Turf Side Up TURF SIDE UP! The not so serious side of the industry Rugby too violent for Gaddafi! Shaken, and a bit stirred!
NO one really knows the Arabic for prop forward and, for decades, the sport of rugby was banned by the Gaddafi regime - which considered it too violent!
Yet, rugby is enjoying something of a surge in popularity in Libya, and may be its fastest-growing sport. From a standing start after the revolution, there are now eight teams in a national league and a dozen more forming, with the local federation chasing membership of the International Rugby Board.
“Rugby is a bridge; it doesn’t know politics,” said Tarek Benrewin, 28-year-old administrator of the Libya Rugby Technical Committee, standing on the touchline of a freezing pitch as three clubs competed in a national seven- a-side tournament. “We have teams forming across the country.”
The tournament - held in Benghazi and Tripoli - is not short on full-blooded aggression, even if the goalposts have had to be fashioned with white poles strapped to football
BURY FC’s head groundsman, Mike Curtis, didn’t let the grass grow under his feet when he arrived home to discover his heavily pregnant wife was about to give birth in the hallway.
game, it suits us,” said Wael Aradi, 25, who captained a national side in its only foreign outing, to Egypt.
For any sport to succeed in the Libya of Muammar Gaddafi, one of his sons needed to take an interest. None did. The dictator’s eldest son, Muhammad Gaddafi, president of Libya’s Olympic committee, did turn up at a game in 2001, only to declare it a ‘violent sport’. Like boxing in 1979, it was then banned by his father.
goalposts. But enthusiasm is undimmed. “Libyans like this
The biggest problem is a lack of referees: Libya has just two, neither qualified. One, Muhammad Bakrami, 33, a computer programmer who learned the rules from British rugby websites, journeys fifty miles from his home in Zawiya to officiate.
Ade goes batty for bats...
ADE Edmondson’s ITV television series, ‘Ade in Britain’, is a jaunt around the UK seeking out old traditions and quirky behaviour.
In a recent episode, Ade visited cricket bat makers Gray Nicholls at their Robertsbridge, Sussex home, where he met a Master Bat Maker to learn the processes that go to make some of the finest blades in the world.
He was able to hone his own bat from a lump of willow, whittling, forming, pressing and planing to achieve the finished product, which he eventually wielded in anger at nearby Robertsbridge CC.
Only ten bats a day are made 152 PC APRIL/MAY 2013
Images © ITV
and the process has
He spent twenty minutes on the phone to the ambulance service receiving vital medical information as he crouched on the floor beside his wife, Helen.
The baby’s head appeared just as an ambulance crew arrived at the couple’s home and they helped safely deliver Millie Louise. Mum and baby were then taken to Royal Bolton Hospital as a precaution and were allowed home the following day.
Acknowledging that he was in “a panic”, 42-year-old Mike said: “You just don’t expect anyone to give birth on the hallway floor. Helen had actually been due the previous day.”
Mike, who has worked at
Bury FC for twenty-six years, had received an urgent call from his wife after Shakers had just been beaten 2-0 by visitors Crawley at Gigg Lane.
“She told me to get home quick. Her waters broke as I walked through the door five minutes later. Helen was on the hallway floor and alongside her was her mum and our little lad, three-year- old Charlie.”
“I first rang the hospital and then the ambulance
service.They were giving me a lot of good advice on how to make Helen more comfortable and other information. The head was about to come out when the ambulance crew arrived at the door whilst I was still on the phone and they delivered the baby.”
Mum Helen, aged 32, and baby Millie Louise are both said to be fighting fit after the unscheduled home birth.
Story from the Bury Times. Caerphilly does it!
For a rugby team, a 43-0 defeat would be hard to take, but for a football side it is an absolute hammering.
That’s almost a goal every two minutes, and is a recent loss suffered by Caerphilly Castle Ladies in the Women’s Welsh Premier League.
Sadly, it is not the first time they have been mauled this season, as they have also been on the wrong end of 36-0, 28-0 and 26-0 scorelines.
changed
little in 170 years; even the press that applies over three tonnes of pressure dates from the 1920s.
Never shy of breaking into a cheeky grin, Ade seemed to thoroughly enjoy the process, probably more than his time at the crease!
But the team, who have let in 219 goals and scored just one in ten games, say they have no intention of giving up.
The problem stems from a mass walkout of their first team to set up rivals Cwmbran FC over the summer.
However, chairwoman Julie Boyce, who has come out of retirement to strengthen the
side of reserves and youth players, said the team would
come back stronger. “We are putting a brave face on things, but yes it’s tough and, if it went on indefinitely, it would threaten the future of the club. But we’re about more than the first team.”
Today’s plight is a far cry from recent years, when the Castle had been a side to be reckoned with.
They finished mid-table in the last two Welsh Premier League seasons and, in 2010, lifted the Welsh League Cup.
This season has been very different. The solitary goal they managed was against Caernarfon Town, who went on to win 14-1.
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