The Village People come to Ravenhill
YMCA! YMCA! YO MAN….
Wasn't really looking where I was going on Saturday afternoon in the general locale of the terraces when those siren voices of the 2nd barrier crew lured me into their midst. Suddenly I found myself amongst Village People lookalikes. Ok the big Indian character with the headdress wasn't there nor was the camp chap with the handlebar moostash. Mind, one young fella with a goatee beard, fluorescent green headband, fluorescent yellow vest and white construction site helmet could have passed muster as a wee camp one. In fact I was surrounded by all these characters and one or two girls wearing construction site PPE, mainly white hard hats and fluorescent yellow safety vests..
PPE is Personal Protective equipment for those that don't know.
It seemed that the 2nd second barrier crew might just have made a connection with the ongoing construction work at Ravenhill and with the connivance of the Original Kimble who provided hard hats and vests, had turned up on the Terrace looking for all the world like Ravers construction workers on a tea break. The backdrop of Construction site railings with mesh netting would have accentuated the building site feel of things.
Mind if they were constructing Ravers new stand I'd be somewhat worried. The 2BC were led by project manager Kimble replete with fluorescent coat emblazoned with his very own company insignia. Cap'n Grumpy appeared to be acting as site foreman, directing the rest of the crew, whilst Mid Ulster Maestro acted as operations manager and Holywood Mike as Health and Safety co-ordinator. (First H&S co-ordinator I've ever seen drinking Guinness whilst 'working'!) What worried me about this scenario was when the Yellow Tom stand behind the beer tent was being evacuated for health and safety reasons, due to the high winds, the 2BC were chanting, "part time supporters!" at the evacuees. This led me to ponder were the 2BC constructing the new stand and Terrace, would they shout, "eeaw! eeaw!" In unison if the new 2nd Barrier being craned into position hit a site operative. Or chanted, "who are you!, who are you," when the client arrived for a site meeting.
These sort of thoughts were kind of incidental to the main drama taking place somewhere out in the middle of the howling wind and driving rain that gusted in sheets down the pitch. One particular gust of wind caused a number of Terracees to glance uncomfortably at the TV studio, perched atop decidedly flimsy looking scaffold. The scaffolding remained in-situ and cameras by now presumably lashed to moorings, continued to record the game. On the pitch Ulster withstood a second half onslaught from Quins which only failed because of tactical stupidity, a strange substitution by Richards and some first half indiscipline which had prompted Ulster to build a lead. Post match Richards wasn't for taking the blame for any miscalculations on subbing his kicker before he'd kicked a potential 3 points. Naturally the blame lay elsewhere, i.e. the 4th official being the recipient of some dark thoughts by Deano. Of course Richards could have been entirely sensible and ensured the substitution took place after the kick by Evans.
All this is a tad incidental to an outstanding forward performance by Ulster in the second half. Bar Ugo Moyne, a late withdrawal, this was as probably as strong a Quins team as you'll find these days. Ulster have been hit by injuries and were fielding their strongest side bar 3 or 4 first choice players and maybe one or two others who might have been on the bench had they been fit. Match reports can be read elsewhere. Suffice to say that was one of the dirtiest days I have ever experienced at Ravenhill, weather ways. Indeed, thoughts in the beer tent beforehand were that the heavy going would suit this Quins side whose forwards play in the image of their coach, when he once strode world rugby as a bear of a man, grinding opponents into the dust and mud.
Ulster won and happy thoughts ensued despite the wind and rain gusting spectators down towards the Cregagh Road as they left the ground. Unfortunately the weather had a say in my SKY plus recording of the game being rendered null and very void. I contented myself with watching Leinster struggle against Wasps and looking very ordinary. Left me wondering how on earth they beat us at Ravers over Christmas time. Perhaps we beat ourselves on that occasion as a more rational view, we have a history of that sort of thing. There is an air of expectancy as we face a hugely overrated Stade team. Again we paid them far too much respect at the hallowed old ground in the Autumn. Stade now look a shadow of that team with nothing to play for and must be a tempting target for a fired up Ulster.
I was in Paris two years ago when we played them but this time the credit crunch has induced an enforced stay at home scenario and the match not being on TV, I will have to content myself with viewing some tasty ties such as Bath/Toulouse, Ospreys/Leicester and Leinster/Edinburgh.
By the time the next Heineken cup comes round, Ulster should have a spanking new stand, hospitality boxes and covered Terrace. There won't be any need for those gay chaps in the 2BC to don construction worker gear and chant. More's the pity, they were actually quite civil to a heterosexual chap like myself bar the odd one or two who forgot to mount rainwater gutters and downpipes on their helmets and instead periodically drenched the back of my coat leaving me a saturated and painful neck.
A pain in the neck? Yellow Tom stand evacuees probably thought so if they heard the 'part time supporter' chants directed at them. It was like evacuating the Titanic whilst the orchestra chanted, " chickens, chickens!" one Yellow Tom standee is 'reported' to have said!!!!
