Why I was a late starter

By Tigerchick
June 25 2004

When I was at school in Syston, the other kids either liked City or Tigers. To be honest, I couldn’t understand the fascination. One girl spoke of trips to Welford Road (I’d seen the ground from the car, so I knew what she meant) and a mystical place called Twickenham.

The idea of willingly standing outside for two hours, freezing off your extremities really didn’t appeal to me.

My first experience of rugby union was being woken from a deep, alcohol induced sleep whilst at university. I had the misfortune to live in the cell (room is a bit of an exaggeration) directly above the television in our hall of residence. All the guys and girls that lived and breathed rugby in that hall were cheering a try scored by England and abruptly brought me out of my hangover-curing slumber. I’d only got to bed at 5am, so was rudely awakened mid-afternoon! The game, I’ve no idea what it was, all I am sure of, is that it would have been a Five Nations game in 1995. I dragged myself out of bed, threw some clothes on and wandered down to see what the fuss was about.

To be honest, I was too tired and hung-over to be interested in what they were watching, so I went back to bed. The following weekend my friend warned me in advance, so I actually got up and watched the game for a while. I didn’t understand it at all and wasn’t particularly interested in it, except that some of the players were quite handsome, so I kept watching for a while longer.

Being born in Leicester, you might expect rugby to run in my blood, but alas my family don’t like any sports, except for motorcycle racing (like the Isle of Man TT) so my obsession with the oval ball came much later in life.

Having seen a few games on the telly, when I was offered the chance to go to a World Cup game in 1999 (Italy vs Tonga) at Welford Road, in return for working in the Captains Bar before and after the game. I’d worked behind a bar before, so knew what I was letting myself in for. The bar was “re-branded” the Guinness Bar for the day and so we only had one type of beer to sell. Easy!

We missed the Tongan equivalent of the Haka and (unfortunately) the streaker, whilst taking our seats in the Crumbie Stand. That’s the only time I’ve ever had a seat at Welford Road, my friends preferring to stand on the terrace at Tigers games. The game was very exciting and my friend helping me out with some of the laws and explaining the referee’s signals to me. Apparently, England needed Tonga to win but of course the Italians were a much stronger team and over-powered the islanders. Well, you could say that I was hooked from that point.

My first home game followed two weeks later, when Tigers convincingly trounced Bristol. Just one Tigers game was enough for me to realise what I’d been missing out on, for all those years that I’d lived in Leicester!!

I later discovered that there was a family link to Tigers, my Dad’s godfather played for them in the early 1950’s – he’d even scored a couple of tries!

I was temping and studying at Queen Mary College part-time so money was in short supply. Living and working in London (as I still do) on top of the studying, meant at that time I could only attend selected games. Fortunately my group of friends managed to arrange match tickets for me, so all I had to pay for was the train fare.

I’ve had a season ticket on the Crumbie for the past three seasons and for the foreseeable future, I’ll be there for as many games as humanly possible.

Highlights of the past five years, for me, have to be witnessing Tigers retaining the Premiership over four consecutive seasons (they’d already started the winning run when I began supporting them) THAT unbelievable Stimpson kick in Nottingham and of course, the two incredible Heineken Cup winning weekends.

Despite living a few miles from Twickenham (with a Saracens fan) I’m 100% dedicated to Tigers. I couldn’t imagine supporting any other team, except for England of course!!!