The sports columns of the popular newspaper Vecherniye Bishkek, (“Evening Bishkek”), once carried the headline “The Incomprehensible Game” –  Rugby Football.

It may well be that the game with it’s complex and complicated system of laws, scoring, scrums, lineouts, tries, penalties and the host of technicalities, (such having to pass the ball backwards while trying to run forward), may well be beyond the comprehension of the average “man in the street”, (and the differences between Rugby Union and Rugby League would confuse them even more – yet alone any of the other games descendants from William Webb Ellis’ actions on the Public School playing field, but a fast free flowing game is attractive and there are a number of aficionados in the country.

The former Soviet Union used to field a fairly strong team – mainly drawn from members of the armed services.  It proved to be popular in the Republic of Georgia and they formed their own Union in 1964 – which was recognized by the International Rugby Board, (IRB – the governing body of Rugby Union), in 1988 and formerly becoming members in 1992. The have given a good account of themselves in matches – winning the European Nations Cup in 2001 – and are seen as “rising stars” in the Rugby world.

Although there Rugby Federation (the IRB still refer to it as a “Union”) in Kyrgyzstan, the game in both Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan is basically supported by the Union in Kazakhstan – which is another team showing promise of great things to come.

The IRB has no statistics about the number of teams or players in the country – but apparently there is one that competes in the Kazakh Open Competition.  In August, there is usually a festival held in the grounds of the Physical Culture Institute in Bishkek.  Games are organized at different levels, for children, youths, women and men.  There is a women’s team that has apparently appeared at the world championship in Hong Kong.

The main strength of Rugby Football in Kyrgyzstan, however, is to found in the ranks of the Kyrgyz Police force.  There are competitions in which teams of the different oblasts and recruits compete, and the strongest team is apparently from the Osh region.  The Head of the service in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, (MVD), considers the game as ideal for his men as, apart from the emphasis on physical fitness, he see such benefits from the game as character building, teamwork and discipline.

It is even possible to buy the Kyrgyz national rugby shirt on the web – that is, unless you are in Kyrgyzstan.  Apparently it is one of the countries from which they wont accept orders over the internet.

I don’t normally wear bright clothes – but recently I have been seen sporting a bright red Rugby Shirt.

The breast displays two small emblems – on the left is the manufacturer’s trade mark: “Kukri”, and on the right is a small embroidered Kyrgyz flag.

It’s the Rugby shirt of the Kyrgyz Rugby Federation and I have been try to get one of these shirts for over two years.  I haven’t found anywhere here in Bishkek that sells them, but there are a couple of websites that do offer them.  The only trouble is that, after you’ve selected them and put them “in your basket”, and proceeded to the checkout, you then have to pay for them.  That shouldn’t be a problem, I have a credit card and it’s easy to buy things over the internet using a credit card, isn’t it?

Apparently not.

Maybe I haven’t got the exact wording, but this was the gist of the message I got: “Sorry but your IP address indicates that you are located in a part of the world which our payments engine doesn’t service.”

It didn’t help that the card was a British card, issued by a British bank with a billing address in the UK.  I was able to enter all that information into the form … and they could have checked.  No … the problem was my IP address … I was using a computer here in Kyrgyzstan – and they weren’t going to accept that.

So, here I am in Kyrgyzstan, and I can’t buy the Kyrgyz national rugby shirt.

Not long ago I was talking to a friend over a beer.  John’s recently started a long term contract here in Bishkek and I had taken him to see the Russian Orthodox Cathedral … the blue onion domes, the myriad of icons, the remains of Saint Irakily, (the only Saint that Kyrgyzstan has produced to date) and we were relaxing over lunch, (and that beer), in a restaurant just next door to the National Stadium.  It was a holiday and there was a large crowd … so I asked one of the waiters what was going on.  “National Games”, he told me, “followed by a Rugby game.”  You can imagine our surprise … and that’s how the conversation turned to Rugby, and my difficulties in buying a Kyrgyz national rugby shirt.

John offered to order one for me when he next visited the UK, and to use part of his valuable baggage allowance to bring it back for me … which he did and so I am now the proud owner of a Kyrgyzstan official national Rugby shirt … one of the few people in the country with one.

I presume the blanket ban on accepting payment by credit card over the internet from “surfers” in Kyrgyzstan is to do with preventing fraud and identity theft.  I suppose  that as a consumer and credit card holder, I have to welcome this … but it does seem indiscriminate (affecting everybody in the country) and it can be very frustrating.

Now, I don’t often use my credit card over the internet … it’s not that I am afraid of identity theft, although obviously it is an issue.  It’s just that there are so few occasions when it is useful.  Once you have identified something you want to buy, ordered it, and the money has been deducted from your account, you then have to wait for it to be delivered.  If you chose the ordinary postal options, that can take some time, and if you use an international courier firm that can often cost more than the goods themselves.

This is not the only problem I have had buying things over the internet with my credit card.  There has been other occasions when the payment transaction engine wouldn’t accept my card because I was attaching to the internet from a computer in Kyrgyzstan.  I have tried contacting the site to see if we can find some other solution, but after exchanging a few emails I was told that the only way that they could accept payment was through the payment system that they used.  I still don’t understand why this was so … I may be wrong of course, but the impression I got was that it seemed they just didn’t want to make a sale … they didn’t want to take my money.

The problem isn’t limited to credit card payments.  I don’t think there are any sites that are blocked in Kyrgyzstan – unlike in some countries such as China or Iran, but there are problems in downloading data from some.

I understand that the BBC don’t allow Amazon or other sites to sell their tapes, CD’s and DVD’s to certain countries, (such as Kyrgyzstan), because they have copyright concerns … It’s a pity because I do miss programmes like “Just a Minute” or “I’m Sorry, I Haven’t a Clue”.  It’s possible to listen to these over the the internet but it would be nice to have them in a format where I could listen to them in the car, or have them lull me to sleep as I lie in bed.  It would be great, for example, if there was a podcast of these programmes, but there isn’t.  It’s odd that I can download episodes of the Newsquiz from the Friday Night Comedy Show  podcast … which is great … but Newsquiz doesn’t have “One Song to the Tune of Another” or “Mornington Crescent”.  OK – I realize that only Brits will understand that reference, (and not all of them at that), but suffice it to say that Mornington Crescent  is somewhat of a cult in Britain!.  It’s a pity that I can’t download the latest episodes, just because I live in Kyrgyzstan.

As an aside, talking of podcasts, I would like to subscribe to the BBC’s Jazz Library podcast …  but they won’t let me … I am tempted to say once again that it is “because I live in Kyrgyzstan” … but, actually, the BBC website does say that the podcast is only available for download in the UK, so people in New Zealand, America, France and Germany and so on are also subject to the same restriction as I am.

Playing Rugby for the school

I wouldn’t say that I have been particularly sporting, however, I have “had a go” at many different games over the years.

Most of it my sporting experience was of the “knock-about” variety rather than organised sport.  The trouble with organised sport was that it required talent, skill, training and commitment.  Now I have a fairly compulsive personality and so commitment is not a great problem once I am interested in a subject, and I appreciate the value of training to bring out talent and develop skills … but these have to be present in the first place, and in my case, I am sorry to say, they are fairly limited.

Anyway, as a result of trying so many sports over the years I know the rules of many games and can turn my hand to almost any of them.  I quite enjoyed playing Squash and Volleyball when I was young, but they were never big sports – so there was not much opportunity to play them.    Perhaps that was why I liked them – nobody watching and so less chance of embarrassing myself in public … and not that much competition.  Another reason, looking back on it, why I liked Squash in particular, was that it was an individual sport … so there was less of a sense of letting other members of the team down by silly mistakes or a lack of talent … on the other hand, my hero, (Alistair Cooke), was a great fan of two “individual” sports – Golf and Tennis … I have never played golf and, as a schoolboy, I played one full match of tennis and lost: six-love, six-love, six-love … I never took up Tennis again.

Without much talent and without practice to develop whatever miniscule skills I might posses, I always joke that I was a natural choice for seventeenth man on the fourth team for the Rugby club.  For the record, the Rugby clubs I belonged to only ever turned out four teams … as a result the the fourth team had very few matches and played very irregularly … and, anyway, a Rugby team only fields fifteen players … so I was always the second reserve … the last choice.

When it came to Rugby, my interest in the sport came about almost by accident – like so much in my life.  A friend of mine talked me into volunteering for the school team when I was 14.  Now, ours was basically a soccer school and everyone played football.  There was plenty of talent, and no chance of my being picked for a team.  The Rugby team was different, however, more like a social club.  It was run a retired Army major and we all called him Major, or Sir.  He taught the Third and Fourth Boys Remove classes … basically boys who were never going to do well in examinations and were thought to be “a bit of a handful”.  His military style, hypnotic glare and barking voice probably stood him in very good stead – but he although he instilled fear in everyone who met him, he also managed to command great respect and affection from those who did get to know him.

From a public school and military background he and the Councillor (a similar character who also taught the Boys Remove) were naturals for coaching the school Cricket team.  The Major, however, ran the school’s three rugby teams on his own.   Even though he conscripted many of the his Remove classes into the teams, (those that didn’t play Soccer), there were never enough players.  I turned up for our first practice on Thursday and was told:  “There’s a match on Saturday, be here at nine o’clock and bring two shillings (10p now) for the bus.”  I thought I was going to watch the game and perhaps learn a little … but there were only eleven of us and I found myself in the three quarter line …wondering what on earth was going on.  We lost.  We lost nearly every match. Still, we had fun doing so.

There is a saying that “Soccer is a game for gentlemen played by hooligans, but Rugby is a game for hooligans played by gentlemen.”  I don’t know if that is a fair reflection, especially in these days when the sport is more professional than it was in my day.  (At that time “professionalism” used to be a dirty word in the game.)  There is another maxim that Rugby has a place for all sorts of players … it doesn’t matter how big or small, tall or short, fat or slim you are … there’s a place for you in the team.  I am quite small and certainly not a typical “prop forward”, but that’s the position I played for most of my school career.  Over the years, I have played in virtually every position, except the crucial positions of scrum-half and fly-half.

One of things I learned to appreciate in those early days was the camaraderie of the team.   At first I wasn’t sure.  The Remove boys were renowned for being troublesome hooligans, and   OK, so they smoked … they swore … they fought … but  they turned out to be regular guys with a sense of humour and loyalty.  They were not half as frightening as I, in my timid way had thought of them beforehand.  In the Monday morning assemblies the results of the school’s soccer matches were reported simply: First Eleven versus Nunnery Wood, 1-0; Second Eleven versus Dyson Perrins, 2-3 … and so on.  The Rugby reports however, were full match reports prepared by the Major and read out by the Deputy Headmistress, complete with names and blow by blow accounts.  On one occasion she suggested that as so few people played the game, the results were usually so disappointing, and time was short, (I think the Major was also absent on that occasion), then she might give the report a miss … but everyone in the room, (or so it seemed), let out a groan and so she relented.  I hate to think what the atmosphere in the staff room would have been like if she hadn’t done so … the Major would not have been amused.  Those reports were really important to some of the characters involved … it was the only form of recognition and worth that some people ever received.

When I was fifteen I decided that I wanted to have my Saturdays to myself, and announced that I was leaving the team.  I still remember the look of betrayal on the Major’s face and the way I was ostracized by my former teammates.  As it happens, it didn’t last long … although I liked having my Saturday’s free I also missed the flow of adrenalin and sense of belonging … and I was soon back in the team.

The boys of the Remove classes left school as soon as compulsory schooling was over … so the school’s first team needed an influx of fresh blood from the sixth form, and every year there was a trawl to see who could be persuaded or drafted into the team.  As a result, we tended to have a young, less talented and less experienced team than many of the local schools, and this was often reflected in our results.  The Major never gave up, however, and neither did we.

The Major was a real character.  Rumour had it than in the second world war his jeep had driven over a landmine and he lost half a finger in the incident.  I don’t know how much truth there was in the rumour, but I well remember how he used to point at you with the stub of the finger and the fear it used to instill in even the hardest of characters.  He was feared by all and sundry and just knowing him and being able to talk to him was a source of kudos.  I was walking through the school one day and called me over: “Claytor, come here.”  I forget what he wanted but all of my friends, (“Cream Puffs” – he called them because they weren’t “man enough” to play Rugby … for that matter neither was I, technically, I was only in the team by default because there weren’t enough volunteers to play), stood by quaking in their boots.  When the Major and I laughed together at something, they almost went into apoplexy.

He and his wife took us to see the local first class team, (Gloucester), play a match against another of the country’s strongest teams, (Leicester).  It was the first time I had seen a mass of people engrossed in what was still, not only to us but generally at that time, very much a minority sport.  It was a really enlightening and invigorating experience and I have always enjoyed attending matches ever since, no matter who is playing.

My brother, having passed the dreaded eleven plus, went to a local selective grammar school where Rugby was the major sport and soccer was definitely looked down upon.  Everything he studied in school seemed to be different from what I studied … for example: he learned German whereas I struggled with French; he learned about the Georgians, Tories and Whigs, but my history seemed to stop with the Tudors and Stuarts; he studied weird subjects like economics which I wasn’t to encounter for years.  In Rugby, however, we had something in common.  He was a much better player than I was, and he taught me one very valuable lesson – one I am certain that the Major would have disapproved of: “Don’t worry too much about running across the field to get from one scrum to another … the action has a habit of coming back towards you, anyway.”

Together we joined the local Rugby club and I started playing for the fourths … never rising any further, but content with my weekly run around.  Training twice a week was actually harder than a game … and, in theory, I could have missed it because I was never in the running for a place in a more senior team, and the fourths were always a “scratch team”.

When I went to college I carried on playing, but suddenly I was in more demand as a referee.  Once again, that happened by accident.  The team arrived at a game and there wasn’t a referee and as someone had to do it … I was asked.  As a natural choice for seventeenth man, my skill on the team weren’t really missed and my refereeing meant that everyone else got a chance to play.  The next I was drafted in again, and so an unofficial career as a referee began.  I didn’t go through any of the training or examinations that are normally necessary for such a role – and it showed … but it was only a “scratch team”, a “knock about game” … and I got away with it … most of the time, at least.

When I started teaching the time came for me to pass on the enthusiasm that the Major had instilled in me.  I began simply watching games because the school fields were close to my home in North London, soon I was being asked to accompany a team to away matches and then I found that I was given my own team to coach.  Me.  Coach.  It seemed, and still seems, as if I was out of my league … but there was a need and I stepped into the role.  I was never a great success.  I couldn’t whip up the drive and enthusiasm as other coaches could, but over the years we had a reasonable record of success.

The school had an old boy’s club and I joined it.  So did some of the sixth form and it was really quite funny to running along carrying the ball and have some seventeen year old yelling at me “Pass it sir, pass it.”  We agreed that on the pitch he could call me Ian, but if he ever tried it in class he would be in trouble.  He was never in trouble.

My playing days ended quite suddenly.  I arrived early for a match one Saturday afternoon, to be greeted by cheers and was told to get in the car.  A little surprised, because I thought that the fourth’s were playing at home, I did what I was told.  We got to the ground and I started to get changed. I looked around and couldn’t see any of my regular teammates, but the penny only dropped when they gave me a shirt … it was a second team shirt.  Someone hadn’t turned up and I had been drafted in to take their place.  Once again I ended up in the three quarter line wondering what on earth was going on – just like in my first game.

This time, however, I was well and truly out of my depth.  This was a serious game with serious opposition.  The weather was beautiful.  The pitch was on field under and embankment carrying trains of the London Underground system.   That’s about all I remember.;  Apparently, at one point in the game, someone in the opposition had the ball and came running at me … I tackled him and, so I am told, it was a “cracking” tackle.  I am not sure if that means that it was a spectacularly good tackle, or they could hear the bones crack.  As it happens, I hadn’t broken any bones – but I did suffer concussion.  They were calling me all sorts of name, Peter, Paul, Mary … and I was answering to all of them as if it was my own.  They took me to hospital where the doctor diagnosed concussion and told me to rest, not to read or watch television.  Ok, no problem.  Monday I felt well and went to work – no problem.

Later my shoulder started to hurt and began to swell.  I went back to hospital and had more x-rays.  The consultant told me that one of my vertebrae had chipped and the chip of bone was “traveling” and it had trapped a nerve.  It would probably give me problems throughout my life – sometimes trapping a nerve and giving me pinching pains, but most of the time, I wouldn’t know a thing about it.  However, “it would be better” if I gave up playing Rugby.  So I did.

I continued coaching a school team, but perhaps without the same enthusiasm and conviction as before (and that was never very good anyway), but I still enjoyed going to and watching matches.  It is one of the things I miss a little, here in Kyrgyzstan.  There is a local Rugby Federation and they organize a festival every summer, but to my regret I have never managed to get there.  The Kazakhs have a fairly good team – not quite up to the standard of the Ukraine, but most of the Ukrainian national team play in Europe.  The police have a number of rugby teams – it is thought to promote fitness and character.  I do get to see the occasional Six Nations match, but these days I am limited mostly to reading reports of matches on the internet.

I once saw an advert on the internet for the National team shirt of the Kyrgyz Republic and I thought, “I must get that”, but the site was based in the US and they wouldn’t accept my credit card as my IP address was in Kyrgyzstan … crazy isn’t it … I’m in Kyrgyzstan but I can’t buy the Kyrgyz National Rugby shirt!