Well done everyone, and a big thank you to all the helpers from the club and junior sections. A special thank you to the girl bakers and Ken the Pig Man and his friends.
A massive THANK YOU to this years sponsors:
KELTBRAY PJ Brown Porkies Martin Joyce Chertsey Plant Hire The Plough The Royal Oak
A brief report of the 2008 event
5th Crawley FatBoy Sevens 2008
“Sutton Slappers” win at 5th attempt.
The following teams did battle on Sunday 25th May 2008
Sheringham High Idle TeacherS St Mary's RFC (FAILED TO SHOW) St Francis One St Francis Two Barcelona Rejects RackSpace Sutton Slappers Chairmans Select The Smurfs Seven Stadlens Seven More Stadlens FatsCray Dorking RFC Explosive (TNT) Fatties Edenbridge RFC
Sunday 25th May saw about 20 tons of not so well rippled muscle take to the field to contest the coveted Crawley FatBoy Sevens Rugby Trophy in aid of the charity CHASE.
This annual rugby event, whilst being open to all, is aimed at the older more portly athlete. All players take to the scales before playing and points are awarded for and against every kilo they are above or below 102 and for every year they are above or below 35. All under age and underweight players are required to wear fancy dress.
The young side from Dorking that entered found that being in their teens and only about 60 kilo dripping wet made a win against the older FatBoys almost impossible when starting most games 55-0 down due to the handicap.
They entered into the spirit of the event and gave very good accounts of themselves losing several grass skirts along the way. They almost made it to the Jug final narrowly losing a tie break that was decided by a foot race over 100m contested by the heaviest player from each side, the heavier man getting a 1 metre start for every kilo difference in weight. With the Crawley Chairman’s champion getting an 80 metre start the crowd clubbed together and purchased the Dorking lad some extra time by moving the Crawley man back another 20m and raising £100 in the process. Crawley “Smurfs” enlisted the help of 80 year old “Papa Smurf” who had to play one half of every game to keep within the tournament rules. He did this admirably with the help a chair, the referee’s agreed to overlook the offside rule for him.
The pool games were heavily contested throughout the morning and the tournament judge’s pockets became heavy collecting bribes from sides eager to reduce their starting deficits. “Sutton Slappers” set the standard by making the first bribe of £10 per point, a standard most other sides struggled to match. The Sutton lads do a lot of fund raising prior to the event each year in order to bribe the judge and over the past two events have contributed over £4000 to this charity event.
Most games on the main pitch were played with a giant size rugby ball, it was sad to see that many players still struggled to catch a ball that was two feet long.
Many thanks go out to the referee’s that return every year to support this event and even take part in costume, sometimes making it difficult to spot them amongst the novelty costumes worn by the players. Voluntary donations were made during the day by injured players grateful for the excellent medical attention from our medical team lead by Kay Wheeler, who supports this event annually without charge.
The finals were contested late in the afternoon with “Crawley Chairman’s” winning the Jug final, St Francis taking the Plate final and “Sutton Slappers” taking the main trophy of the day by narrowly beating “Barcelona Rejects” and being declared Champion FatBoys for 2008.
Many, many thanks go to all that helped behind the scenes and also to KELTBRAY, Porkies, PJ Brown, M Joyce, Chertsey Plant Hire for sponsoring this event.
Thanks to the generosity of everyone that took part on the day and the help of our sponsors we will be handing a cheque over to CHASE (Children’s Hospice Association) for around £4000, not a bad effort for a load of old fat fella’s running around a field making fools of themselves.
