R is for Rugby

For my A-Z challenge this year I'm taking a look at sports. Olympic ones, ancient ones, weird ones and some just non sporting sports.  I'm not athletic or even particularly fit but there are some sports I enjoy watching and in composing my posts I've come across many that I'd never heard of.  Join me in a sporting journey from the comfort of your couch (or wherever else you're reading this) and thanks for stopping by.

I must admit that I'm not really a fan of Rugby.  Probably because I grew up in a family that was more interested in Football so although I might watch an International football game or loosely follow a team I've never watched a full length rugby match.  The biggest attraction with rugby was turning up at a clubhouse post match and hoping to get chatted up by a fit player.  (Rugby players tend to take a lot of beating during a game and some of them are not a pretty sight!)

As an Olympic sport it had been missing since 1924 but made a reappearance in the form of Rugby Union Sevens in 2016.  You see I don't even know the differences between Rugby Union and Rugby League apart from that they don't have the same number of players (although I couldn't tell you how many either have with any certainty).  It's always been easier to set up a game of football - after all you only need someting to mark where the goals are, a ball and you're off.

Rugby is not as simple but efforts have been made over the last few years to try and introduce it into schools, particularly by using the "Tag" version that is not as physical, to encourage youngsters to get involved.

When it comes to other R sports I thought I might have found one I could handle - remote control.  Until I investigated further.  These tend to be controls for model airplanes, robots or cars.  Or slot cars, which looked an awful lot like Scalextric if you ask me.   We had scalextric at home but I was usually only allowed to play when my brothers were feeling generous toward me which wasn't very often so I was never very good at it.  Now give me the remote control to the TV and I'm an expert.  Unlike my husband.  He gets very confused, especially if the kids have been using the Wii or Playstation and he has to switch back to the TV source.  

We've decided in our house that he has to predecease me as he couldn't cope on his own.  Of course he would cope but I'm not sure our kids will have enough patience to deal with his frequent questions.

But I'm back to my favourite sport of waffling!  I should get back to running.  Well I would if I hadn't injured my knee last year.  I have done a fair amount of running over the years.  We even took part in a relay race in Holland in our youth and hubby was quite a keen runner.  Our boys have followed his example and competed in half and full marathons.

Thankfully they are not taking part in the London Marathon which takes place this Sunday - we have just started a mini heatwave here.  I think the runners will find it very hard going.  Hopefully there will be no collapses as there were in the Commonwealth Games Marathon last week in Australia.  Well unless you count me collapsed in a chair watching it on the TV.  The atmosphere when watching it on the course is great but it's a lot of hanging about and can be crowded and with no one to cheer on this year, we'll be staying home.