Before there was Normandy, there was Dunkirk, a sort of D-Day in reverse. It was drawing to a close 64 years ago today. The BEF (British Expeditionary Force) had been chased out of Belgium without any chocolate, and found itself squished up against the French coastline. It took every remotely sea worthy bath tub in the south of England to evacuate some 338,000 troops over nine days, leaving no time to stock up on booze at the duty free shop. Operation Dynamo turned a potentail Allied disaster in to a mere humiliating retreat, and left the French alone to make friends with their new German landlords.

Two years later, on the other side of the world, the Japanese aviation industry suffered a major setback after losing 322 aircraft at the Battle of Midway. Admirals Chester Nimitz and Raymond Spruance out-foxed and out-fought Admiral Nagumo who had earlier commanded the fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor. Instead of the intended death-blow to the U.S. Pacific Fleet he received a major kick in the nuts, and probably had to chop his own head off or something.

Did you know that rugby may be played on grass, sand, clay, aritifical grass or snow, so long as the underlying surface is safe to play on? "It shall not be played on a permanently hard surface such as concrete or asphalt". Whew, glad I knew that. Click here for all you wanted to know about the laws of rugby, but were afraid to ask. Careful though, we might ask you to ref. a B Game.

Want a cool, free game to play on your computer? Check this out. Commissioned by the army as a recruitment tool, it's supposed to make you want to join up. It just makes me want to stay indoors and play video games. Warning, this game carries a high risk of turning you in to a spastic gamer nerd. Huuah!

Sorry it's been so quiet. I've been trying to find the right words to decribe the ignominy of Newport. Let's just say that the warm breezes were absent and the lure of cold beer was a little stronger than that of the soft turf. Excuses abound, but whatever the reasons, we were left to keep Springfield company at the bottom of the table. No offence to Springfield, but hell, that just ain't right.

I won't go in to match reports, since there is little good to report. We lost a scrappy game to Providence, who went on to beat someone else, and get rolled pretty easily by Newport in the final. Then, even with huge measures of referee incompetence working in our favor for once, we still managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory aginst Charles River.

In all my years, I have still to play a game on Sunday at NERFU. What is it about Newport that manages to bring out the worst in us?

On this day in history, 1588, the Spanish Armada left Spain with 130 ships and 30,000 men intent on invading England. Their plan was to go down the night before, so they could have a good sleep and show up refreshed. Well, the Spanish being what they are, they all got pissed up on cheap vino and kept each other up all night. Meanwhile the home side got a good night's sleep, and awoke refreshed and ready sink some ships. The bad weather didn't help the queasy Spanish stomachs, and after being chased all around the British Isles, they arrived home later in August with only 67 ships and 10,000 men. The English meanwhile didn't loose a single ship.

Only 15 days to the kick off of Euro 2004. Where you can see all of Europe's best soccer teams in action. England will face their arch rivals...(fill in any other Eurpoean country here). Ireland will play...with themselves, at home, since they didn't qualify. Mwahahahaha! But that's OK, they're in good company, because neither did...er...um...The Faroe Islands, Malta, Lichtenstein, Andorra, and a whole host of other quality footballing nations.

Just let it go already.

Newport beckons with the promise of soft turf, warm breezes and cold beer. Get out, get a life, and get down there. Be at the Park n' Ride at 5am (yes, that's right, 5am) on Saturday morning so you can get there in time for our first match at 9. Once again we are matched against Providence, who we always go toe-to-toe with, so your presence will make a difference.

Accomodations for Saturday night are all set with Willam and Lowie (sp?), and by all accounts their hospitality is legendary. Bring sleeping bags, tents and pj's and you can crash somewhere in or around their house.

Some have said that there is an Anglocentric prejudice to my postings on this site, and to that I just have to say, "that's bloody bollocks!". But, in an effort to recognize contributions to world history by other nations, I have scoured the web for evidence of other civilizations.
On this day in Irish history: it rained.
On this day in American history: Charles Lindberg (1927) and Emelia Earhart (1932) both decide to leave America but accidently land in France and Ireland respectively, and naturally they decide to go back.
On this day in German history: Sixteen year old Otto III was crowned Holy Roman Emperor. That's just a silly name.
On this day in French history: everyone wore skirts.

I rest my case.

Thanks Dom, for posting the match report for Saturday, although I'm not sure why we now have to call him "Long" Jerry McQuenny.

May 18th, sixty-nine years earlier, the former "Interim Administrator" of Arabia, T.E. Lawrence dies from injuries sustained falling off his Brough Superior motorcycle on the backroads around his Dorset home. "Lawrence of Arabia" as he was better known made his reputation while fighting with the Arab troops of Sherif Hussein ibn Ali against the Ottoman Empire during the Great War. Once the Arabian peninsula had been liberated, Lawrence hoped to see a single Arabian nation created, but what do you know, Arabian in-fighting soon cast those hopes asunder.

Wasn't that Carl Marx who said, "history repeats itself, first as tradegy, second as farce..."? If so, then we still have the farce to look forward to.

On to club business. As you may already be aware, we are trying to scare up names of people commited to going to see the Eagles play France in Hartford on July 3rd. Good seats are $42 each, and if we can get 20 or more guys going we get 10% off. Jim Gooch would like you to e-mail him by next Tuesday to let him know if you're in. Expect to cough up the cash a week later.

This Saturday and Sunday is the NERFU Tournament in Newport, RI. At the risk of sounding like a Match Report from the Old Gold Website, good numbers put us in with a great shot of going all the way this year. Worst case, you'll have a hell of a time in the process. So get out to practice this Thursday and shake it like a Polaroid picture.

As Lawrence said:
"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible. "
Finally some validation for not doing any work. Watch out! I'm dangerous.

News link: be sure not to leave the army off your invitation list. They don't take it well.

I'll post a match report as Tom was unavailable with a hitch in his giddy-up over the weekend. In line with Tom's methodology I don't actually remember what the scores were or who scored, though this was due to blunt head trauma rather than excessive alcohol consumption. There were three games on this rather warm day at Amoskeag's nice facility. The Old Boys were up first and pulled off a victory, mostly through tactical kicking, curmudgeonly deception and dim flashes of recollected glory. Losing much of the game, Portland put together a brilliant display of rugby from under their own posts in the waning minutes that showed the extreme depths of the old boys' cunning, field sense and abject laziness. Long Jerry McQueeny clearing kicks; the pack ambling up to collect the line-out; a final scrum 20m out leading to a last spasmodic expenditure of the carefully hoarded energy: a Mike DeSalle pick-up, a Tim MacMahon duct-tape popping scamper and pretty-as-you-like back-line support for a try under the posts. Richard Pfeffer was named Man-of-the-Match for providing the very schwank tent (wait til you check it out) and the beer, as well as for his usual war-horse contributions.

The A-side game was somewhat of a rockfight. The pack did well and Portland scored three or four nice tries from tight play. The centers featured some new faces in Bernie and Pat, who did admirably well. The Amoskeag backs were on song though and carried the day. The evergreen Jerry Alves was his usual warrior self and garnered Man-of-the-Match honors. Joey D made his first visit to the sin-bin for tracking down an opposition player after the whistle to register various concerns on recent occurences. When the ref had the temerity to inquire after the motivation for such blatant head-hunting, Jerry reports that Joey's explanation was "I don't know... I just wanted to get him and hurt him." Note to Joey: while lying is not a good policy, it is considered acceptable to color the truth somewhat in these instances. It's called spin control, brother.

I didn't watch much of the 25 minute B-side game but my general sense was that everyone was knackered and it was a bit of a track-meet to Amoskeag.

The bus ride home was the usual delightful bonding experience, highlighted by many stories that began with that ominous phrase "So there I was..."

I'm still waiting for someone to regale me with tales of courage and endurance from the weekend. You see, I was being a weenie and nursing my ankle, while older and wiser men than me boarded a bus for Manchester to play three games against Amoskeag in ninety degree weather.

So, I wasn't there, so I don't know for sure, but, Alfred, Lord Tennyson wasn't at the Charge of the Light Brigade either when he wrote these stirring words that somehow seem appropriate for the moment:
"Was there a man dismay'd?...
...Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die...

...While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the Mouth of Hell...

...When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!"

(full text here)

I do know that the Old Boys won, but when they put on different jersey's and played again they didn't fare so well. After that, who knows?

Well, I proud of all you old bastards!