to life. We aim to publish one story per month, and trust that you get as much enjoyment from reading them as the contributors get from bringing their rugby stories to life.
Today’s first article features a doughty Scot with a South African surname, Mhairi Fourie, now fighting the good fight in suburban Melbourne.
My love of rugby began back in the early 1990s in Scotland, when my parents started taking us to watch Scotland play at Murrayfield. We lived in the west coast of Scotland about 90 minutes away from Edinburgh, so going to the rugby was a full-day event.
My parents would dress us in our Scotland jerseys, hats and scarfs, and we would set off for a day of rugby. I remember always being so hot in my layers of thermals in the overheated car ride.
We would meet up with all our friends at their house, where the adults would debate Scotland’s prospects that day and the kids would hit the buffet table and I would listen to the older boys discuss their morning rugby games.
We then set off to the carpark picnics in the shadow of Murrayfield, for another feed and another opportunity for the adults to discuss – with increasing gusto – the certainty that Scotland would take the win that day, while I stood around now understanding why I was dressed in ten layers of clothes.
I was always the one nagging my parents to get into the stadium in time for the national anthem. It’s an amazing feeling to be part of a 60,000 strong crowd belting out the national anthem, before watching our warriors take on the world. These were the days of the Hastings brothers and Doddie Weir playing with everything they had. I was hooked.
Fast forward a few years, and we had moved to Edinburgh. My brother was playing rugby in the winter season, and my family and I would travel around Scotland to watch him play for the school team. I loved every minute of it.
Because there was no schoolgirl rugby, my opportunity to play was limited to playing once a week on Friday, as an optional sport. I loved Fridays. I loved making tackles and scoring tries.
As a family we accompanied the 1995 school rugby tour to South Africa, which was an epic experience. The standard was high and some schools wouldn’t even play us, as they didn’t consider these boys from Scotland worth the time. The pride my school took every time they took the field was infectious, and myself and the touring party established lasting relationships with the schools that we played.
After leaving school, I continued to attend international games and was now old enough to enjoy the revelry that so often accompanies games. Once they stopped the car park picnics, the done thing was to start your day at the Murrayfield Hotel, get yourself in to good spirits, then post-match, bar crawl your way back to the CBD, inevitably drowning your sorrows!
I don’t think anyone can truly say they’ve been to Murrayfield if you haven’t endured the long and rowdy walk back into the city, slightly tipsy and unable to feel your limbs because of the cold.
During the 1999 Rugby World Cup, I travelled up to Edinburgh from London on the train with my South African flat mate to watch Scotland play South Africa. Scotland were not victorious, but the South Africans were keen to party, not just the supporters but the players too.
Mhairi Fourie (Photo supplied)
My flat mate knew some of the players and we ended up partying with them until the wee hours of the morning. At one point I found myself on a couch, squeezed between Os du Randt and Ollie le Roux.
When I went to use the bathroom, I asked Os and Ollie to look after my bag, and warned them, “if my bag isn’t here when I come back, I will kick both your arses”. Given my five-foot-four-inch stature, they were highly amused!
My love for rugby grew even stronger after meeting my South African husband Stefan, and our first marital home overlooked Murrayfield Stadium.
It was from here I attended my last game at Murrayfield in 2010, again Scotland versus South Africa. This time it was a sweet victory for the Scots, and my husband was none too pleased with my gloating.
Soon after, we moved to Melbourne, in time to attend the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand in 2011. As we took our seats in the stand for Scotland versus England, I heard my name being called, and sat in the row behind was my brother’s best mate, the Rev. Doug Pickles, and his wife Amy, had the same idea about making the most of getting to the World Cup while it was in their neck of the woods.
The result wasn’t what any Scot wanted, but the experience was like no other.
Out of the blue, I then got a phone call from a school friend of mine, asking what we were doing on the 23rd of October. I replied, “Watching the World Cup final on the telly, why?” He said, “Does Stefan want to come to the Rugby World Cup final, all expenses paid?”
My first thought was, WTF, I am your friend, you have known my husband a fraction of the time you have known me. One half of me stood aside because I am a loving and caring wife, while the other half knew not to get in the way of a rugby-mad South African husband with an opportunity to see a World Cup final.
At least I have the ticket as a memento.
In 2013, the British Lions came to town and again we embraced the opportunity and attended the Melbourne and Sydney Tests alongside some family members who had made the long trip to Australia.
But as a rule, living in Melbourne means you are starved for international Tests to attend, and we started going to support the Rebels, and when our kids were old enough, I started searching for our local rugby club.
(Photo by Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images)
Enter Maroondah Rugby Club, a small club located out in the outer eastern suburbs. In 2019 I signed my boys up, but being an area with a strong AFL and rugby league presence, there were only a handful registered.
Nevertheless, my boys loved it and happily got up on cold Saturday mornings to traipse around Melbourne to get their rugby fix.
In 2020 the club asked me to get involved, and I took on the role as junior co-ordinator. I had no real idea what this entailed, but I had some time up my sleeve and jumped in. Unfortunately, COVID took hold, and we didn’t get to play, never mind have enough kids to make up a full team.
Come 2021, and we now had 20-plus kids showing up to training each week. This was amazing and a great feeling. COVID again played havoc with junior and community sport, but this year, we have been able to push onwards and upwards.
We are now getting kids down to the club from families who don’t have rugby playing backgrounds. One of my rugby kids Nate is so keen he gets his mum down to the park at weekends to stand behind the post while he practices his kicking.
I want to ensure there is a place for kids like him to get good quality coaching and support to play rugby, and to stay in the game they have fallen in love with.
My hope for 2022, the 50th year of Maroondah Rugby Club, is that for the first time in many years we can field two teams, and continue to provide and grow a family friendly club for rugby lovers in the east and outer-east of Melbourne.
Becoming part of this club introduced me to the wider rugby community, and I have had some great mentors who have helped point me in the right direction and provided support to keep me motivated.
The Rugby Club of Victoria (RCV) allowed me to come and present my junior proposal to their members last year, and from that we were fortunate enough to receive funding which has allowed us to put in some solid infrastructure into our club. In addition, some RCV members donated balls and training kit to help us get going.
Some days it’s really tough knowing if you are pointed in the right direction or not, but I draw comfort from knowing that within the rugby community in Victoria, there are always people willing you to succeed – even those from rival clubs!
‘Wherever you are, whatever your involvement in rugby, don’t forget to celebrate ‘A Day in Union’, Saturday 26th March’