Hanging Up The Boots

Entry posted by cornelius_sulla April 3, 2008

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The Old Dude

I've decided to give up football (Rugby).

This is a sad, sad day for any self respecting traditionally Kiwi male. I'm the 'Old Dude' on my team, and now even outright spite and denial cannot keep me going. I stopped playing Rugby League (Rugbys more brutal cousin) three years ago because I was getting too many injuries. Now I'm hanging up the boots for good and I feel like less of a man because of it. Since I can remember, Saturdays have e'er been the same. Get up early, go and play footy, then share a couple of well earned ales with the lads, partners and opponents afterwards.

But, I went to training the other night and wondered what the hell it was I was trying to do there. It was raining and cold. I dropped the ball and missed tackles uncharacteristically. I kept wishing that training would be over so I could go home and have a nice warm cocoa and read a book. That's when it hit me. You're getting to old for this shit. Time to give it up and stop kidding yourself.

Footy is a religion here, perhaps on a par with cricket in India and Australia. It's part of the fabric of this country, although that status is becoming fraid now that kids have so many other options. Like Romans used to reckon the years by the consuls, we here in NZ often reckon by way of All Black victrories. If the team loses a match during the season, the whole country goes into apoplexy. The game of Rugby helped us define ourselves as New Zealand (as opposed to An English Colony) early in our development as a country and has continued to do so.

So it is with a very heavy heart that I write this. Now I think I'll pass the torch on to my kids, who will be infinitely better at the game than their old man ever was. My middle girl is quick and tall like her old man with an instinct for the outside break; she loves footy and gives me a little warm feeling when she fearlessly crashes into boys twice her size. Hopefully I can live vicariously through her!

New Friends.

In the blog previous to this one, 'Good Deed', I wrote of helping out some English tourists who were being set upon by some unscrupulous scumbag bastards in my city.

Karen and Seamus, the tourists, have become friends. They hunted us down somehow (my friend and I mentioned where we worked) and shouted the boys lunch and a box of beers. We got talking, they mentioned that they were interested in Maori culture, so I offered to show them some and did so yesterday, taking them to see a cultural group that my cousins are in and then to my marae, which is a traditional carved Maori 'meeting house'. I was proud; they were awestruck and had never seen anything like it. Today, my mate Semisi is taking them to a traditional Samoan feast. Seamus told Semisi that he's played a bit of rugby. He'll regret that.

They are lovely people and I'm glad I met them, circumstances notwithstanding. They hail from Birmingham (although Karen was bought up in Wales) and we all share a love of Black Sabbath and naff seventies Heavy Metal.

They told me that even with what happened, they want to come to New Zealand and live. Seamus said he'd been mugged in London in broad daylight with people walking past, and no one did a thing. I'm glad that they do not think ill of my country and hope that they do come here to live. We've made a very strong connection, but I guess that's to be expected. They loved my children! That's a pass mark as far as I'm concerned.