Golden Oldies Festival is scrum-thing else

Published on Wednesday 3 September 2008 09:44

BACK in the days when The Beatles were called The Quarrymen and a coach was what you travelled to a match in, a first-ever game of rugby cost me my two front teeth.

Move on nearly 50 years and now the game for hooligans played by gentlemen has just deprived me of any remaining shred of sporting dignity having been substituted in favour of an 83-year-old.

Except that this occurred on the opening day of the Air New Zealand World Golden Oldies Festival taking place in Edinburgh and where, as I discovered, all that really matters is living up to the slogan "Fun, Friendship and Fraternity."

Too many cooks spoil the broth, or so the proverb goes. But, when it comes to the furthest travelled team in the festival – all the way from the Cook Islands – then what is a bystander supposed to do when they are a "player" short?

The answer, of course, is to step into the breach which is how I found myself lining up alongside the likes of venerable dairy keeper Taringa Matenga and 68-year-old Sir Frederick Goodwin, Head of State and the Queen's Representative in that part of the South Pacific. We also had on board a scattering of Aussies from a team known as Knackered Bulls, from Townsville.

Our opposition were the Cancer Research Crusaders and, while they were drawn together to raise funds for that most estimable of causes, there was no charity out on the pitch as young and old galloped (okay waddled) about, determined to make the most of the occasion.

And why not? Golden Oldies Festivals only take place every two years with not a second to be wasted in what was a match like no other.

For starters every try-scorer was lauded with a glass of port while the man in charge was more a Master of Ceremonies than a referee.

At one stage a try was disallowed after "too flash" a build up while it was incumbent on the official to provide a running commentary so as everyone knew that players wearing red shorts (60-64) could only be "claimed" while gold shorts signified no tackling at all was permitted.

All these innovations worked surprisingly well even for a reporter who'd gone along to, well, report and ended up playing. The icing on the cake was getting a deeper insight into just how good the "real" players are and seeing first-hand how dedicated the more social disciples can be.

Team-mate Maki, a retired bus driver, whose boss at the Raratonga Bus Company, Kevin, is also on the trip, explained: "To reach Edinburgh we flew four hours to Auckland then 32 hours to London via Singapore.

"When we arrived in England we'd missed our connection so we slept overnight in the airport lounge before reaching Edinburgh on Monday morning."

That such an odyssey was considered worthwhile was evident on the faces of my adopted team-mates including Sir Frederick, who proudly told his story.

He said: "After retiring as Chief of Police – I'm proud to say we have virtually no crime and only the occasional homicide every five to ten years – I embarked on the first of three spells so far as Head of State and Queen's Representative.

"The best bit of the job is serving my country and I was privileged to receive my knighthood in Wellington from the Prince of Wales while Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Philip kindly invited my wife and I to stay overnight in Windsor Castle a few years ago on the occasion of their golden wedding."

From sleeping in castles to airport corridors that's the beauty of rugby in bringing players old and young (well, 35 is the age-limit) together, and one player who celebrated becoming eligible with the first try of the festival early in the day was Mauricio Dias, a Chilean turning out for Aberdeen Strollers. It was an appropriate score with Strollers being the first Scots ever to play in a Golden Oldies Festival and Mauricio was ecstatic.

"I travelled 15,000 kilometres from my home in Conception, Southern Chile, to take up a rugby scholarship in Britain, eventually finding myself at Edinburgh University where my playing career was ended by a knee injury.

"I liked Edinburgh so much I stayed, completed a masters degree, and became a hotel manager. All the time I've been sending back notes and photographs from a great rugby country to Chile so that one day we might improve. To play again myself is a huge thrill."

Let me echo those sentiments after my boots were ceremoniously binned in 1996 following a match in the company of my son. Hopefully it won't be another 12 years before I venture across the touchline.

There seems to be room for everyone in Golden Oldies rugby – even us hacks – and, among those spotted at the other end of the scale were Wallaby legend Mark Ella and British Lions Gavin Hastings and Iain Paxton.

The next festival is planned for Sydney in 2010 and, who knows, the pain might even have subsided by then with the memory of a grand day out representing the Cook Islanders and Knackered Bulls guaranteed to live on.

As for the match score I suspect we lost – nobody was counting – but if we did who better to lose to than opponents who have each had the misfortune to be touched by cancer in some way?