The one we all want to beat

 

FOUR IN A ROW, THREE IN ONE GO

Impossible for me not to comment on yesterday's historic win over the Auld Enema. The first time Scotland recorded four wins over England in the championship since 1896. Beating a team that's ranked above us in the world rankings (or are they now?). Speed, strength and the scoring knack delivering a hat trick. And the coolest man on the park nailing the posts from every possible angle. All from a team that went behind early on and never showed any sign of panic or, dare I say it, the implosion apparent at times in previous games.

For the fans it's The One. We won't be champions. We had a poor World Cup, yet again. But beat England and all can seem well with the world. Keep beating England every year and the belief remains. It's a measurement in itself. It's the sugar to sweeten any scenario. It's the passion.

Finn Russell has, without losing that impish charm, morphed from cheeky chappy, unpredictable maverick and all or nothing magician, into one of the world's greats, a game manager and a dedicated pro who has become such an incredibly reliable goal kicker (not one shot missed in three games of the championship so far). But he's still got the magic wand to wave too.

As for Duhi... Now just one behind Hogg's all time try scoring record for our country. Hat trick man. Shiny man Barbara calls him, for there never appears to be a hair out of place, the cheekbones and smile are straight from Hollywood Central, the muscles have muscles and the speed is Flash level. Yes, sometimes, as with his third yesterday, it's a walk in. But you still have to be there, on the spot. While the first showed strength and nous, and the second the sheer pace that can leave a defence looking like a mirage. Even that last minute sin binning couldn't dull the patina. Raised in South Africa, but made Superman in Edinburgh. We'll take him as one of ours, thank you very much.

Bring on Rome.

Four into two doesn't go, but King Boff does

 AND THEN THERE WERE TWO (AND THE KING...)

This World Cup was always going to be about the Big Four. The gulf between that group of France, Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa, and the rest, is immense. That the draw should ensure that only two of that quartet could make it to the semi finals again illustrates the craziness of doing the seedings three years ahead of the event, a mistake World Rugby will hopefully never make again. That the draw gave us two of the most intense, high quality, gripping matches of the tournament is little compensation. Because it also means that two of the semi finalists have had to follow much harder paths to get to this point, and fatigue must be starting to be a factor by now.

Clearly a Boks v Kiwis final is now the only one worthy of the sport itself. But that won't stop me from shouting my support for Los Pumas on Friday evening. Scotland might have gone early, unable to cope with the power and skill of two of those Big Four, but as an Edinburgh supporter I still had people to cheer on. So my support was very much with Fiji, who were so unlucky yesterday, and Argentina. The man we call Big Bill Mata is gone now, but King Boff is very much with us.

I'll hopefully, injuries permitting, be getting to see Big Bill and King Boff in action a lot this season, when they return to the Edinburgh Rugby fold. But for now Edinburgh eyes are on one of Argentina's biggest stars, and one of the world's great goal kickers, Emiliano Boffelli. While I think anything other that final I began the last paragraph with would be a travesty, my heart will still be with the blue and white hoops.

Vamos Los Pumas! Vamos Rey Boff!

(But I still want to see Kolisi lifting the trophy again, for much the same reasons as I did four years ago...)

Isnt it a bit warm for this?

 

Previous posts mentioned being back Murrayfield ice rink to watch the return of the Edinburgh Capitals. The season has been over for a couple of months now, and won't return until September. But at least there's still been events to follow. The same coach remains in place. Most of the top players have signed up for next season, plus a couple of new faces. Sadly my personal favourite has returned to Germany, but you can't have everything. We still look like having a team that, once again, should be challenging for silverware. More to the point, we have another season of hockey to go to, after so many away from the sport.

But, unlike previous years, there's a new aspect to the off season. Murrayfield ice rink has been converted into Murrayfield roller rink (and has had a decent paint job to spruce it up). That's kept the punters coming through the door. And offered up the chance to see a another variation on sport, but still with Caps playing. Inline roller hockey.

We missed out on the first match due to another commitment (which was a shame, as it sounded like a thriller, Caps beating Dundee Tigers 7-6), but went to our first game today. Playing against Whitley Bay Sea Kings, this would prove an easier challenge for the home side, ending up 13-4 in our favour. So maybe not the most competitive of games.

But it was still fascinating, to be seeing the similarities and differences in relation to the 'normal' hockey that is our standard diet there. The skills are broadly similar, as is some of the equipment, and the rotating bench of players. There's one few player on the ice for each side, only one official, and the pace is slower. Rules are simpler too, with no offsides, no icing (or equivalent), no heavy body hits. There was only one brief fight, tame in comparison with those it's icy companion throws up, and provided the only penalties of the game. The clock continues to run down, even when a goal is scored, so the periods are much shorter. throw in the removal of Zamboni time and the roller game is over in an hour or more less than the blade one. If the overall spectacle is a bit less exciting than the winter games, it was still a fun watch.

But the biggest difference was in being a spectator, and not just because there were a lot fewer of us. It was the novelty of sitting in the rink, looking at my bare arms, and wondering where my usual five layers of clothing had got to. On what was one of the hottest days we've had this year, it was a relief to come in out of the sun to a place that was considerably cooler than being outdoors. But not so cool that you couldn't sit there comfortably in shorts and tee. This is not something I will be repeating once September arrives, and that interior gets back it's usual title - Freezerfield.

Sometimes it's good to be disappointed

 

ENJOYING THE DISAPPOINTMENT

Back in November I wrote about being back at Murrayfield Ice Rink (now renamed Murrayfield Ice Arena) and being able to watch 'our' team again, the Edinburgh Capitals.  I wrote about the sense of belonging, and the return of those old feelings of hope and disappointment that came with being a Caps fan.  Now I write, a few hours before the final match of the league season, about how disappointing last night was.  And how much I savour that sense of disappointment.

Four months ago we were watching a team that was largely comprised of ageing veterans and inexperienced teenagers.  A team playing it's first home match because, up until then, they'd had no ice to call home.  Who'd had to cross the water over to Mordor (aka Fife) for their first training sessions.  Who'd played all their early league matches on away rinks.  Who'd had their first home match postponed due to technical issues, so that their first experience of skating out on Murrayfield's ice would be to play the league leaders.  (In front of a far bigger crowd than many of our youngsters had encountered before, which they initially found quite daunting.)  It was good to be back, good to have a team to support, and there were no great expectations.

If, back then, you'd have told me that we were going to finish second in the league, and that we'd be in the hunt for the league title until the final few minutes of the second last match, on the final weekend, I'd have bitten your hand off.  I don't think I'd have believed you.  Why raise such unrealistic hopes?  But here I am, feeling disappointed that the team couldn't quite manage it.  And savouring that disappointment.

Because to be disappointed you have to have had hope.  Which is something this team have given us.  Back in 2018, when we were last able to watch the Caps perform, 'hope' was largely defined as "let's hope we don't get totally gubbed this weekend".  The standard of hockey might be a bit lower than it was back then, but the standard of hope has been raised considerably.  A few weeks ago we were in a position where, if we won all our remaining league matches we'd be champions.  That hope was fully kindled when Barbara and I travelled up to Aberdeen and watched our guys beat Lynx, those aforementioned league leaders.  Then we lost to that same Lynx at home.  But hope returned, as both teams, went on a losing streak, and suddenly the outcome of the season came down to one more game up in the north east.  So important a match that Aberdeen even put on a live stream, for the first time in SNL history.  And hope burst into life when we took an early lead.  Only to be dashed in the closing moments, as we went down to a 3-2 loss.  A deflating moment, yes, but this morning I can enjoy my disappointment.

Tonight the Caps play North Ayrshire Wild, a team who've only won two games all season.  It's now a meaningless fixture, in terms of league positions, but it's still hockey, it's another chance to cheer on our team and enjoy the spectacle.  It will, hopefully, bring another big crowd to Freezerfield, and the size and passion of the support has been another big surprise of the season, with numbers exceeding fifteen hundred at times.  It will be fun.

It's not quite the end either.  The final league positions are used to determine the seeding for the end of season playoffs, and Caps will have a quarter final against Kilmarnock Thunder.  Win that, and we'll be into the Playoffs Weekend, being held at Murrayfield on 8th and 9th of April.  Another chance to win some silverware.  Another chance to hope.  And maybe, this time, skip that sense of disappointment...?

The lion in the freezer

 BACK IN THE FRIDGE

When we first moved up (and in my case back) to Edinburgh the dominant element of our winter social life was in Murrayfield Ice Rink.  From September until March there would be few weekends when we wouldn't be in our regular seats, shouting on the Caps, and getting to know more and more people in the crowd.  But after March '18 there was no more Caps to go and support.  They lost their contract for the ice time at the rink, and were replaced by Murrayfield Racers.  We did try a couple of visits to see the latter, but it wasn't the same.  I knew too much about the way their management, and that of the rink, had gone about things and it neve sat well with me.  I couldn't become a Racers fan.

In 2020 the rink closed due to lockdown, and thereafter failed to reopen, due to a combination of technical and financial problems.  This summer brought the surprise move that not only would it be opening, but the new owners were involved with the Edinburgh Capitals, and they would be back on the ice for the 22/23 season.  Not at the same pro level they had been back in the old days, but in Scottish National League.  A lower, slower standard of hockey.  But still hockey.  And still our team.

For various reasons there were delays in getting the rink operating again.  The team had to travel to train and play only away matches.  But they were back, and starting to win some games.  We went up to Dundee to see one match and enjoyed what we saw.  But it's never the same as being at home.  Last night reminded us why.

We wondered what sort of crowd would turn up.  If there would be anything like the same enthusiasm and passion that the fans had always brought, even when they were watching defeat after defeat.  If the spectacle would be as engrossing, and emotionally involving, as it had been.  And if they really still were 'our' Caps.

There was, it was, and they were.  I don't know the numbers, but that was one of the biggest crowds I've ever seen at a hockey match in The Fridge of Dreams.  The crowd were behind the team, and there was still the same emotional connection.  It'll take me a few games to be able to immediately recognise all our players.  I can happily accept that the standard of play is lower than that which we'd once been used to, because there's still that sense of involvement in the game itself.  That feeling of being a part of something greater than yourself.  Belonging.

There have been a lot of improvements to the place itself, but mostly it remains the old barn we both laughed at and loved.  The same old rickety seating, the same dodgy PA system, and, very definitely, the same temperature that earned it the name Freezerfield.  And, for this game, same old Caps.  Looking like they were going to get hammered, suddenly generating a surge of hope, and ultimate disappointment.  From 0-5 down they got back to 3-5, and all seemed possible again.  Until the next goal.  It ended 4-6.  Against the league leaders, so we can't complain too much.  There will be wins coming soon...

Digital derision points to uncertain future

CALENDAR CONTEMPT

Anyone else feel their calendar is laughing at them?  Back in the olden, pre-lockdown, days I could look at the weeks ahead and see what promises they held.  Science Festival events.  TradFest gigs.  Plays at the Traverse.  Matches at Murrayfield.  Some appointments and meetings related to my volunteering role.  Train times showing when I'd be on my own for a few days.  And then our world changed.

On the plus side, I suppose, a load of money winging its way back to my account, refunds for tickets I'll never use.  The biggest downside is a bit more obvious.  No live entertainment for ... however long it's going to take.  Be patient.  And the unexpected sideswipe of a calendar that mocks me, telling me about all the things I should have been going to see.  I could have deleted them, but they seemed to offer a form of measurement, watching how many events would pass before we could start booking again.  But that's about to end.  The final notification for the A Play, a Pie and a Pint series flicked up yesterday.  On Saturday week the last league game of the season, the big derby match against Glasgow, was due to be played.  And that's it.  At least my calendar can stop taking the piss after that.

Hardly a big deal, I know, but a trivial illustration of what so many are going through.  Packed diaries, be they for work, domestic or leisure purposes, rendered meaningless.  Replaced with Zoom meetings, Whatsapp calls, reminders to clap and bang pots, and a sudden fascination with parcel tracking numbers.  We have had to alter the patterns of our lives, lower expectations, recalibrate the meaning of achievement.  

Change.  That's all it is, some of it temporary, some of it more long term - and the uncertainty of not knowing which is which.  But human beings are good at change.  We can rationalise, replan, manage our lives and adapt.  There will be good things as well as bad to come out of this pandemic.  We can only hope that our political leaders, and wider society, are able to recognise and embrace the good, and not simply try to return to past practices because "that's how things were done".  

That sounded like an upbeat note to end on.  Then I remembered we still have Doris over us....  Oh well.

Mon the Boks

WHY I'M SUPPORTING THE BOKS ON SATURDAY

Back in the old, old days, before all seater sports stadiums became de rigeur, Murrayfield had a west stand, the other three sides being covered in terraces.  The clock tower that now resides between the east stand and the turnstiles used to sit proudly atop the south terrace, long before there were digital displays.  Officially the capacity was about eighty thousand, but because you could just turn up and buy a ticket on the day in 1975 the Five Nations tie against Wales was played in front of a sardine like one hundred and four thousand.  At least you couldn't get cold.  Internationals became all ticket after that...

At international matches the schoolboys (I say 'boys' because I can't recall any girls going, but could be wrong) seating, benches in front of the terracing and not far in from the east touchline.  Close to the action.  However for one game, in December '69, we were told to sit in the north end of that big stand, as a safety precaution.  The opposition was the touring South African side, who were confronted with anti-apartheid protests at every point along their journey, and a few of these demos turned into scuffles, so it was thought best to protect us wee innocents.

Innocent?  I was thirteen, so maybe I should have known better.  But my parents never discussed politics, the subject wasn't  raised at school, and ignorance is my only defence.  It shames me now.  This would be the last time the Springboks toured these islands until the nineties, although rugby as a sport was more culpable than many in maintaining contacts with their racist counterparts.  Not a proud history.

The release of Mandela brought the beginning of an often painful transition that continues to this day.  Scars like that take a long time to heal, and anything , however small, that can chivvy that process along, is to be encouraged.  And that's why I'll be supporting the men in green next Saturday, as i did this morning.

When your own country's team finds itself on the plane home from a world cup you find yourself free to support whoever you wish, for whatever reasons work for you.  With Scotland out early my inner francophile took over and I looked to France as 'my' team.  That didn't last long.  So when the final four became clear my allegiance switched to the Africans.  Not because they play the most entertaining rugby (they certainly don't), not because they were favourites (they still aren't), and not because of any particular player I like (although Faf de Klerk is curiously watchable despite the constant box kicks).  But because Siya Kolisi is captain.

South Africa have already won the World Cup twice, and those occasions did help bring the country together a fraction more each time.  But this feels different.  That world of '69 would be just that little bit further away if next Saturday sees the cup being lifted by the first black captain of his country's rugby team.

Of course my choice of finalists to support is made easier by the other participant.  It's hard, culturally, not to subscribe to the The Lincoln Position (good ol' Abe).

Rediscovery or Reinvention?

DECADES APART

I went to see a rugby match last Friday.  Edinburgh versus Scarlets.  And a couple of weeks ago when the city's team played Toulon.  Nothing remarkable about that, there were a few thousand other people there too.  But it felt a bit like going back in time.  That game against the French side was the first fifteen a side match I'd been to in well over thirty years, so it had a sense of occasion for me, a kind of homecoming.  And, better still, I enjoyed it.  The fact that Edinburgh had a big win might have had something to do with that though.

I first went to watch an international at Murrayfield on 4th February 1967.  Scotland beat Wales 11-5, and I was ten.  By and large I've not really been a big sports fan over the decades, but I was hooked, back then, on the big rugby occasions, and over the following years I didn't miss a home international match.  Including the 1975 game against the Welsh when a record crowd of 104,000 were crammed into a stadium with a nominal 80,000 capacity.  Cosy, and we beat Wales that day too.  After that you had to buy a ticket in advance to get in.  By the time 1979 arrived I'd been to see plenty of club matches, sevens tournaments and to see Edinburgh play in the inter-district championship.

Then I moved south; way, way south, to the Hampshire coast, and getting to Murrayfield required a bit more time and planning.  I still made it to most of the Five Nations home games for a few years, including the Grand Slam winner in '84 (great occasion, dour spectacle).  But then I was married, work was more demanding, life changed and I didn't get up as often.  I'd watch the games on telly, saw our guys win another Slam in '90, and then found my interest starting to wane.  Rugby Union was turning professional and with the increase in money came a much more drilled and calculating approach to the game.  Defences became dominant and entertainment levels dropped.  By the mid nineties I'd stopped watching.  I was left as a fascinated follower of motorsport, and little else.

Move on a couple of decades and I'd dropped the motorsport.  Change is good.  I'd discovered something completely new.  Maybe I'd seen a few hockey matches in the Winter Olympics coverage, but had little idea of what was going on.  Looked interesting  though.  So when, seven years ago, the chance of cheap tickets to see Edinburgh's team came along we thought we'd try it out.  And loved it.  It would be another three years before we were full time city residents, but we got to as many games as possible, started to get some feel for the sport, started to know a few people at the rink, started to feel a part of the community.  We got in four full seasons when we finally moved here permanently.  I was an Edinburgh Capitals season ticket holder and secretary of the Supporters Club.  Our weekends from September to March contained a predictable element, a chance to shout, cheer, get on the emotional rollercoaster of live sport and support.  Then, last April, that was suddenly taken away from us, and it seems like there's no going back (but that's a story for another day). 

Could anything replace that sense of belonging, the excitement, the passions you feel as part of a crowd willing a team on.  One thing that hasn't changed over the decades is the sense of tedium I get from watching football, so that was never an option.  But a bit more than four years ago I'd been watching TV alone, when a rugby match came on.  Argentine versus Scotland.  I was tempted to watch, just to see if anything had changed.  And when the name John Beattie was announced as one of the team I felt I had to give it a go - I'd seen his dad playing for our country! 

They've tweaked the rules a lot since the nineties, and for the better it seems.  That match was genuinely entertaining (and again it probably helped that Scotland ended up as winners!) and I thought I'd give a few more a try (no pun intended).  The five nations were now six, the strips look almost futuristic compared to the looser items I recall, all the spectators get to sit down, and the players go off at half time instead of standing in the middle of the pitch sucking on a bit of orange.  (Yes, that was how it used to be done, even in top level internationals.)  It helped that once exposed to this new spectacle Barbara developed a bit of an interest too.

So going to watch Edinburgh ('my' Edinburgh?) seems like a natural progression, given the loss of my regular entertainment next door (Murrayfield ice rink is, often literally, in the shadow of the rugby stadium).  And after the Caps disastrous final season (only five wins from fifty six league games....) it's good to go and support a side that goes into each game with a chance of winning.  There's a friendly atmosphere, big screens to watch when the action gets a bit distant (I do miss the intimacy of the hockey rink), and it's pretty cheap for us seniors.  And no colder than sitting in the Fridge of Dreams next door.  This could be habit forming.