The other Rugby World Cup
When you mention the words Rugby World Cup these days, the general image that comes to mind is of 20 squads of highly-trained and pampered athletes converging on several major cities to perform a myriad of pre-planned and co-ordinated multi-persona movements at high speed and spanning vast tracts of manicured turf, in order to negotiate their way through other highly-trained athletes whose sole mission is to knock them down as hard as possible.
Not next June. While the British and Irish Lions' tour of South Africa will be performing a less global but no less intense version of the above, at the Villager Rugby Club in Cape Town some 16 sets of... chaps... from all over the world will converge on some areas of grass and mud to run around chasing an egg for an hour, their lifelong excuse for being able to go freely into the world and make friends of a Saturday.
On June 13, someone will kick-off the Social Rugby World Championship. In doing so, he may incur the first fine of the tournament. The kick may go straight to touch. It may not go ten metres. It may not even get off the ground. After all, these are not the most skilled of the globe's rugby players; this is a tournament organised, in the words of tournament organiser Rolf Fitschen: "for players who have no aspirations within the game beyond doing a little exercise and making friends."
It may be that that poor bloke ends up having to down a post-match beer merely for kicking the ball. The fine would obviously be double if he somehow opted to miss and try and avoid the kangaroo court. Downed if you do, downed if you don't. But there'll be a lot of friends, old and new, helping him through that tough time, which is what this festival will be about.
The conceptualisation (try saying that after a fines meeting) of the tournament, fittingly, was concretised (and that) after a social game between two of the tournament's teams: Cape Town's Shebeen Boys and The Galetti Fourths (the latter is the social side at the host club, the former is a bunch of chaps who play together occasionally) during 2007. Graham Lindemann, a Fourths player involved in the advertising industry, wandered up to Fitschen, who is also an ad-man, and said: "I have got a stunning idea. Next year we are hosting the Social Rugby World Cup."
Perhaps it was one of the few datails both could remember from the night, as twelve months later and largely on the basis of that conversation the pair have set up their own company, BigFish Sports Productions, in order to administrate the tournament. But why such a dramatic step?
"The motto of the tournament is: For The Love of Rugby," said Fitschen.
"It's something we desperately want back. Professionalism has changed what rugby is, has killed the spirit. Teams don't drink together anymore. They pitch up, earn their wages, and then disappear in sponsored cars to do their own thing. The first team of a club is never an ambassadorial body anymore.
"In the old days, it was about the game. Now it's about the ambition and the money. I see more and more professional and semi-professional players not playing for the love of the game any more.
"Further to that, I think professionalism has polarized the players who merely liked to play for fun without the pressure. Some have responded by becoming better and more committed players it is true, but there must be thousands who have simply not bothered, and left the game completely because they couldn't have fun. That is very sad.
"We wanted to set up a tournament which was a global outlet for the players still playing for fun only, for those who do not want to worry about getting dropped, who play because of the mateship. for complete and basic amateurs. That's what this is.
"It is a global celebration for the guys who have always loved the game but never got or wanted professinal touring exposure, bringing 16 teams together to do what they do every week, but all 16 together this time."
The tournament format is pretty simple. Four pools of four, followed by semi-finals and then finals. There are bowl and plate competitions as well, so every visiting team will get five matches to play, without exception. There are eight matches on any given day. There are opening and closing social functions; one suspects these will involve more liquids than fireworks. After all, this is for teams who: "aren't like the first teams. Most of them drink after a game. We drink before it."
So what counts as a social team? Who should enter? What are the age limits? What are the restrictions?
Aside from the criteria above, there are certain rules.
"We're not going to turn anyone away," said Lindemann.
"But this is not really a tournament for old crocks teams. We've tried to sell it on the basis that this is a tournament for young-ish people who would be of active professional playing age, but are not of that aptitude.
"We've tried to set between 18-39 as a guideline age limit. But as I said, nobody will get turned away. If old crocks teams want to come they are more than welcome, but we do have to wanr them they may be up against 18-year-olds!"
"A good team in this tournament would look like dicks," interjected Fitschen.
"We had an enquiry from Cork Constitution (one of Ireland's top clubs and feeders to the Munster team) and we had to turn them away after looking at the website. It's not personal, it's just that they would have been training for it, for openers! It's not for teams who take the game so seriously, it's for teams who like to have a good time, want a bit of exercise, and want to make friends.
"This is the gap in the current rugby climate. If a player ends up unable to play, or aspire to play professionally, there should be more of this on offer.
"It's interesting: we have had lots of interest from teams in rugby's developing countries, but not much from the countries where the game is fully professional.
"It backs up what we say: as the game turns more that way, the social game dies out."
The 16-team roster is half-full. There are four teams from South Africa as host nation sides. Possibly the world's most infamous social team, the Pot-Bellied Pigs from Hong Kong, is in, as is Australia's flaghsip socialites the Dubbo Rhinos. The USA's Temple Old Devils are in, and a team from Nova Scotia, Canada, is almost there. Vienna's Celtics are coming too, and a team from Spain, Poblenou Enginyers, confirmed their entry about ten minutes before this article was published. Teams from Argentina, and Chile have expressed an interest as well.
Fitschen and Lindemann have whipped up some extraordinary travel packages for the participants, courtesy of some advertising contacts, and of course, with the B&I Lions due in Cape Town that fortnight, the town will be abuzz anyway. All the info, including registration and costs... in fact, really all the info, is on the tournament website: www.srwc2009.co.za.
A part of the organisation is the creation of a huge marquee on the club grounds, where the 16 teams wil be able to watch the Lions, and all the other rugby going on at the time, with a plentiful supply of beer and mates to keep them going.
"Our initial slogan was going to be 'Social rugby Just Got Serious'," said Lindemann.
"But we thought that might be too competitive."
So now, the Social rugby World Championship 2009 is 'For the Love of the Game', which hits all the right notes. Beer, rugby, mates. For two weeks. In Cape Town. Bliss.
