My Declaration of Love.

This weekend I had the pleasure of a trip to Welford road, sitting in amazing new stand and watching the Leicester v Wasps game. I have to say 3 days later I am still struggling to recover from the amount of alcohol that was consumed. The trouble with the luxurious rugby visits I have been far too lucky to take part in, you actually get totally spoiled by them and just going to a game seems like too much trouble.

This game was good, the setting incredible; but when news filtered through to me, that Chesham had beaten Princess Risbourgh away, the whole thing was just blown apart. It was such a good result and such a big scalp that I just could not stop grinning. The grinning became drunk dancing; the drunken dancing became joyful emotional declarations of love for all things Chesham. The crazy town, its oddball inhabitants and its nightmare hills were the only place I could think of.

Chesham is an odd place, its people are bizarre however I have never felt, as at home, as I do here. I am lucky to work live and play here. Yes I love travel and I love London and I love lots of other things but nowhere have I ever been able to call home. I was a Harrow born Cornishman who drifted and blew around the country until the anchors of rugby tethered me to this town. The first day I moved here I thought it was a social experiment to put together the oddest characters in one place and to see if they could establish a community.

Now I am part of that community and I am proud to be. The result just could not be topped. Then Sunday came.

Sunday the girls took on Guilford the only team to have beaten them this season. I arrived looking and feeling like death and spent most of the day trying to refrain from being sick. I can’t give you too many details of the game as it was so gripping I was struggling to do anything but live each moment. It was an incredibly physical game of rugby and our 13 particularly took hit after hit in the mid field either seconds after she got the ball or seconds after she had passed it. To her credit each time she got up and got on with it. Our scrum which looked like mice facing down a group of lions never stopped working and the team despite going an early try down managed to win the game 21 -5 in what was the best team performance I have watched.

I left the club Sunday, shaking, sweating, and feeling like a man on the brink of death. I walked slowly home through the town and thought: this is my town and I am proud to be one of its freaks.