Leeds Grab Henley Sevens Honours


Lardies Before.....
By RtR on 13/08/2003
August 12 2003

As regular visitors to the site will know, an intrepid band of Leeds Tykes supporters ('The Leeds Lardies') have undergone a rigorous training programme for the last 5 weeks in advance of the prestigious Fat Bloke Sevens event.

So, will the input of the Leeds Tykes Academy coaches, and the extensive weight training programmes in the West End on Wednesday nights, pay off in terms of results on the field? Herewith follows a brief summary of our progress in this fantastic event, which took place on the hottest day ever recorded in England.

The Group Stages

First game up, Henley Hippos. The gods were against us; Henley seemed to be drawn from the Henley club itself, so were genuine rugby players, whereas we weren't. The referee was Ashley Rowden. We played well below our potential. We lost, and badly! We needed to up our game.

Next up, Drunken Wasps - a crunch game. The Lardies went 5 points down, but remarkably pulled the game round to win 4 tries to 1, and gain a valuable bonus point. We had won one at least, and could hold our heads high !!!

Final game, Bristol Wobblers , turned out to be Durham Uni. We lost, heavily, once again, but actually played rather well. We were up against fit, strong, athletic young rugby players of a high calibre. Not fair really.

So we finished 3rd in our table. It was noticeable that not all of the sides were strictly the low skilled, unfit sides we had anticipated, but that some contained proper players who were fit rather than fat, and actually looked quite useful. The competition was effectively a two-tier event, and we found ourselves in the bottom tier.

The Knock Out Stages

FB7s - Middle
...During...
So, into the 'Spoon' competition we went, with all of the other 3rd and 4th placed teams from the group stages, and a strange thing happened - we realised that we had our mismatch games behind us, and only truly 'fat' teams awaited. This galvanised the squad, a sense of real determination became apparent .The coveted 'arse' trophy was up for grabs - would we be able to go the distance and claim glory?

A quarter-final walk over got us straight into the semis, and close win over the Fat Cats took us into the final, against Northampton. And we were not to be denied, beating the Saints 19-0 to claim victory in the Spoon Competition, including an astonishing length of the pitch try by Leedsexile - we were astonished that anyone could run that far without a rest half way- try of the day surely. The other feature of the final was our dogged defence (credit here to James Ponton for his coaching session). We definitely had the same never say die determination that the Tykes showed last year.

The Exhibition Game

Adjacent to the real events of the day, the Henley International Sevens was taking place, and a Fat Blokes exhibition game was organised in the main arena. The Lardies were represented by Loosehead, APB, NSFG and RtR, representing the Blobarians versus the Old Fat Bastards, in front an adoring crowd of quite a few hundred people. These folk, used to watching some of the best sevens exponents around, were shown how the game is really played, together with 'hilarious' commentary from Nigel Starmer-Smith. A 19 all draw resulted, with 24 cans of very warm bitter for our troubles.

Injuries

There were a fair few, Skibum got a nice shiner, and I got a bloody nose. Mark the Taff went the whole hog and dislocated his shoulder. It popped back in immediately, so he carried on, and then did it for good 30 secs later. The man got loads of attention, and surely thought he'd got the best injury, before play was stopped for 40mins as a saints player suffered a potentially serious head injury and was whisked away in a helicopter ambulance - thankfully he's OK according to MB gossip. Notsofatbloke sustained an injury to his ribs in the final as well. Its not really surprising that the games took their toll, as the pitch was like a playing on concrete. The heat was fantastic, and tales of sun stroke induced vomiting in the LI camp emerged.

Celebrations

After our dramatic victory in the final, Capn Timofe was presented with the trophy, a rather beautiful ceramic arse, with fairy motif. The Lardies lined up to kiss the trophy, followed by the end of day team photo, and rousing renditions of 'Marching On' and that witty favourite 'Leedsleedsleeds'. Why we can't make that much noise on the Headingley terraces I'll never know.

Respect Due

As with all such events the list of thanks-yous is long and deserving. So in no great order, total respect is due to these guys.....

  • The Tykes coaches, who gave up their time to help us out, James Ponton, Chris Hall, Dave Lowther and Rog Pullen - many, many thanks boys!
  • The tournament organisers, Eek-the-Weeble and friends,- huge respect due, thanks for all of your efforts, you should be immensely proud of your achievement in getting the thing up and running.
  • The Leeds Lardies themselves, a finer body of coarse rugby men surely never walked the planet.
  • The Henley International Sevens guys for letting us onto their hallowed turf for the demo game, and the crowd, for not laughing too much at our exertions.

    • But the main feature was the spirit with which the tournament was played. The true spirit of friendship engendered by the best game in the world was evident all day long. It was a brilliant, brilliant day!

    PS - Lets hope that the Tykes can follow our lead and bring back some more glory from the south when they compete in the Middlesex Sevens!

    FB7s - End
    ...And After!