Harlequins vs Munster - Twickenham, London - Saturday 15th January 2005

Under much pressure and coercion from friends, I agreed to go along to this game of chasing egg shaped balls and groping other men's bollocks rugby. With Arsenal away at Bolton in the evening game, I was in fact giving up the prospect of at least 8 hours on a motorway, as well as (as it turned out) a demoralising defeat in the pouring rain. So, rugby was only a close second place then.

Meeting up at 11am for a 2pm kickoff is nothing that unusual, but the fact that Munster were playing in this game added to the interest - essentially, there were thousands of mad Irishmen around Richmond, most of whom had been drinking for a considerable time already.

At the game itself, and my first visit to Twickenham, the atmosphere was good, and the beer kept flowing. I'm told that the rugby match was of spectacularly poor quality (aren't they all?), and it ended with Munster winning, true to form apparently.

In Richmond after the game, we looked for a pub that was showing the Arsenal game, with no success at all - amazing to be in a busy town centre, and to find no pubs showing the national sport of this country - a disgrace!! Still, given the eventual performance and result, maybe they were just being kind to me by not showing it.