Rugby World Cup: Tales from Marseilles

Day 1:

6:30am, Saturday. We had just arrived at Edinburgh airport to set off on a rugby adventure two
years in the planning. The obligatory time-inappropriate airport beer photo was taken and we were
off.

Or so we thought, as this was followed almost immediately by the first bump in the road – or crack in the runway, to be exact. What would any experience of following Scotland be without a bit of drama? By some
stroke of surprising luck we actually made our connection in the form of a bus from Brussels airport
to Lille. We had made it to France, albeit we were still at the opposite end of it.

Now, Lille is about as far away from the heartlands of French rugby as you can get while remaining in
the same country. As a result, the locals seemed curious, if not fully enthralled, by le Coupe du Monde that had started the night before with a home win over the All Blacks.

Two very overheated and tired men wandering through the city in kilts seemed to cause less curiosity than expected. After a brief stop at a local hostelry showing the Ireland v Romania game, we were ready for the final push south, landing in Marseilles about the same time the first tackles were landing in the England v Argentina game.

Choosing to avoid the throngs in Marseille’s busy port area we headed straight for our digs, had a couple of drinks nearby, then bed after a long day of travel.

Day 2:

Match day started so well.

By late morning the Old Port area of the city was awash with colour and excitement, but with what seemed at first glance to be a fairly heavy disparity in numbers favouring the team in green and gold. Therefore, we headed to the safety of the “Loch Ness” Scottish pub, which was complete with a sign proudly displaying their achievement of charging a mere 4 Euros for a can of Irn Bru!

The multitude of national jerseys (and not just of the two playing that day) made for a suitably jovial
atmosphere, as did the glorious sunshine and setting, although for those of us in kilts, who knew wool and insane heat weren’t entirely happy bedfellows?!

Our own group comprised a fairly even mixture of national allegiances, having teamed up with a friend from Leith Rugby Club and a few of his pals, and we settled in for a few hours of pre-match festivities. Things were building nicely.

We had been warned by several England fans who had attended the previous night’s game to get there early as their experience had been of shambolic stadium organisation which led many to miss the kick-off.

With that in mind, we decided to heed that advice and set off south for the stadium a good couple of hours before kick off. For a man used to rushing down Roseburn Street with a 50/50 chance of making the anthems, this felt a little strange, but needs must.

Through a mixture of trams and walking, we had made it through the security checks which, thankfully, were not as bad as feared. Then, despite a world record attempt at the slowest beer queue in humanity (although a chat with Ryan Wilson after bumping into him helped keep our spirits up) we made it through the chaos and to our seats with immaculate timing that chimed with the teams emerging.

What the Velodrome may lack in organisation it more than makes up for with an ability to create a cauldron-like feel, perfect for a match of this importance. It’s been a long time since I have genuinely awed at a sporting arena, but this place had me. A reassuring look round the stadium allayed my fears of being completely outnumbered by Springbok fans, although I’d still lay money on a slight numerical advantage for them.

The decibels were all coming from those in dark blue though!

Now, the only problem with these Scotland rugby trips, is that at some point the fun must stop and
the terror of actually watching Scotland must begin. Others are far more qualified to do a proper
match report than I, but I thought at times in the first half the Scotland forwards found that new
level of physicality we all predicted they would need.

Despite a few hairy moments, Scotland were standing their ground, despite not gaining much of it themselves. We had to have lineouts though; nothing takes the oomph out of a crowd shouting “Scotland Scotland Scotland” quite the way a botched lineout does.

The roar that went up when Zander Fagerson was awarded that that scrum penalty though is one of my main memories of the game.

6-3 at HT and we were in it.

Half time itself was spent in the fruitless pursuit of beer which had run out… This, however, did give us
time to think maybe if we can start well in the first ten minutes of the second half, just
maybe……Certainly our Springbok brethren around us were getting noticeably twitchy.

This wasn’t in their script.

Now, we all know what happened next. They Bokked us. Pure and simple. Our spirits inevitably
ebbed as this process happened, but we kept on singing, kept on shouting, and amended our hopes
to aiming surely for at least a try! Alas, it wasn’t to be.

Then it was back into Marseilles with our friends, old and new, Scottish and South African, and a
night of trying to not reflect too hard.

Day 3:

The next morning, Marseilles airport was like a reunion with so many faces you knew and so many
names you either didn’t know or couldn’t remember.

The main talking point seemed to be less about the game and more about the various convoluted routes that people had ahead of them to get home.

‘What, you are only changing once? We’re changing three times through two countries’ was an oft-heard refrain. Our own journey involved two flights, a train, the Paris metro, and several buses, and took two days.

When we wearily traipsed through Edinburgh airport, ready for the sanctuary of home and family,
the whole thing seemed all a bit of a blur of different emotions. Should we be down about the
result and second-half performance, or just grateful that we had such an amazing time?

It turns out that you can be both, so that will have to do.

By John Lang