Every Picture

[Ricardowensleydale]

Well, you take those rose coloured spectacles and watch some recordings of games from the 60's, 70's and 80's ... and not just the potted highlights. I'd wager you won't find it more fluid (can the same excitement possibly be generated when you know the score/context???)

I attended my first 6N (5N) game in the 70s but you may be right with regard to the exitement of youth generating a more positive recollection of the game.

 

[Dixie]

I attended my first 6N (5N) game in the 70s but you may be right with regard to the exitement of youth generating a more positive recollection of the game.

Me too. It was either the east or west stands (a shed really in those days) a terrace IIRC with no seats close by the 25 yd line. Eng v Scot, it was a real crush, shoulder to shoulder, with my young teenage self getting moved every which way by the action of the crowd around me. Just before half time, though, I seemed to have acres of space. Surprised, I looked around me to find the reason for the change. Two or three rows behind me was a group of Scots, dicks out pissing on the terrace for all they were worth, one waving a bottle of whisky shouting: Ay, Crumpton laddie, get yersel' a wee swig o' this. The sight (and accompanying sound) has haunted me throughout the intervening years. Can't recall the game in the slightest!

 

[Davet]

Did you accept the offer of a swig?

It would have been the friendly thing to do, rather than be standoffish about it.

 

[OB..]

My first visit to Twickenham would have been to a Varsity game when I was up at Cambridge, early 1960s. My first International was a few years later. My club used to take a coach load up to London for a game in the morning, International in the afternoon, and drinking in the evening. Catch the coach at Marble Arch at midnight for the trip home.

As I was walking back through the centre of town to my flat, a policeman stepped out of a shop doorway and demanded to know what I had in my bag. Mistake. My kit was getting a bit smelly by then.