Page 80 - All Shapes & Zebras From Treorchy

More specifically regarding travel, playing amateur rugby – or indeed playing any sport that is organised in league form – allows players to traverse the length and breadth of a locality. Be it ‘WRU Division East 2’ in Wales or a North West League in the lower echelons of the English RFU pyramid system, by playing within a region, season after season, it lends players a certain degree of geographical expertise.
With Welsh amateur rugby players, much of their knowledge concerning the geography and topography of the South Wales valleys will not have been gleaned from the pages of a textbook or from the inside of a classroom. No, it will have been formed from coach trips or ‘satnav’ directed journeys to various rugby clubs every fortnight or so through September to May, season after season, year after year. Even in the summer, South Wales offers a thriving rugby ‘sevens’ circuit with a host of esteemed and jovial tournaments.
Even though the years have passed since my retirement, when various locations are mentioned on the Welsh news, my brain will compute that place by gauging its proximity to rugby clubs that I have played at. If I am directed to a meeting through work – or find myself on a family errand or holiday trip down West, the signposts en route will map out place names forever linked with rugby matches. Just as a builder will tell his family about every house that he has built as they pass by it, my nearest and dearest are destined to hear about a result, a try, a tackle, an injury or an incident that happened on a patch of grass many moons ago, every time we go within a three mile radius of a clubhouse or a pitch around South Wales.
And, for many, in their rugby-orientated world, that particular foible is to be commended and celebrated, not derided.
78 ALL SHAPES & ZEBRAS FROM TREORCHY