Back Up The Blindside: Up The Blindside, #2

By Jon Prichard

Rugby club tours - rule number one -

WHAT GOES ON TOUR, STAYS ON TOUR

Yet again in the sequel to Taking it up the Blindside, Jon Prichard, former captain of the Bangkok British Rugby Club breaks all the rules. Cat-out-of-the-bag and spilling-the-beans on what really happens on rugby tours ain't the half of this book's mischief!

  

If you have only watched rugby from the sidelines or indeed matches broadcast on TV and marvelled at the speed, agility, handling skills and utter respect paid to the referee and you've thought ...what nice gentlemen these sportsmen are... read this book to get another perspective.

 

Back Up The Blindside is another raunchy, plain speaking, non-PC set of tales, some of which are frankly almost unprintable but are based on real life experiences. Whilst the majority of tales relate to playing rugby in Bangkok and touring in SE Asia there are anecdotal chapters from the past in Jon's younger years in the UK and even one about a shocking golf match!

 

Full colour photos inside.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DCO Books
• Release date: Mar 12, 2024
• ISBN: 9786164560673

Book preview

Preface

In fact, this 2nd rugby book of mine was written speedily whilst my proof-reading editor was checking the very first book back in 2018. But what with the initial launch of Taking it up the Blindside and then the ghastly Covid pandemic that shut the world for the best part of two years, this volume languished in the out-tray of life… till now.

Then in 2021, nurturing the hope of getting these stories to print it almost floundered again when my dear publisher; Danny Speight, declared he was retiring for sure! No amount of begging seemed to dissuade him from his ambition to do nuffin’ and so I turned to blackmail. Well maybe a sidestep away from that corrupt endeavour I used the other B word…Bribery. Dan, luckily, is a man of exquisite simple tastes and beer is one of them and not even in huge quantities but a regular offering coaxed him out of retirement and back into checking my awful syntax and chapter construction.

The stories may have aged by 5 years but I have tried where needed, to update some of the cited professional names with more current stars on the rise… sadly condemning great players of yesteryear (almost last week!) to the archives.

This book, now to be released at the end of the year of the fabulous 2023 Rugby World Cup held so efficiently and passionately in Gaul, would not be the same without mentioning some of the outlandish predictions about who would be beat whom.

The RWC Draw timing we are assured will be improved and updated before 2027 so we will probably have a more balanced chart with current world leading teams at opposite ends of the draw. Personally, I thought the fact that we have witnessed THREE finals – as the quarter-finals were all magnificent, macho matches but topped with titanic South Africa ousting the uber skillful hosts France and the All Blacks just pipping our Irish chums - gave us a truly unique rugby festival…even before the actual final.

Here is a WhatsApp prediction from my chum Ben Knowles in Perth WA before the Quarter-Finals:

1. The Crowd will give the French another player. Backs will break SA line regularly & cause the bomb squad to fizzle like a firework stored in a damp shed. France by >10.

2. England to beat Fiji in murderously dull, ring twitching, penalty ridden game. England by 3.

3. ABs being puffed up after 3 wins vs blind referees. Prior to which the ABs were well beaten by France, humiliated by SA and they only beat Oz by 3 points at home. Ireland live rent free in the ABs heads and the stands will be 90% drunk Micks......Zombies (*) to beat Kiwi zombies by 10-15. (* Hit single in the 70s)

4. Wales win >10. Argentina are shite and Dan Biggar will get through the uprights more often than (our mate) Stitch on a free poke her night in Soi Cowboy.

5. A World Cup never to be forgotten after a Southern Hemisphere semi-finals shut out, and Northern Hemisphere fans drink the country dry.

Bless Ben’s optimism and belief in a NH resurgence but those predictions could be likened to advertising a BBQ at your home during an English summer!

Congratulations to the Boks on a 4th Win and let’s hope that even with the retirement of many players, the coach moving on and SA rugby at a turning point at home they will be there again in 2027…

These new chapters are just as bizarre as the first book in; content, dubious sex, ignored modern PC usage, excessive drinking, imagined and actual Far Eastern Delights, truth v falsehoods in all their possible litigatious nature.

Enjoy

Jon Prichard.

2023. November.

A Swallow Too Far

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Yeah, I know, who in their right mind in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy in the late 20th century honestly didn’t feel it necessary to warn the First Sea Lord that the name ‘Beaver’ was a very seriously, well-known contemporary synonym for; fanny, twat, toosh, pussy, gash… ad nauseum?

Maybe I am looking at this the wrong way. Maybe there was some ancient galleon plying their trading routes between Great Britain and her colonies in Canada and in them thar’ days Beaver was simply a commodity that had no such connections with today’s euphemistic enticing pelt so why change a tradition?

The name would have been adopted and duly applied to one of our ancient, adult-minded, navy ships. We had so many that maybe we simply ran out of names and the old one’s came around again? So Beaver was brushed down, shampoo’d, conditioned and once again let loose on the tide.

Well yes indeed but after a quick check on that most reliable font of all knowledge: Wikipedia, I am aghast to record below that there is a very proud history and lengthy use of the name Beaver, amazingly.

Ten ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Beaver, after the animal - the beaver and not necessarily the lady pelt:

HMS Beaver (1656), a ketch in the Royalist navy, captured by Parliamentary forces in 1656 and broken up two years later.

HMS Beaver (1757), a sloop originally called Trudaine and operating as a French privateer, but captured in 1757 and renamed before being sold in 1761.

HMS Beaver (1761), a sloop launched in 1761 and sold in 1783.

HMS Beaver (1795), a sloop launched in 1795 and sold in 1808.

HMS Beaver (1809), a Cherokee brig-sloop launched in 1809 and sold in 1829

HMS Beaver (1837), a wooden paddle packet originally operating as a Post Office vessel but transferred to the Royal Navy in 1837. It became a dockyard lighter in 1845.

HMS Beaver (1855), an Albacore-class gunboat launched in 1855 and broken up in 1864. This vessel was built hastily of unseasoned wood with the result that she was unsound and saw no service at all.

HMS Beaver (1905), a 125-ton tender transferred from the War Department to the Royal Navy in 1905 and sold in 1911.

HMS Beaver (1911), an Acheron launched in 1911 and sold in 1921.

HMS Beaver (F93), a Type 22, or Broadsword-class frigate launched in 1982 and scrapped in 2001.

It also transpires that the naming officials had a recent spree with the type 22 Frigate as, of the other nine finally commissioned, they were to be called particularly wonton wenchy names: Boxer, Brazen, Brave and Battleaxe.

It was well worth dredging-up and then reading that potted history because we all now know that the ship’s company we challenged on the rugby pitch and later at bar games in the club was indeed the most powerful and well-armed tub of the lot.

This frigate, a proud product of the Yarrow shipyards and commissioned on 13th December 1984, sported a crew of 273 who were responsible for maintaining and launching or firing their considerable arsenal of: four Exocet missiles, two Seawolf SAM’s, a range of 20-30mm guns, six torpedo tubes and two Lynx HMA 8 helicopters. A long leap from the wooden Post Packet of 1835 fame.

It would be obtuse not to highlight from the above data that the HMS Beaver gunboat launched in 1855 was broken up only nine years later and never saw any action. One could conclude it was a Nun’s beaver and not strictly Her Majesty’s?

In June the British Club received notice from HMS Navy that one of their ships: HMS Beaver, part of the global deployment titled Ocean Wave, would be entering Bangkok port in July and would appreciate a game of rugger over that weekend. We immediately agreed to any such match on the two principles that: we needed a game against any opposition and more importantly, we knew from experience that our Navy were extremely generous with their ward room products.

It was planned that our team members, whomsoever could get off work, would be invited aboard the ship on the Friday afternoon and then on Saturday we would play the game at Chulalongkorn University pitch and then head back for a reception dinner and beers at the British Club that evening. On the Sunday the ship’s company were to visit the War Graves in Kanchanaburi province and see the Bridge over the river Kwai.

It was the middle of July and so also the middle of the Thailand rainy season wherein one could expect a thorough drenching, not some drizzly UK rain but almost a monsoon dumping. The pitch at Chula University was well kept with a complete covering of healthy grass – it was in fact the entrance park into the University from the main Vipavadi-Rangsit highway and so by definition; a much needed statement of landscaping and park grooming prowess. The rain would make the grass very soggy and useless for field position kicking but it also had the inevitable result of a slower, less taxing, but more draining on stamina type of match.

Now you would have thought that such wet conditions would work ideally into our hands as old, partially fit, fat, beer drinking and nicotine inhaling slobs. You’d be well wrong.

In fact, however unlikely, what we wanted and prayed for was a clear, bright blue sky with blistering tropical sunshine or at worst 98% humidity on an overcast but dry day. Why?

Well over the years we had experienced other vessels: the Aussie Navy and even some Yanks arriving and wanting a game and we had noted that they had obviously been spending all their spare time either in the WC with Mrs Palmer or in the gym pressing weights. So they were massively strong and developed and would be a nightmare in the tight (no doubt the buggers also had a scrummaging machine in the flight hanger?) but there is very little space to run about on a war ship and so it was their lungs we were targeting.

In the past if we could contain their enthusiasm for open green-field fun and smash-up forward rugby during the first half and not let the scoreboard run away and then our chum The Sun would do the rest. Sure, it hurt us and burnt us and made us weary too, the difference was we knew just how much to pace ourselves.

In the past all of the opposition would inevitably have run themselves into a dehydrated mess and wilt in the last thirty minutes. Then our useless, lazy backs who had contributed nothing during the early thrashing we forwards had suffered, would then be expected to earn their stripes by running in tries with gay abandon. It almost always won us the day.

Come the Friday, we chosen few from the team assembled at the BC and then drove the short distance, but still a thirty-minute trek through Bangkok traffic, to the Klong Toey dock area where the Beaver was berthed, tied-up, parked…whatever.

Our eight-to-ten-man group mustered on the dock, (navy-speak) and then we were escorted up the gangway by a forewarned polite but stern ship’s guard all the way to the actual bridge. We were introduced to Captain David Lewis RN and his attendant officers and the sailors on the bridge dutifully nodded when spoken to. Cpt Lewis suggested that he and his officers were a little busy planning their stay in Bangkok and the official duties that entailed and so would we mind being shown around the ship by Bosun Banks. He also apologised for the fact that if we were expecting to see the ship bristling with guns, rockets and helicopters we would be sadly disappointed because in port they were all shrouded and or tucked away in hangers. Never mind we chirped, engine rooms and sonar were just as interesting. Bollox - we wanted to see the beer taps and stay for ever in the NCO’s Ward Room.

From the very day the British Club had informed us there was a game invitation against The Beaver we had squeaked and giggled like school girls on that unbelievable fanny label and I had considered the multitude of T shirts with smutty slogans I could print for the occasion.

Then it dawned on me, and others, that such comments or insinuations about or even related to our Majesty’s toilet area could get us in very hot water – not just with the very proud and angry boilermen and their huge stokers on board, but, maybe it could be Treason? Who knew? Whom could we ask? Why would one ask?

So I made some lovely crisp white T shirts with Club and sponsor logos and HMS Beaver’s Shield and on the back was a pathetically crafted bon mot:

HMS Beaver’s visit to Bangkok, like bringing coals to Newcastle. Pathetic.

These were to be worn post-match as our uniform to attempt a semblance of order and balance with the smart sailors and wrens.

And so it came with some considerable astonishment that after we had been led throughout the 146.7m of the ship, banging the odd head on watertight door frames we were shown to the Ships’ Shop. This compact emporium was there for the sailors to buy small consumables and obviously the ships’ title had not been lost on the memorabilia on offer.

And here were we worried about risqué names and insinuation. I had forgotten or never really appreciated the rough and ready humour of the bilges and was quite shocked at the produce on sale:

Coffee mugs stenciled with HM’s Beaver tastes better

Crotchless pantie briefs lovingly embroidered: Eat HM’s Beaver here… Stick your wick in HM’s Beaver…. Shoot yer load in HM’s Beaver…. Sink your…

Tobacco pipes with Suck HM’s Beaver here on the stem.

Such wit and merchandising prose were printed on innumerable other products with ever increasing frankness and I did wonder who actually bought and displayed this stuff and how the manufacturers and requisition officers got away with it. It was brilliant and we all bought arm-fulls of tat, all of which I have sadly lost or consumed.

Laden with contraband and quasi-treasonable goods, Bosun Banks noted we could go now to the officer’s mess, where he could not attend or we could stop over for a brief visit to his wardroom. Bugger the Toffs was the unspoken shriek from us all but which translated more politely as;

Well, that’s very kind of you Bosun and we do realise the Captain is a very busy man and so it may be best to join you in your mess …for starters.

We were shown through a simple, lacquered wooden door to a small, cream, gloss painted room about twelve feet wide by twenty long with a carpet, comfortable arm chairs and small tables and a bar at one end with shiny brass portholes down the starboard wall. The bar had the requisite mirrored backdrop with bottles all held-in on opened storm cages. The bar was a polished bashed-copper-top with three English beers on tap and a fourth tap shrouded with a tea-towel.

I allowed my troop of baboons to order their pints and they were poured with seamen like speed and precision and I asked what was the covered tap?

Oh that’s a shame that was cider but the only barrel is finished. Informed the barman looking down at the floor.

"Gosh that is a shame because I love a drop of cider and we don’t get any of it here in Thailand not even bottles or cans." I murmured knowing the depressed barman’s gaze hid some wee secret.

Oh. Said the Bosun. It’s the Purser’s favourite tipple too actually…so he’s also depressed at the empty barrels….erm barrel. He spluttered developing a rosy, deep pink complexion.

I leaned closer. Just one pint for me and not this rabble? I slyly but meekly asked nodding at my guzzling group.

Oh faak it. Ok but don’t tell anyone, he’s ashore buying stuff… Just one then.

And so we passed a very pleasant three hours hoovering Beaver’s liquids, ordering some solids from the mess kitchens and devouring as much cider as bladders would hold. We left the ship with no further meeting of the officers thank heavens because we were an embarrassing mess, and then meandered back along the dock in search of our drivers and home, pished as pirate’s parrots to a man…try saying that when you are pished.

*

Match day came around and our team gravitated to the University ground along with our ever-faithful British Club attendant barman in a tuk-tuk who supplied the large blue drinking water bottles and a very large stainless steel ‘tea urn’ full of ice. With the water station set up under the trees and a white coated golden-buttoned valet on hand, we set about warming up. The Navy arrived in two or three mini-buses and we offered some water but they were ok and keen to start.

So we ran about for a bit to look suitably fit and troublesome and their guys did those leaps in the air bringing knees up to their chests with boots about five feet off the floor each time…our 2nd rows mouths fell open and we noted lineouts would be a mess – our lineouts.

David Viccars, our much esteemed and highly qualified referee blew his whistle for captains in the middle to flip the coin. No memory of who won the toss and chose whichever options: there was lots of grass, no wind, overcast skies and no slope.

B

Wacker Paine mid-intense-match-warm-up-routine.

Well in the usual scheme of things, when you have people trained to kill, even at a distance, and surly prove-a-point-old-fat-boys there is a suitably confrontational shit-fight and this was no exception. As we thought, it was a grinding, biting, gouging, thumping experience in the forwards and even with David’s kind and knowing need for regular breaks, the first thirty-five minutes were tough and they were leading at half time. In Thailand because of the heat, the TRU only allowed matches to be thirty-five minutes each way – one of the few benevolent things they did offer.

It was now also true that many of the sailor beefcake munts were puffing seriously and encouragingly heavily and looked like they were thoroughly overheating and red in the face (ignoring of course what we looked like, if Referee Mr Viccars was a medical man he would have ended the game there and then…every week). The humidity and scampering about in wet ground had done for them and we knew it.

So we battled on wheezing, farting, galloping for ten yards at a time, heaving lungs at lineouts and gulping shedfulls of air before the compression of the scrums. In a real game of rugger, none of that professional stuff in TV, you will never, ever see a forward spit. This was not because he was well brung-up but because he had no saliva left and if he did have, he knew that what was left would leave his mouth at 90mph and with the thick glutenous nature of the drool it would simply bounce back and stick on his face. Hence the perceived good manners.

At last our light cavalry in the backs did their thing and tries started mounting in our favour. This annoyed the hardworking sailors but really the ‘burst their bloody lung’ tactics were working. The final whistle went (probably five minutes early knowing that Samaritan Viccars) and we had won by fourteen ruptured lungs to three.

Customary handshakes all round and we all darted to the water tank for a slurp. Somehow habits never changed or we simply forgot game after game but with the water bowser came twenty million ultra-small fucking annoying, thin-walled tiny paper cone cups. Their capacity was uselessly small and we always vowed to bin the shite little scoops and buy proper cups. Never happened.

Our barman also had brought reinforcements by tuk-tuk and there was a huge cooler box of cold Carlsberg’s awaiting us. There can be few finer manly feelings than lying in the shade between the exposed, knoberly roots of a large acacia, completely knackered, sweating like an atheist in church and amongst mates and temporary foe, supping super-chilled beers. Well there probably are but we’ll ignore them for now.

It was then all in cars and mini buses and back to the BC for a shower, brush up, splashes of Brut and into the fray once more.

Custom and manners insisted that we gave the opposition the main Club House male changing room and we showered and changed with the racquet fraternity rooms by the pool. Well good manners and the fact that we had eight showers, six dunnies and ample drying room and they had twenty men in a shoe box with two showers and one WC. Custom and manners must prevail.

We normally entertained with a simple curry buffet and beers in the ‘old’ Churchill Bar overlooking the back lawn but because of the sense of occasion and numbers we reserved the large Surawongse Room upstairs. A long and much decorated T shaped set of tables were arranged down the middle with the buffet of various curries set at the entrance wall. A beer