Sharks’ rugby singalong bowled us over
SENSATIONAL stuff that was last Friday night, the Sharks running away by an unbelievable 45-12 against the Bulls on a King’s Park pitch so soggy that when Sanele Nohamba went over for a closing try, it was in a shower of spray, more of a duckdive.
And appropriate it was that their performance should be accompanied in the Pub With No Name, in Florida Road, by some sensationally boisterous rugby songs.
Except, er, that these fellows who had completely taken over one end of the bar were not rugby players at all. They were cricketers. But their non-stop singing, prancing about – on tables, chairs and the bar counter – was the equal of any rugby club. The TV was on the blink, playing up no end, but when transmission froze you hardly noticed.
It took me back to Maritzburg Collegians where the after-match singsongs were so loud and boisterous that the bowls section – a generation or so older – eventually got sick and tired of it and built their own clubhouse beside the bowling greens. I feel myself in a position to judge the quality of such sing-songs.
And these guys were good. Loud, harmonising, full of humour, unmalicious and non-stop.
They were much like the Barmy Army who follow England cricket about the world.
The pub management did not remonstrate when they got up on the bar counter, they made videos. This was a performance for the records – and the internet.
Who are these fellows? They’re a team of aspirant cricket professionals calling themselves the Fucheers, three of them from England, one from Zimbabwe and the rest South African, though I think none of them from this province. They are in Durban to play matches against a few local schools.
They’re youngsters in a sort of transition between success in schools cricket, knocking hopefully on the door of professional cricket anywhere in the world. One wishes them luck. But if pro cricket doesn’t work out, they’ve always got vaudeville.
Apun my word
SOME clever puns come this way:
¡ Those who jump off a bridge in
Paris are in Seine.
¡ A man’s home is his castle in a
manor of speaking.
¡ Dijon vu – the same mustard as
before.
¡ Shotgun wedding – a case of wife
or death.
¡ A hangover is the wrath of grapes. ¡ Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a
form of floor play.
¡ Does the name Pavlov ring a bell? ¡ Reading while sunbathing makes
you well red.
¡ When two egotists meet it’s an i
for an i.
¡ She was engaged to a boyfriend
with a wooden leg, but broke it off. ¡ A chicken crossing the road is
poultry in motion.
¡ If you don’t pay your exorcist, you
get repossessed.
¡ A man needs a mistress just to
break the monogamy.
Tailpiece
THIS fellow phones the hospital where his pregnant wife has been admitted. He’s connected by mistake to Lord’s Cricket Ground.
“So how is it going?” “We've got four out and expect to have the rest out before lunch. The last one was a duck.” Last word
THE test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.