Anonymous 15: Playing Away
Anonymous 15 knows there are two things every rugby player lies about.
The first is how many drinks they had.
The second is what happened on away fixtures.
I’ve played rugby long enough to know that every club has one away trip nobody talks about.
Not because it was traumatic.
Because nobody wants to explain it to new members.
Every season somebody asks:
“Why aren’t we allowed back in that pub?”
And every season somebody replies:
“Long story.”
It never is.
It’s usually quite a short story.
The problem is that it reflects badly on everybody involved
.
There are players who think what happens on away fixtures stays on away fixtures.
This is adorable.
The front row had screenshots before the coach got home
.
At some point during every away trip somebody says:
“Nobody tell the club.”
This statement has a success rate of approximately zero percent.
By Monday morning, the club knows. The opposition knows. The referee knows. Somebody’s mum knows.
The club dog probably knows.
The only people who don’t know are the two players at the centre of the story
.
Away fixtures have their own laws of physics.
A player can lose her boots, dignity and relationship status in a single evening, yet somehow still be selected the following week.
Try doing that in an office
.
I’ve seen things.
Good things.
Bad things.
Things that resulted in emergency committee meetings.
Things that resulted in emergency apologies.
Things that resulted in entirely new sections being added to the club constitution.
There is at least one rugby club in Britain operating under a rule that exists because somebody once said:
“Technically, nobody told us we couldn’t.”
Then there are the romances.
Not real romances.
Rugby romances.
The sort that begin with:
“We’re just sharing a taxi.”
And end six months later with two transfers, one awkward presentation evening and a social media statement nobody asked for
.
Every squad has one player who believes she is excellent at keeping secrets.
She isn’t.
I’ve seen international intelligence operations conducted with less information leakage than a women’s rugby squad.
The front row knew.
The replacements knew.
The physio knew.
A retired club volunteer who lives three counties away somehow knew.
Somebody’s mum knows because she accidentally got added to the WhatsApp group in 2021 and nobody has worked out how to remove her.
The only people still conducting a covert operation were the people involved
.
The most dangerous sentence in rugby is:
“It’ll be fine.”
Nothing good has ever followed.
Not once.
Not in the history of the sport.
“It’ll be fine” is responsible for:
missed kick-offs,
lost room keys,
unexpected tattoos,
disciplinary hearings,
and at least one player appearing in three different towns wearing a used jockstrap on her head that she found at the back of the bus.
I will not be elaborating.
People think rugby clubs are held together by shared values.
They’re not.
They’re held together by mutually agreed silence.
Entire friendships have been built on:
“I’ll never mention that again if you don’t.”
And that’s the thing about away fixtures.
The results disappear.
Nobody remembers who finished seventh in the league in 2022.
But twenty years from now, somebody will still lean across a bar and ask:
“Do you remember that away trip?”
The table will go quiet.
Somebody will start laughing.
Somebody else will say:
“Oh God.”
And a third person will immediately reply:
“We are absolutely not telling that story again.”
Which, of course, means the story is definitely being told again.
See you next issue.
— Anonymous 15
Anonymous 15 is a fictional character. Or is she?.