The Hills Blog

After farmer night came Christmas and more snow, and more freezing, and ice and snow and freezing and ice and cold. Ideal conditions if you are a snowman, or perhaps want to live in an igloo, or fancy a bit of outdoor curling or ski-cross- which everyone should know, post-winter Olympic mania, is the coolest Winter sport ever, even cooler than sledging, way cooler than making snow angels, and cooler than luge on account of being more exciting and marginally less terrifying. Unfortunately, Hillhead/Jordanhill don’t have an igloo/ski-cross/luge/curling section, and the rugby members are, in the majority, not snowmen, so there were cancellations and rearrangements ahoy for the 3 snow covered icy winter months, wreaking havoc with the fixtures schedule, ensuring the calendar stretches well into April.

Not one to be beaten by the weather Chief Keith was on the case and soon, to everyone’s evident delight, secured a number of venues for a few weeks worth of indoor training sessions. Sat-nav not being one of the more prominently featuring strings on this Newshound’s bow the changing venues meant many a night walking the Google map streets, peering into driveways and alleys, over flyovers and round corners to insure against lateness. And so the dread began, just like pre-season, Keith was in charge, we were in a small gym hall, there’d be little space for handling and no chance of contact, which could mean only one thing…fitness.

The kind of fitness that makes you wonder if death is less painful, and if, in fact, you can ever have liked this angry-faced man inflicting such pain. The man who tells you that mental weakness is all that’s stopping you holding a plank for 13 minutes, when in fact you know that you have, in that 13 minutes, developed at least one hernia and probably ruptured your spleen through physical effort. No, Keith, just because you can lie there like a waxwork, unphased by the pain, apparently untouched by gravity, does not mean this is normal. You are clearly a freak of nature, an intolerable, though accomplished, planker…

So, yes, generally it was awful, turnout was variable, but those who stuck it out felt the benefits, being fit little rugby-bunnies come the end, and there were some light moments of hilarity to keep us going through the torment. Have you ever seen a Chicken skip? You really should, a lasting memory to make you smile in the very darkest of times.

On one fateful mid-season fitness evening the crowd was split with the girls sent off to play ridiculously disadvantaged rugby netball with the tall boys, while the 1XV were stuck with Keith for some circuits and running and other such fun. And then we swapped. It seemed the hall the 1XV had been using had been recently varnished, with an all-over high gloss finish. It soon became apparent, as you set foot in the hall and found yourself skiting across into some wall bars that, in fact, the room was doused in man-sweat. This sea of man-sweat was very nearly augmented with puddles of girl-puke. Now I don’t like to think I’m narrow minded, I’m not averse to a bit of man sweat, if it has been sweated on me personally by a hot rugged man, say, if Jason White instead of wiping his brow post gym session, were to dog-shake his head and shower me in his man sweat, then I may not object, I might even enjoy it a little bit, but a medley of 20 Hills’ man-sweats? It doesn’t have quite the same appeal. Yet there I was, rolling in it. I feared my life may have been slip-sliding out of control that day. When you spend your leisure time engaged in a hobby that involves sliding face first in the recently perspired sweat of young men you really have to take a good look at yourself, and probably get yourself on some kind of fetishists anonymous circuit. Help is always available.

For all the pain and trauma we came out the other side alive and kicking and fitter for our few weeks of hell, a couple of early morning astro sessions saw the hands warmed up, the contact back on, and girls’ and boys’ teams raring to go, building to finish the season on a high.

Considering the lack of rugby on the day the turn-out for the farmers’ subcrawl was not too shabby. Heading up the real life farmer contingent were Fraser and Hoggy, hailing from Dumfries these two know their stuff when it comes to sheepdip, milking and turnips and brought an element of authenticity to proceedings. Most present looked suitably farmerish, with the theme interpretation ranging from new age farmhand, through flower-pot girl to ye olde farm master, with an array of flatcaps and tweed to behold. A couple of outliers, who appeared to have come as a fisherman and the Fonz, were suitably punished.

Captain Stu, after a day lacking in captainly boss-around type duties appointed himself shepherd to the small flock of ladies present. This self-appointment met with mixed response.

The farmers were soon on the move leaving the coaches and physios behind to enjoy their civilised Christmas Dinner. Captain Stu’s attempts at shepherding having been snubbed, Rose-dawg took the reigns as team enforcer. With his whistle at the ready a number of ridiculous rules emerged along the way.

At this point we’ll have a brief intermission, to give an opportunity to express a deep, heartfelt appreciation of Rosey’s costume. As a rough and ready wee ginger kid Rosey had always felt hemmed in by the Knightswood city limits. On his way to school up Great Western Road he played at army men(probably on his own). He rolled about in the mud at rugby, and dreamed of a life out in the open. Most of all, more than dreams of freedom, of sheep and hens, of barns and farm cottages, of farmers wives and milking maids, most of all, little Rosey dreamed of driving a Landrover Defender, one with a snorkel.

Much like Martin Luther King, Stuart Grainger Rose¹ had a dream. On farmer night this dream very nearly came true, thanks to the wonders of creativity, card-board, green paint and industrial strength glue(as provided by Messrs Fleming and Martin-and John, and maybe a little bit Adam) Rosey was a Landrover Defender, complete with spare tyre, snorkel, number plates and headlights. It was quite a sight to behold and, after a few minor blips, being mistaken for a tractor – how very rude- Defender was quite the man about town, vroom-vrooming here, snork-snorkelling there. After a successful run round the subway the Defender was eventually parked up in the big Multi-storey in the sky after a run in with a humour-deficient doorman near George Square. He had a good life. The Defender that is, the doorman, to my knowledge, is still alive and refusing entry to anyone smelling vaguely of fun.

Meanwhile, back on the trail…with young Fraser nominated team-boy and off to buy a round of Discovery tickets the team had their first rapid pit-stop at Curlers and were soon subway bound where they ran into a rival crew, spying over the rails at Hillhead, rather more topically dressed, and slightly merrier, a tribe of scruffy Santas.

After much deliberation at Fortress Hughenden it had been decided that the farmers were far too posh(and more than a little bit too scared) to stop south of the river in their flatcaps and Barbour jackets, so the route consisted of Partick, then all the way round, surfing past the Southside, to St Enoch’s. This plan held strong until approximately 10 seconds after Partick, when it was decided that nowhere was too scary for this bunch of farmers, and if there was a bar, they’d be frequenting it. Chopper, resplendent in a full boil-in-the-bag waterproof ensemble set the pace, and chose the drinks, a serious personnel error as far as the ladies were concerned.

Specifics mould into one big clockwork orange in these circumstances, so the night has been squished into a mish-mash of rules and potted events, as follows…

1. We’re cool- we don’t ride the subway, we surf the subway. Don’t touch anything but the floor when the subway’s in motion.

2. If you’re from Fortress Hughenden you’re always ready – when the whistle goes you hit the deck.

3. You’ll drink what you’re given. And be grateful.

4. All the backs are gay.

5. If Rosey decides you’ve to race up an icy concrete hill of danger, or run up a down escalator you do it. In fact, what Rosey says goes.

6. Never leave your Captain behind…uh…except if he’s dawdling…then it’s ok.

And to the highlights…Wigan mysteriously appearing dressed as the Fonz, and equally mysteriously disappearing a short time later after some (fairly standard for him) crimes against society. A young farmer, possibly of the Hoggy variety, falling down the escalator on the escalator challenge. Hats on the tracks. Trying to dissociate ourselves from the roughest looking Santas in the world at the far end of one subcrawl too far from the North Pole. Viper antics, these will be left to the rumour mill, and have most likely been distributed and over taken by new tales by now.

A good night had by all, the pain I felt on Sunday after running up the down escalator in highly inappropriate shoes while Rosey barked at me from the stairs, is a pain I’ve only ever felt after pre-season, but, for that one brief moment, at the very end of the subcrawl, as I leapt, gazelle-like, from the escalator, after the leg-drive of champions got me to the top against all odds, for that one brief moment, I was at the top of the travelator on Gladiators, the foam hands were pointing at me, Another One Bites the Dust echoed around the arena, Ulrika-ka-ka-ka-ka was waiting on the far side of the swingy paper-breaker thing in hideous high-waisted PVC trousers and an inappropriate-for-teatime-tv 90s crop-top; for that one brief moment I was a winner.

Reverse-escalatoring – highly recommended, Stuart Motivator Rose available by appointment for a small fee, usually in the form of food.