The English Vice…

…finds me standing beside the road in the cold damp morning air, hungover.  BritInCalifornia and Sanityfound have to bear some responsibility for the hangover. But I will draw a discrete veil over the shenanigans that caused the hangover (well that and alcohol-induced memory loss).

So here I am standing in the cold air waiting for a lift. Destination: Twickenham, Objective: Praying for a Miracle. It’s not been a good month for the England Rugby team, but hey-ho we must turn the corner sometime. Maybe we will rebound from a little difficulty with the Saffers last week, the Crims before that,  and maybe the Porcine Airforce will put in a aerobatic display.

On the trip in Dave’s van we discuss the prospects and hope for anything less than a drubbing. Arriving in Twickenham we park in Tesco’s car park, quickly unload, and I push Dave in his wheelchair into the stadium and join the queue for the Guinness bar and some hair of the dog. A couple of pints later we take up position at the edge of the pitch in the western stand by the northern 22 meter line. Some eye-candy masquerading as classical musicians perform a couple of numbers before the national anthems (damn I should have brought along my camera), then the New Zealand team perform the Haka, a traditional Maori challenge, and 85,000 Englishmen (and women) roar their defiance with “Swing Low Sweet Chariot“, waves of sound rolling around the stadium, which has never sounded so good (except maybe the 1999 world cup semi-final between France and New Zealand). Makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.   And I have been lucky enough to have seen more games at Twickenham than I should probably admit to.

The Game begins and England hang on grimly through the first half, making too many mistakes, giving too much away, but the Kiwi goal kicker Dan Carter is having a poor game and squanders chances. Maybe England do have a chance. In the second half, despite some warming soup, our spirits sink as the All Blacks step up a gear. The English are pressurised into more mistakes, and New Zealand finally run out comfortable winners, but Dave and I are already in his van edging out of the car park to beat the traffic home. All that’s left to do is to work on getting another hangover.

~ by @mmonyte on November 30, 2008.