12 reasons the ABs hate England
Having first gone to Twickenham in 1969 I’ve always wondered why being there feels slightly weird to a Kiwi. Last weekend my niece’s husband, who was a regular at Twickenham, supplied what might be the answer. Kiwi crowds are loaded with rugby tragics. We, it’s true, watch pretty grimly, determined not to miss any nuances. Twickers’ season ticket holders, on the other hand, he reasoned, lean to the Hooray Henrys who played a bit of rugger at school, but to whom it’s not as serious as death. If you were really a dyed in the wool rugby fanatic, would you waste your concentration singing an American dirge like 10
They bang on all the time about Pasifika players the All Blacks have ‘‘stolen’’ from the islands. In the test overnight every starting All Black was born in New Zealand. As it happens, so were three of the England team.
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England supporters on tour, unlike some of their football fans, don’t start fights, wreck bars, or burn cars. They’re jolly. But they wear tight white replica jerseys, and they break into at the drop of a pint. In 2003 in Sydney, before the World Cup final between England and the Wallabies, my wife flew home a week early. ‘‘If I see one more fat Englishman in a skin tight white jersey,’’ she said, ‘‘I may throw up.’’
In case you missed it. They call themselves The Rugby Football Union.