A day packed full of fun

Six weeks of sport, 11 host cities, 13 stadiums, 20 teams, 48 matches, up to 1,000 broadcasters, 2,000 journalists, 6,000 volunteers, 2.3m tickets, a world of spectators. That's a few of the numbers involved in welcoming the world to rugby and to England in September 2015.

At some ungodly hour on Saturday morning Carnegiette, Hornchurch and I set off for Stadium MK for the Workforce Kick-Off – a get together for the Rugby World Cup volunteers. Despite allowing plenty of time we arrived much later than expected due to the M1 being closed which had a knock on effect of the drive into Milton Keynes being very slow. But a dexterous bit of manoeuvring on my behalf saw us (legally) jump a 200 yards queue and find a conveniently placed parking space.

After a quick security check by some very friendly policemen, who were ribbing those who’d rocked up in their Leicester shirts, we grabbed our goodie bags of information, giveaways and the all-important lunch and drink vouchers before taking our seats. The 4000 volunteers who came to the event were seated with others from their RWC venues so it was a good opportunity to get to meet some of the people we’ll be working with during the tournament.

Lawrence Bruno Nero Dallaglio OBE kicked off proceedings which included a group photo in our kick-off event T-shirts and another one in said T-shirt holding up our specially produced bottles of Coke Cola with The Pack on the label. Here’s a tip, if you ever go to an event where you’re given a specific seat and don’t do what the organisers ask, you’ll be picked on. And poor Tim (a large chap of a certain age) was duly embarrassed on camera to don his T-shirt and was generally mocked most of the morning. Hornchurch missed this important photo call as she decided that getting a cup of coffee was more important than being recorded for posterity. Mind you, it’s debatable if she’d got her T-shirt on over the layers she was wearing – for a split second when she jumped in my car I thought we were making a Christmas fixture trip to Kingston Park, not about to enjoy a spring day out some 150 miles south of our fine county.

John Inverdale was MC who introduced us to Laura Wright after a short ‘sorry I can’t be with you but I can’t wait 'til the RWC’ video from Prince Harry. Laura quickly whipped us into shape as a choir as we sang Jerusalem with different sections of The Pack singing different lines of the second verse. There was a few damp eyes and heavy swallowing to be seen when, after a few rehearsals, we belted out that poem celebrating England in all its glory after a few practices.

Jason Leonard got the first, and biggest, standing ovation of the day. He spoke about how rugby is for everyone and how anyone can play no matter their background, colour, religion etc. And if they are good enough they can become the most capped of their country and even win a world cup medal. Of course none of this can happen without volunteers – don’t forget we were there to be inspired for our roles.

A huge cheer went up for Maggie Alphonsi as she took the stage with Serge Betsen and Shane Williams for a Q & A session, mostly around match preparation and mind-sets, and some light-hearted banter, mostly at Ickle Shane’s expense.

A rather long-drawn out lunch break (longer than expected due to some technical problems that plagued us later) saw us chatting with our new chums while eating our sandwiches in the sun before we went to the exhibition centre to see a few bits and pieces. All the host venues had a stand, there was a video from Lanny (couldn’t hear what he was saying due to the noise levels), a chance to climb in the top of the range, RWC branded Range Rovers and have your photo taken – oh, and buy one. The actual World Cup was there and there was a chance to win tickets to the opening ceremony and match. People were able to meet and greet the great and the good from the morning’s session but part way through me queuing to have a photo with Jason Leonard he was swapped for John Inverdale so I passed on that one!

To get rid of the famous post-lunch slump, we took part in the Paka! A song with a little dance and actions created especially for us. Oh, I can so see me doing that at the Fanzone in Leeds come 26 September. I’m now hoping I get to volunteer there rather than at Elland Road (checks for no stray B) as I’m sure it’ll be more fun and provide the chance to get more involved with fans than at the stadium.

By now the sun was shining on the righteous; it was blazing down on us (burning and sun stroke were real dangers) and Hornchurch had put her coat on! Will Greenwood gave a funny, rip roaring performance about team work. He had some nice insights to the England RWC 2003 squad; he was often called a lighthouse in a desert, brilliant but fooking useless. In the break before extra time in that final, Johnno told Sir Clive Woodward to go away as then was not a coach’s time – this was time for the team. SCW went off to bore Jonny instead who was at the other end of the pitch practicing his kicking. Johnno’s last words to his team were: “If you see someone in yellow with the ball, smack them.”

A video of Jonny failed, we got about 10 seconds of it before it conked out. Some of the bigwigs had their five minutes of thanking us for taking part before the grand unveiling of our uniform. And a few extra whoop, whoops came from the (few) Yorkshire Carnegie fans there when we saw the designers were inspired by us lemonheads – the hat is dayglow yellow with some blue stripes!

Bill Beaumont came on to another big standing ovation to do some more talking about how rugby can be played by anyone, how it can’t happen without volunteers, how England 2015 will be the best tournament ever (thanks in many ways to the volunteers) and how thousands of children will be inspired to start playing.

With one last rending edition of Jerusalem and The Paka, it was all over. All of us suitably motivated, hugely excited and anticipating the bit of our volunteering experience; talking tactics.

Rugby
World Cup
2015
The Pack