Bish, bash, bosh!

It has all been happening this week. Not much happened in work. We have made progress, the netball court is nearly finished and I am trying to arrange a grand opening. The canopy is not finished so I don’t have to organise a grand opening and there is a lot of water at the big site so we have to maybe rethink our strategy of construction.

Thursday was the final preparation for the sevens competition on Saturday and involved 6 blokes drinking beer and talking about a good game!

And so without further ado I will jump straight to Saturday because it was quite clearly the highlight of the week.

A bit of history for all of you, (I learnt most of this at the weekend) 7s started in Scotland ( I knew that bit) in 1800 and something. It then stayed there for another 60 years or so, and some would argue that it should have stayed there as well. Then in the 1920s it packed its bag and like the proverbial son flounced off to find fortune elsewhere. It 1948 it found a wee small town in Southern Malawi called Blantyre and there was some fella here who wanted to have a competition and his name was Mr Leslie. So since 1948 (it took a break some point in the 2000s) there has been a competition here – the Leslie 7s.

For those that are new to rugby, one – are you sure I know you because if you don’t know rugby I am really not sure we’d be friends, and two 7s is the same rules as rugby except, yep you guessed it, there is only 7 players, but it is still played on a full size pitch. Only 7 minutes each way – but trust me that is enough. The day started very bright and very sunny, and I was somewhat disappointed to see that there was not a cloud in the sky. It was gonna be hot! A quick nip into the building site on the way to speak to our expert geologist – I know I know, I work too hard. – and then off to the club for registration. There were 8 teams – which is the most they have ever had, and with squads of twelve that was over 100 players.

The way this was broken down was four development teams (outlying towns that erm lets say rugby is not there first sport but they are trying) and four established teams.

The teams were;

Blantyre Sports Club (my team)

Lilongwe Rugby Club

The Cubs (Malawi under 20s 7s team)

The Ba’bas ( the rest of BSC and anyone else who fancied a game)

Red Ants – Luchenzo town

Ian All Starts – another town I think

Impalas – Thyolo near Luchenzo

Some unpronounceable name after an Italian charity.

After a quick team photo and a stretch or three we were off.

Now it was decided to put two development teams and two established teams in each group, round robin then pair off the positions for four finals.

Well we were up against I.A.S. first. Now some of these were maybe half my size, and maybe didn’t know the finite details of the game, but what they lacked in knowledge they made up for in courage – admittedly they were more courageous trying to tackle us than they were at running at us but then that is fair enough.  The tackling technique was pretty much once you had hold of a player’s shirt swing yourself from it and drag them to the floor. It was pretty effective but we soon learnt that by moving the ball around we could easily avoid the troubles. The other very courageous thing is that a lot of them played in bare feet as they don’t own boots! First team dispatched.

Malawi vs Malawi - note the footwear!

And so games were played throughout the day, some more even than others, until we had a lunch break.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have been to many a rugby club that would struggle to organise more than a drinking party in a beer making facility (most of them can do that) but I would have thought that a little foresight would have gone into lunch. Rather than having 8 teams plus supporters all turning up to order at the same time – bearing in mind the lunch break for some players was little more than half an hour. No worries I thought I’ll be sensible and order a plate of chips. An hour later I cancelled the order of chips as I had scrounged enough off the plates of others! It was pandemonium.

Running in one of my tries.

With the final group games played out the finals were settled and ready to commence. Not surprising the four development teams were in the shield and bowl final – but that was the good thing because it meant that two of those teams won. Lilongwe lost to the Cubs in their final group game and faced the Ba’bas for the plate leaving us to face the Cubs in the final. A real grudge match as we play with a lot of them at touch on a Thursday. It was a clash of styles as well with the younger, fitter faster Cubs facing the er lets say the heavier, more muscular team.

Still got it!

It proved to be a tense final as well, the Cubs by far starting the faster and scoring within the first couple of minutes. We rallied to score just on the close of half time but being forced out wide the conversion was missed and we went into half time 7-5 down. The second half was a bit more settled and having secured possession we deemed to keep hold of it. Patience paid off as we once more scored and took a narrow lead 10-7. The Cubs had the ball in the closing minutes and but for some desperate and somewhat frenetic defending may have scored, but the decision to try for a drop goal rather than holding on to the ball and try to run us ragged was not necessarily the correct one, although it was gratefully received. And so the scored remained in our favour at the end of the match.

Between matches

As is the tradition everyone when back to the club house, sang very loudly and had a few soft drinks before an early night.......maybe.

Glassware survived the night

Actually the best bit of the whole day was the excitement on the faces of the young Malawian teams when they received there trophies – even the runners up looked ecstatic at a crate of beer for the team although that could have been because they may not have been old enough!

Somewhat later in the evening I decided to order a Dagwood burger and chips – being that my lunch was rubbish. The waiter then found me to explain that they had no eggs would a cheese burger be okay. I said yes. He then found me a little be later still to explain that the cheese burgers had run out would chicken be okay. I said yes. A little later on the waiter finds me once more to explain there are no chips left and would rice be okay. I replied yes again. Eventually my chicken and rice arrived to which everyone was very confused when they asked what it was as it looked so good I replied Dagwood burger and chips!

I now have a small glass trophy to take home with me to remember the day with. It is a much more welcome reminder than the giant grass burn on my knee due to the pitch being rock hard.

You may think that that was all the events of the weekend but oh no, the entertainment keeps coming. Sunday I turned into a delivery man transporting maize around for one of our friends. Then I decided to do a very good impression of a 70s rock’n’roll star.

Now they were famous for driving cars into swimming pools. I on the other hand wasn’t actually trying to perform such a feat. And in my defence had I been driving the car this wouldn’t have happened. But I parked up, walked away, had a chat with Adina about the snake that tried to sneak in her house (more about that later) only to hear an almighty crash. Four of us ran round the corner to find my truck in a wall.

Now whether the hand brake failed or I hadn’t put it on is up for debate (I suspect the later although as it wasn’t on but may have fallen down) but the fact is the car rolled down the hill and through a wall.

The aftermath was quite entertaining too. Declan and I were trying to devise some system where we could get the two jacks from the other cars, jack the car up, rebuild a pathway underneath and reverse out. But that’s not the Malawian way. No the Malawian way is for people to appear from everywhere, I mean everywhere, there was two guards when it crashed and then there was twenty people. And they are well versed at getting cars out of walls and ditches. They all got round the front, skinny one gets in the drivers seat and slams it in reverse then on the count of three they all lift the front and shove it backwards. JD! The car is a Toyota Hillux and if any of you have seen the Top Gear episode you will not be surprised to know there is no real damage to it.

(I do have a photo but technically ability and a dodgy iPhone is proving too much at the moment. I promise I will post it.)

The other thing of note is the snake. Adina is sitting in her front room chatting with one of the other volunteers when a snake, or more accurately half a snake appears under the door curtain. Being two sensible girls they both scream and scare the snake which back tracks out of the room and away down the drain. Turns out that the little visit is only a Black Mamba the most venomous snake out here. Good to know.

Ha this will make you all laugh as well. Not sure if I mentioned that we did an assembly a few weeks ago, a skit copied from Harry Enfield based on the fact that all the Malawian’s can sing amazingly well and we poor Europeans are not very good at it.

One bite and it's goodnight Vienna

Well my construction boys thought I sounded so good they wanted me to join the construction choir so this morning a troop of twelve of us sang amazing grace for assembly. Just to emphasise the daftness of me being in a choir they asked whether I was a soprano, alto, or bass. On not knowing they decided I was most suited to male soprano – I will leave you to comment on that little snippet of info.

And from a broken bruised, very sore and stiff, but happy me, that was the week that was!

STATMAN

Score in the first game – 58-0 (they were very small)

Tries I scored – 4 (1 in the first and second, 2 in the third game)

Malawians that had to be stretchered off – 4 Don’t be sympathetic though. Apparently they love it, they all fall down at the end of games hoping for a lift with St John’s Ambulance.

Cubs players over 20 – 0

BSC players under 30 – 0

Crates of beer issued in prize giving – 8 (one per team)

Crates subsequently brought into the changing room for 30 players left in there – at least 7

Bottles of brandy drunk – not sure

Average number of stickers per female Branta drinker – 2 expertly placed by our captain (I’ll leave you to wonder where they were placed but the fact there were two is a big clue.)

Malawians that appeared from nowhere for the truck – 20

High notes I hit in assembly – half?