Those Magnificent Men...?

Think of Bristol University rugby, and one conjures up the image of Jonathan Webb, Kyran Bracken, and Alex King, Wednesday nights at the Epi, the BUSA competition, and the no-go zone that is the hallowed turf of the 1st XV - a verdant Persian rug upon which even Angels fear to tread. University rugby is a culture unto itself - impenetrable and misunderstood to those outside of it, but a rewarding way of life to those within its' fraternity. They are the sporting Freemasons of Bristol. One could easily be forgiven for thinking that rugby at the university starts and stops with the BUSA, and the proliferation of write-ups, social events, and 7's tournaments that follow this contest.

However, there resides at Coombe Dingle, a sub-culture that is perhaps even more bizarre and unexplainable than that of UBRFC. Before the ladies get excited, I am not talking about UBWRFC, but the little followed, but curiously addictive, world of the Inter Mural rugby player.

Surely, I hear you cry, these people must be a couple of meatballs short of a goulash. Who else in their right mind would drag themselves out of a perfectly warm bed at 10.00am on a perfectly miserable Sunday morning, to 'run' around a grass paddock chasing your mate 'Choppers' ball, which is so old and knackered, that Webb Ellis himself might have fashioned it. It is a fact universally acknowledged, that rugby is a game played over an 80 minute period. It is a characteristic of the inter-mural player, that he will charge around like a rabid dog on speed for twenty minutes, and then collapse and vomit copiously, to the rapturous delight of his comrades. It is also a characteristic of the inter-mural game that relationships with the opposite sex become strained to say the least. Picture the scene...
'Do you have to go and play today? Come back to bed...'
'Of course I've got to go and play - I've promised the lads. And look love besides, I've played rugby all my life -I've known you six months.' Get the picture?

To use every cliché in the book, they are the very grassroots of the university game. Teams play for nothing more than the love of rugby, and a bloody good piss up afterwards. They are masters of the art of coarse rugby.

Unfortunately, inter-mural rugby has to live with the stereotype that it is of poor quality with a lack of inventiveness, and is generally unwatchable. Nothing could be farther from reality.

It is true, there are some bad teams out there. In fact there are some terrible teams out there. The difference is that they admit they are terrible, yet still turn up every week to play (and probably lose), such is their team spirit.

There are also some very good teams on the circuit. A classic case would be the Wandering Hands RFC, founded from scratch last season, and currently unbeaten in the inter-mural 'league'. This year they held the 3rd XV to a slightly embarrassing 13-18, losing in the last minute only to a break away try. On BUSA semi final day, they beat the Medics, themselves a very good side, 38-22 in a clash at Brislington, despite being ravaged by injury.

Mention of the Medics season must also be made here. They recently made the final of their national league competition, and despite losing, rounded off one of their most successful seasons to date.

The quality is there, of that there is no question. So why does IM rugby remain so completely lost in the twilight zone of the AU? The answer lies in the AU's failure to add structure to the inter-mural game. A printed sheet of contact numbers once a year is hardly a way to entice teams to play. As all of those perverse masochists who volunteer to actually organise an IM match will know, getting a pitch out of the AU, is like trying to get blood out of a particularly stubborn stone.

A case in point was when UBRFC played Oxford University Blues, earlier this term. They brought with them just the one team - no Greyhounds or 3rd XV - 15 men. Coombe Dingle has 5 rugby pitches, yet I know of at least 3 teams to whom the AU claimed that all of the pitches were required by the university that day. Two teams, with five pitches - for the whole afternoon? Come on...

All teams who compete at IM level pay for the pitches themselves, on top of insurance arranged by the AU, which is not cheap. Why should teams therefore be denied playable pitches that are not in use? It is difficult enough already to organise matches and pitches.

Pity then the inter-mural player - whilst not always the paragon of rugby footballing excellence (in fact, hardly ever), must certainly be saluted for their perseverance in what for the most part, is an uphill struggle.

So the next time you find yourself awakened in a stranger's bed on a Sunday morning, and are desperately searching for that excuse to get out of there as soon as you possibly can, just say you're off to watch the Wandering Hands at Coombe Dingle - you're bound to know at least one of them...