Moment of high comedy on rainsoaked day
SOMETHING i remembered to cheer us through January.
A good few years ago Treorchy rFc hosted the new Zealand club Taranaki rFc. it was a prestigious event for Treorchy as a member of and from Taranaki rFc was one Graham mourie, the famed All black’s captain. mourie and his men had scoured this land in 1980 disposing of victims with a casual approach that bordered on the contemptuous. And so it was on what only could be called a “damp” weekend that a game was scheduled.
it was not uncommon in Treorchy for rain to fall, but that weekend it came down in corrugated iron sheets for three days.
The oval rugby ground was akin to the Llyn over the rhigos. even the large deep foundation holes that had been prepared for the new floodlight system had filled to the brim making the place look like one felt the need to sail rather than walk to the stand at the maendy side of the field. but there we all were – packed in like saturated sardines on – if i remember correctly a sunday morning. The committee had decided the game would go ahead come hell or high water.
The game itself was unremarkable except for the fact that one Treorchy stalwart called Taff bembo put in an appearance that lifted the average age of the players by 20 years.
However, there was something of the comedic to be savoured towards the game’s end. A local photographer by the name of Kinsey, festooned with every kind of photographic device hanging from his neck, exited the safety of the stand by performing one of those hand on the wall leaps out of the enclosure over a 3ft concrete fence. He executed the movement with style and promptly disappeared into a water-filled 12ft hole that had been dug for a floodlight.
He was dragged out to much laughter and it was decided that proceedings would be better served in the bar in order to get more wet inside rather than out.
such was a drenched day in 1980s Treorchy.
Ian Price Cwmparc