And so it all begins again. It’s actually nice to be back in this bed, in this flat with its totally white clinical walls, i feel like i'm now 'de-toxing' (horrible phrase) from the excess of the festive period, the plain-ness of my flat gives it the air of being some sort of clinic. As usual, holidays refresh in some ways but also end up increasing tiredness. It’s just as well I have my mornings off this week (finished my French class). So all I have to do is focus on the rugby when I have to and get through some box-sets the rest of the time. I’m flying home this time next weekend anyway as there’s a Monday-Friday camp in Edinburgh for the national squad. What a jet-set lifestyle.
But before all that, the Old Firm of French rugby will meet on Sunday when we welcome Stade Francais to Colombes. Racing first played Stade Francais on the 20th March 1892. Racing won 4-3 and the match was refereed by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who also happened to find time to found the Modern Olympic Games. It seems a bit of a cheek to me that this one game was classed as the French Championship: Racing were awarded the Bouclier de Brennus, still awarded to the winners of the championship today, though after around 30 gruelling matches. 1892 isn’t quite 1858 but it’s nice to be involved in games with history behind them.
We trained this morning but the quality was extraordinarily poor. I suppose early morning on the 2nd of January isn’t bound to produce lovely rugby but even we were all surprised at how bad it was. Though now we have a big week before Sunday. The club President was around, dressed in his running gear – I thought he was going to slot in at full-back and show us how he used to do it but instead he came on and refereed. His refereeing style reinforced the image that I have created of him as this massively haughty, arrogant, talented dashing three-quarter who brought tonnes of his renegade personality to the game. I couldn’t help myself from laughing when, lunching with some props, they were complaining about the way he controlled the scrummage. Apparently “Crouch...Touch...........Push” is not the right way to do it.
We do get looked after. Instead of training simply finishing and all going their separate ways, we went for some lovely tartiflette in the fans tent at one end of the stadium for our lunch. This was brought forward an hour after the club president raged at some poor man who said it was at 2 and we would have to wait an hour. The issue was resolved, we ate well, and he drove off in his black Lamborghini. The Stade was looking excellent as folk rushed around preparing it for tonight’s pro match against Brive. I won’t be going as sleep, food and Alan Partridge are more attractive propositions. Though there are two attractive matches on Saturday. I feel I should go to see Racing play Toulon but the lure of the Stade de France is hard to resist where Stade Francais welcome Toulouse. I’ll wait and see.
While eating I was introduced to a guy who was new to me but not to the rest. I had heard of someone who had moved to Scotland, and here he was. Turns out he was in Edinburgh and had played for Heriot’s, though I think his playing ambitions are purely social. Older than me, he is a very small guy with an adult’s head forced on his neck. I tried to tease him about being a nail but he didn’t understand so I shut-up fairly quickly. I also asked him about some people at the club but he didn’t react when I said their names. Quel impression... I told him that Accies were my club but he didn’t know them, a sad indictment of rugby in North Edinburgh! I began to doubt this chap’s story and vowed to probe further into the mystery Nail!
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