R.I.P? No, wait...

Wow. Some realness went down this week… Well not this first part, so feel free to skip the next bit if you’re not feelin’ it. But later.

First off, we had a game in St. Raphael on the Med coast and it was maybe the single most ridiculous volleyball game I have ever been a part of. I don’t even want to revisit the sad event but suffice it to say that good competition doesn’t take place when both teams are trying to lose. To get all poetic on y’all, the essence of sport is lost. So why were we wanting to lose?

Well there are 2 major leagues/competitions here, the French Championship and the Coupe de France. If you finish in the top 4-5 places in the Championship, your team earns a bid for the following season in the Champion’s League or one of the 2 European cups. For example, we finished 3rd last year in the Championship, hence the journeyings to Romania, Italy, etc. this year. Anyway, this is all pretty important and prestigious and basically everyone competes in their country’s leagues for this chance.

Anyway, since you don’t earn a berth by winning the Coupe - and since Cannes, the top team in the French league has won every year since about 1904 - everyone figures there’s no point in spending more precious club bills to make the trip to wherever each round is played. So somehow this works out to, “let’s go to the first round and hopefully lose so we don’t have to advance” or something of the sort. We went with 5 players and a player with a torn ab, so we were fit to put up a good fight. We played the drawers off that game and (successfully?) lost. That’s about all the reminiscing I need to do about that. Not too sure why I wrote all that out now. Apologies.

Anyway I was less than pleased with the whole experience but when we got home Saturday afternoon, I realized that other than Christmas break, for the first time since September we had a Saturday evening off. The American and I located some tickets to the local pro rugby game and went in for round 2 of spectating. For the record, I still only understand approximately 50% of what’s going on.

I was late to the game but apparently before it got underway, the locals had a minute of silence for an older gentleman that used to play for the team and was a member of the club (or something like that) who had passed away. Please just take a sec to picture the scene with me y’all – some club official gets on the mic, gives some sort of tribute, and fond memories are quietly recalled during the minute of silence while the crowd of 10,000 strong remembers a lost friend… People are sad. Some people are also pretty shocked for reasons to become apparent.

Now fast forward to Monday - it comes out that this guy is not in fact, dead... Yeeeah.

Dude was ON VACATION.

Oh. Snap.

So ya screwed up...

Yeah I know y’all are sittin there, minds blown like, Say whaaaaaaat. Bahaha. And please believe, I couldn’t, heck, I wouldn’t make that up. Word on the street is there was an apology to the family in the local paper and such but ya can’t really take that one back too easily… Either way, that’s the way to get a warm welcome home after a nice holiday. On the bad side, the day this guy’s time actually comes, nobody’s gonna know to believe it or not. Took me a sec to process all that ridiculousness in one sitting, but try as I might I can’t even really begin to figure how someone just jumped to the conclusion they did. He missed the local bridge club meeting last week so he couldn’t be anything but automatically just dead, straight up…? And then they go ahead and even organize some public tribute without, I dunno, checking with the wife and kids? Pretty funny. More unbelievable.

Rogue Sports

Saturday night I witnessed my first rugby union game as the local pro team had a match against Narbonne. My overall impression? Overwhelmed but impressed. I learned that my rugby "knowledge" (by which I mean I know you can't throw the ball forward and it's called a try not a touchdown) was wholly insufficient to understand what was going on exactly 98% of the time.

To attempt to reconcile this to something I am somewhat more familiar with, I like to think that if soccer and American football had a lovechild, it would be a beautiful 7 lb. 3 0z. baby boy named Rugby. He would be a stout little fellow, and would blaze his own path in the sports world... Short shorts and all.

Unfortunately, I was informed that my little metaphor is pretty much totally incaccurate due to the fact that American football evolved from rugby... or was it soccer? Something like that. Either way, it's all backwards. History aside, those are some crazy fools.

Some of the barbarianism I was privvy to included a player getting a knee rammed (that was for you Heids) in his nose and another guy picked up and straight flipped upsidedown, mid-stride. One minute, he's enjoying the crisp September air, the next, he can't remember his own name let alone what sport he's playing... Poor little lamb.

It was another solid weekend for Albi sports and the boys managed to pull off a 28-22 W. After the game was a VIP dinner of sorts for the supporteurs and the lady that gave us the tickets to the game got 4 teammates and me in. What a champ. I somehow forgot that mealtime in France translates to at least 3 hours à table so we finally rolled out around midnight having gorged ourselves on foie gras, bread and yet more cheese. K, actually I hate foie gras and the cheese plate was a little disappointing but I'm trying to maintain an image here.

Anyway I vowed that I'd brush up on my rugby trivia before the next match, and also due to the fact that a bonafide rugbyman is soon to marry into the fam (Sarah - tell Chris to take pity on my patheticness). Unforunately, so far I'm just more confused than before. Maybe I'll just learn the chants the locals were singing all game long in the stands... If that doesn't work out I could also probably audition be one of the fans playing the drums since last time we somehow got prime seats RIGHT behind the "band"... it was 2 hours of incessant pounding and confetti filled delirium... Allez les jaunes et noirs.

Blinded by the light

Nice hair bro

You'd be making that face too if that guy was coming after you...

Cute English-speaking children