All Blacks legends set to have ball for kids
The Bangkok Tens is more than a rugby tournament, it is a lifeline for Bangkok orphans, writes Jim Scott.
On any Saturday in the Bangkok slum suburb of Klong Toey, on a tiny patch of dirt, a small group of boys can be seen excitedly throwing a rugby ball around.
It’s the last thing you would expect in this hot, grimy and excruciatingly poor part of the world. The boys live at the Klong Toey Orphanage and the reality for many children in this suburb is an inevitable path to drugs, prostitution and all the other predatory forms of existence you can think of.
Children throwing a rugby ball here, where rugby does not even have a word in the language, is an oddity.
It started almost 10 years ago when Samoan-New Zealander Sopu Fakaua and former Canadian representative Eddie Evans formed the Nak Suu Rugby Academy. Evans runs a sportswear manufacturing business based in Thailand and Fakaua was involved with Ark International, a Christian group which helps children at risk.
Both played in a social rugby team in Bangkok, and a mutual love of rugby led them to set up the slightly left-rugby-field concept of teaching slum kids to play rugby. They saw teaching kids from the slums to play rugby as a springboard to a better life.
The name Nak Suu means ‘‘noble warrior’’. It seemed to fit with the slum kids’ day-to-day fight just to stay alive.
Evans says rugby presented an opportunity to help these children get an education.
‘‘Rugby is a window to all these things. The slums have a cycle of young boys and girls and drugs, addiction and prostitution. We are trying to address these issues by getting kids involved and giving them some sort of hope.’’
When Fakaua and his family moved to Canada early last year, Evans and the other mainstay of Nak Suu, Darryn Mathee, decided they did not want to give up on the rugby academy and have kept it going.
Bangkok-based Mathee, a former ‘‘semi-professional’’ from South Africa, says when Ark decided to cease involvement in the academy, for him it was important to keep it going.
‘‘A lot of these kids don’t see past the next day, they don’t think there is a future. They don’t have parents. We just want them to see there is something to look forward to. We teach leadership skills – just basic skills that theycan live life with.’’
But taking kids from the slums, feeding them, training them every Saturday, and sometimes on Thursday,
"The slums have a cycle of young boys and girls and drugs, addiction and prostitution. We are trying to address these issues by getting kids involved and giving them some sort of hope." Eddie Evans
takes money. They fund it by running the annual Bangkok International Rugby Tens. The Tens runs at the end of February and is slowly gaining a name as one of the great rugby tournaments of the Asian continent.
This weekend is its 10th anniversary. And what makes this year just a bit more special is the presence of a rugby legends team with some of the greats of the international rugby world of the 1990s.
The man behind the Rugby World Legends Project, David Higgins, has put together a team that lives up to its ‘‘legends’’ name. Their ilk includes All Blacks greats Frank Bunce, Walter Little, Kees Meeuws and Stephen Bachop, former Lion Matt Perry, and Fijian Bill Cavubati, along with a feast of former Tongan, Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Samoan internationals.
And how did Higgins lure these, some might say long-in-the-tooth exinternationals to a tournament in the hustling, bustling metropolis of Bangkok?
It started a few years back when Higgins was playing in a sevens tournament in Dubai where he rubbed shoulders with some recently retired internationals.
‘‘I saw potential for getting older players involved with a charity and playing smaller tournaments. It is a way for people in smaller clubs to meet some of their rugby heroes.’’
He admits it started in a hopeful and minimal way. ‘‘I first met Stephen Bachop and Junior Paramore in Dubai. They helped me make contact with hundreds of players ... it just grew and grew.’’
He started organising some charity tournaments in Britain and then looked to branch into countries such as Thailand and Indonesia where rugby is starting to gain a presence. He heard of the Bangkok tournament and contacted Evans, who was ‘‘overjoyed’’ by the prospect.
For Bachop, involvement with the Bangkok Tens began with an email from Higgins. Bachop admits he had pretty much hung up his rugby boots, though since his retirement in 2002 he had played a few ‘‘legends’’ games.
‘‘I had actually decided never to cross the white line again, but the charity work changed my mind.’’
Of course the calibre of the guys he was playing with had something to do with it. ‘‘The fact that the World Rugby Legends is a genuine ex-all-international squad was also appealing,’’ he says.
‘‘I’m sure the World Rugby Legends team will help raise the profile of the Bangkok Tens through our presence, though not necessarily through our performance on the field,’’ he laughs. ‘‘Personally I’m not sure how long my body will last, having retired at 36 due to my body telling me to do so.’’
For many others at the Bangkok Tens, just playing with the likes of Bunce and Bachop will be reason enough to be there.
Last year, says Mathee, the Tens raised enough money to buy two Sangthaews (ute-like vehicles with seats). This year, with the help of the legends and the other 47 teams competing, they are confident they will raise even more.