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Sunday 23 November 2014

A surprise

The big surprise was that England won their match against Samoa, especially so as Ian and I were there to watch it. What we call The Rugby Ground in popular local parlance and is officially the Twickenham Stadium is less than 30 minutes walk from Pixie Towers.  Good cardiovascular walk too, we are not dawdlers, the exercise was good for me, even more exercise walking up and round the concrete grey spiral that replaces stairs on the new south stand. 


The spiral can be seen in the lower circle of lights in this picture, taken on my phone as we were walking away from the stadium. The photographs from my phone have mysteriously appeared as "photo stream" on my iPad, not sure why they are so small here though.

The atmosphere was very jolly at the match, even in such huge crowds, with over 82,000 people we felt quite comfortable, even in the rather small seats where my knees were rather pushed against the seat in front, no one complained. the respect shown when everyone stood for both teams' national anthems, the humour in frequent Mexican waves and singing of Swing low, sweet chariot - just the first two lines of the first verse - and oohs and aarghs to action on the pitch. 


Fireworks and action before the start,


Then some action, I think we need to read Rugby for dummies to understand the action properly but it was entertaining. Write up in the paper today is a little more critical of England, there was plenty of play in the middle of the pitch and no one appeared to run full pelt down the side from one end to the other, but we enjoyed everything about our evening out. Even the weather favoured us, we had wrapped u p warmly,  it wasn't chilly and the rain stayed away whilst we walked there and back. 



There was a form of ticker tape running around the top of the stadium, which did explain a little what was happening, especially when players went off and substitutes came on. Why substitutes when no one was injured? Also there are large screens so if the action was a long way off one could watch the action in close up.  I did notice the red of the England kit looked more scarlet on the screen than on the pitch, part of seeing colours differently especially on a screen or when the background is different. 

It was different for us, it made us happy, we had exercise, fresh air and it has provided something about which to write for this blog that isn't knitting or serious. I did regret not taking knitting or crochet, weather was mild enough to have worked on a project between the two halves. 

Found this in my 'drafts' box, not sure why it wasn't published in early December, instead am publishing now. 












1 comment:

  1. An experience I've never had - being in a stadium with 82.000 people and watching a Rugby match - but it sounds great, and I am glad the atmosphere was the way you describe it, not violent or uncomfortable.

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