Massive Ouchies.
Be gentle. Long time lurker, first time poster.

Like a lot of people on here I went to a school that insisted that everyone played rugby. Not a public school, just a grammar school mind you. That was fine by me because i'd been playing the sport since the tender age of four and had even represented my county at under 11 level.

There are several woes from my beloved sport that I could speak of on here, not least the time when a fat Scottish kid called hamish (I wont capitalise his name because he doesn't deserve to be treated as a proper noun) managed to dislocate my knee so badly that my kneecap was roaming free like an adventurous tramp. It was all OK though because the lovely NHS gave me MASSIVE DRUGS and sewed everything back together good and proper.

The time in question was when I was in the upper 6th form playing for the first team in the daily mail cup(again the daily mail don't deserve capital letters). This is the national schools competition and we had done very well. We had come through a difficult quarter final which we had to play twice because the first game got called off with ten minutes left because of heavy snow! I was playing the fine position of open side flanker. For those who don't know it is my job to annoy the opposition team as much as is humanly possible. I liked my position and I played it well, hardly a game went by when someone didn't want to punch me in the face. I didn't mind though because I had a very hard head (or so I thought!)

We were set to play the team who were undoubtedly favourites. They had sailed through all previous rounds and were expected to brush us aside easily on their way to the final. Their team contained no less than 9 England schoolboy internationals and they were all huge. The odds were stacked against us but what we lacked in size we made up for in confidence.

So the game starts and all is going well, we are holding them back in their own half and playing some good rugby. We scored a try which got the 3,000 strong crowd behind us and we were starting to think that this was going to be easy. Then the other team woke up as if they had been playing with us like a cat plays with a half dead mouse. We managed to hold off the pressure until just before half time when they scored a try and brought the scores level. The came out for the second half like they had been told that their dads would get get bum raped if they gave up any more points.

Ten minutes into the second half one of their bigger players got tackled and I was immediately there to pick up the ball. To this day I wish that I had had a chance to look around before I stood bolt upright because the next thing I knew I was waking up on the floor with cartoon birds circling above my head.

Eye witnesses described how a gentleman who is now an England international had tackled me around my chest with some serious force whilst I was standing directly in front of one of my team mates who was already crouched for the impending ruck. Physics fans will understand that in this kind of scenario, my head was on a direct collision course with the solid ground.

Once the cartoon birds had stopped circling I tried to stand up so that I could carry on the game. Rugby players don't let a small amount of unconsciousness stop them. The only thing that stopped me from moving was that my legs had decided that they weren't going to move. Panic and shock set in and a lovely physio lady ran onto the pitch to try and calm me down but I was absolutely bricking it. It took them a full eight minutes, EIGHT F**KING MINUTES, to find a spine board to carry me from the pitch. As I was being carried away I was treated to a standing ovation from the crowd which for reasons I will never understand set me off crying like an absolute baby.

I was taken to hospital in the ambulance with its sirens on full blast which is quite a cool feeling if you discount the paralysis. I was prodded and poked and x-rayed and probed and it was decided that the paralysis was only a temporary measure that my body had imposed on me because of the blunt trauma that my spine had received.

A few days later things were back to normal and I was thanking my lucky stars that I was back on my feet. You will never appreciate your legs more than you will after you have lost the use of them for a short time.

My team lost the game 24-7 were knocked out of the cup. I didn't play rugby again for a further 8 years, deciding that it was unwise to carry on with the sport that almost confined me to the Hawking brigade. That was until last weekend when I played again and was kicking myself for having left it so long. I love rugby.

Length, about four days before I was back to normal.

tl;dr - rugby is fun even if it does try to paralyze you.
(CasuallyObscene, Fri 20 Apr 2012, 15:05, 3 replies)

Was it Chris Ashton
I bet it was Chris Ashton.
(Rilux might be pregnant and has bum-aids, Fri 20 Apr 2012, 17:00, closed)

Ashton would've been league back then.
I'll say Foden.
(Vigilante Man weeps because you're stupid., Fri 20 Apr 2012, 21:40, closed)

Neither Ashton or Foden.
Pat on the back to whoever guesses correctly.
(CasuallyObscene, Wed 25 Apr 2012, 18:00, closed)

Croft?

(Vigilante Man weeps because you're stupid., Wed 25 Apr 2012, 23:59, closed)

You're missing a close bracket after slagging off the daily mail

( The Light in Chains don't touch the Pope's boner, Sat 21 Apr 2012, 0:37, closed)

Many thanks
Grammar Nazi.
(CasuallyObscene, Wed 25 Apr 2012, 18:00, closed)