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Dear Captain Kay and I endured Saturday’s England against Scotland game in rugby’s World Cup, and conducted our usual post-match analysis afterwards.

“What gets me,” said the drink-sodden old buffer, “is that I wasn’t actually excited about the game beforehand… do you remember how excited we used to be in the old days before an England Scotland game?”

Excited? It barely covers it. Sweating palms, feverish scanning of the newspapers, jokes over a pint – and if we actually had tickets for the game! Well. It is true that characters like Mr Wade Dooley, Mr Peter Winterbottom, the very great Master Jim Renwick and the even greater Lord John Rutherford were the cause of inflamed emotions, to say the least.

One of the happiest days of my life (and, needless to say, a memory that to this day makes Brother Kay come over all Herbert Lom) was Scotland’s legendary 1990 Grand Slam win over England. It was the day that began with David Sole’s march onto the Murrayfield turf and ended in defensive defiance that’s still recalled with wonder. The match even became the subject of a book (The Grudge, by Tom English). An entire book about one match, in that it came to symbolise Scots’ hatred of England in the Thatcher era – that’s an accolade awarded only to this game and to Munster’s equally legendary 1978 defeat of the all-conquering All Blacks (Stand Up and Fight, by Alan English). I heartily recommend both as brilliant social history.

All those men, of course, were amateurs. They played the game for love. They made great sacrifices to play the game for love. Because they didn’t live, breathe and work rugby union they were men like you and I, the sort of bloke you’d bump into in the butcher’s or down the pub. Indeed, the good Captain once bumped into Jim Renwick, a wonderfully gifted Scottish centre, in a bar in Edinburgh, and all but fell to his knees. I once shared a bar with Bath’s winger Tony Swift, a man who played for his one beloved club for probably more than 100 years, and his clubmate, the back row prince of darkness, Roger Trick. After the England Scotland game, Scots flanker John Jeffrey and England No 8 Dean Richards got blotto together and took the historic old trophy – the trophy, not a replica –  on a tour of Edinburgh bars together.

Of course the game made insane demands of the men and as the television age bit, the demands grew to the extent that few players could hold down jobs in the real sense of the word. To play at the highest level, players made ever-increasing sacrifices. In other parts of the world, rugby unions sought new ways to run the game, while in this country the powers-that-be, former England Captain Will Carling’s “57 old farts” on the RFU committee, clung on to the past as long as possible. It couldn’t last.

These days the game at the top level is professional and the players look like laboratory specimens, pumped up and muscle-bound, tattooed and remote. They are ushered, tracksuit-clad, from training ground to sponsors’ lunch, from PR opportunity to modelling shoot, and sometimes they are allowed to play rugby, modelling their club’s shirts at £50 a throw. They’re certainly not encouraged to enjoy themselves. Vested interests still exist, making sure the top countries like England and New Zealand are allowed to lure the best players from lesser countries like Samoa and denying those lesser countries equal opportunity.

The professional elite have started talking back to the referee, waving their arms and looking skyward in astonishment, just like soccer players; they transfer clubs on a whim, just like soccer players; coaches are deified and very vulnerable to bad results, just like soccer coaches; to satisfy TV, the top clubs play a league to decide who’s champion and then, at the end of it all, rip up the whole season and start a knockout cup contest too. Bath used not to have a shirt number 13; Leicester used to wear the letters of the alphabet. All gone.

As players have become body-building freaks, injuries have become more severe. As I write, the world’s finest fly half, Dan Carter, will not show us his skills for New Zealand because he’s injured again. The demands, fuelled by TV, are too intense.

I don’t see how the game could have survived in the old way. But I so much wish it had. The game remains, but the soul and much of the sheer damn fun have gone.

Angried out

Didn’t expect that, did you? Well, I’m angried out at the moment. Weeks of banks, lawyers and British Telecom have taken their toll and yesterday all was exhaustion at Fraser Towers, to the extent that we didn’t even make the conker championship, where I was greatly looking forward to cracking one of Brother Cullingham’s wizened old nuts.

Quite a few responses to last week’s diatribe on customer disservice.

Mine local host described how the barrel of Cornish ale she orders every week has to be delivered from a depot in Bristol – therefore embarking on a cheery journey from the brewery in Cornwall, past the door of her pub and 80 miles up the motorway before coming all the way back again. Good job it travels well.

From Lanzarote, Brother Numbers pointed out that nobody noticed when his paralegal ‘went on strike’ during a conveyancing.

Brother Fiddle had to speak sternly to a bank that was proposing to charge him 3% to transfer a few hundred quid of his own money – credit, not debit – to another of his accounts, until they backed off.

From France, Spencers Brother and Sister offered:

“In France we have an excellent property sale and purchase system much as you propose. All of the paperwork is carried out at the preliminary stage. The various certificates obtained, termites, lead, etc. Of course you can save time by having this carried out “before” you sell. It costs about 400 Euros for the pack, rather like the UK system was but you get free automatic update checks for the next three years……

“What’s the catch?…….estate agents fee for handling sale and drawing up the “compromis” – around 7%. Oh well, at least I won’t have to pay fees like this when I buy my new house will I? Wrong! The average sum that you will have to pay the Notaire as the purchaser for his excellent high speed service including taxes, registration fees etc – surprise! surprise! – 7%.

“Lesson….If you want something done properly it’ll cost you.”

And finally, our resident spiritual adviser Sister Pearce had to confess to uncharitable thoughts concerning a credit card company…. And when that good soul is thus driven, you know customer disservice is alive and well and will be returning to these pages again.

 

Healthwatch

The customer settled himself into the accustomed stool at the bar with a satisfied sigh. It had been a long day featuring earnest discussions about his health, and weight, with the quack.

He addressed the barmaid: “Large gin and slimline tonic, please – oh hang on – do you think slimline’s bad for you? It’s got additives, hasn’t it?”

Don’t go on about it

I am delighted to report to the disrespectful Stents family that the godlike Cohen has not ‘gone on’; as far as I know there has not been any sadness to report.

So who did nick my photo of the godlike one from my Facebook page? Come on, own up.