A Report of the 2006 Crawley FatBoy Sevens By Silver ...Photos by Moo

St FRANCIS ATE ALL THE PIES.

Sunday morning saw around 18 tons of ripple-less muscle and wobbly buttocks turn up to play the Crawley Fatboy Sevens Rugby Tournament at Willougby Fields in an attempt to raise money for Christopher’s Children’s Hospice.

The tournament is designed for the older less athletic player and has a handicap system which favours them. Players are awarded 0.3 points (for or against) for each year they are above or below 35 years of age. They are also awarded 0.5 points (for or against) for each kilogram they are above or below 102 kg (16 stone in English). This attempts to ensure that a team of 60 year old players with well above average cellulite content should be able to beat the Fijian National team.

The Weigh in As each player took to the scales to be given a handicap they could also claim some bonus points valued according to the hilarity of any costumes that they wore.

All players that were both under 35 years and 102 kg were required to wear fancy dress, and apart from Spiderman they all seemed to favour ladies attire. This helps to confirm the fact that this event is the finest rugby sevens tournament for lumbering old men and transvestites.

Pool rounds

The 16 teams were split into 4 pools of 4 and the games began at just after 11.00 am after a warm up of several bacon rolls and a glass of their favourite tipple. The pool games were used to build up an appetite for the lunch time Hog Roast and also to split the groups for the final stages in the afternoon. The pool stages soon proved that the younger lighter teams were going to struggle with their handicaps.

Shoreham in particular found that winning a game against the old lumbering teams in their pool was an impossible task and tried repeatedly to bribe the judges, a ploy that almost worked in the later rounds.

Crawley Trany’s also struggled and became very frustrated as their tights gained more and more ladders, their make up became smudged and one of them even broke a nail.

The Chairman’s side were fined £5 and given a 20 point disadvantage when they smuggled on an unregistered player dressed in a Sumo costume, an on the pitch medical confirmed the player to be female. She was asked to leave the field of play but later returned to administer first aid to an injured player by way of a hand to mouth burger break.

Knockout stage

After a lunch of several hog rolls, burgers and beer, the afternoon knockout round began. The eight sides contesting the main trophy contained mainly teams that have taken part in the competition before and understood how to pick a well balanced side that worked well within the handicap system, lots old fat men with a splattering of youth and even the odd old fit guy.

Paddies Porkers made the Trophy Semi final by having the better handicap in their game against Benemden Big Boy’s. Both teams scored 24 points in this quarter final and it was only the few extra fatties that got them through.

The other quarter finals were very close affairs with Haywards Heath beating Hellinglly Loonies by 8 points after starting 23-0 down, one Heath player offered to play the match naked in an attempt to lower the staring score but his team members said that they would rather start 100 points down than have to suffer the horror of what he was intending to uncover.

St Francis A finished 3 points up on Westcliff after a 5-0 start and Crawley Chairman’s managed to stay just 2 points in front of East Grinstead after beginning the game with a massive 36 point lead.

Crawley Chairman’s then met Paddies Porkers in the Semi and were tied at full time. The tie was broken by playing up to 3 further minutes of extra time with the first scorers being pronounced the winners. It was while the Chairman’s were discussing the merits of getting in the bar for a drink that Porkers seized the moment to run in the winning try after only 8 seconds of extra time.

The Trophy Final turned out to be a local derby with Paddies Porkers playing St Francis A.

Porkers play out of the host club and St Francis from a small hut situated somewhere on Southgate playing fields, also in Crawley. This was the 3rd time the Porkers have made the final and they were dismayed with the 23 point advantage awarded to the Saints. There were mutterings of a handicap enquiry but as this would have cost a great deal of cash the judges were never officially approached, and as Porkers have won this event on the two previous occasions, would have been a total waste of their money.

The final was a musical affair with hey fatty bum bum lip up fatty and I like the way you move accompanying the many try’s that were scored, but on the final whistle it was St Francis A team that held the lead and were justifiably crowned this years FatBoys.

The plate competition was left with only 3 teams when Holbrook lost some players suffering with indigestion which forced the organiser to sell a bye into the final. Sutton Bouncers snapped up the chance of a free ride into the Plate final for £5, not to be outdone;

Fatscray and Westcombe Park paid £5 each for the right to play each other in the semi.

Sutton Bouncers went on to win the Plate final beating Westcombe Park with assistance from the handicap.

The Jug competition saw the three younger lighter sides, St Francis B, Shoreham and Crawley Trany’s taking on Aylesford 5th who by their own confession have always been to old, to fat and skill-less to play sevens.

Shoreham bribed the judge with £30 to lower their starting handicap by 30 points, but it was only fair that Aylesford be given the right to respond. They did so admirably by re-bribing the judge with £50 to restore their starting score against Shoreham to 54-0 in Aylesford’s favour. This ploy managed to secure them victory in the Jug Final, for which they received a Jug of beer as their reward.

Big ball

All the play off competitors were offered the opportunity to play their matches with a giant size rugby ball and many of them took this up which again added to the hilarity of the day. It is with much sadness I need to add that even with a ball two feet long some of the players still managed to drop it.

MVP

There was an award for the Most Valuable Player which went to Goose. His solo effort of combining his age and weight earned his team a massive 36 point start just by stepping on the pitch. He also contributed to the charity a further £70+ in fines collected from a golf day that he organised, and yet again by donating a brand new London Wasps Shirt which he managed to get signed by all the Wasps squad. This shirt was auctioned off after the finals and was won by a telephone bidder for a fantastic £250,….. Thanks Donna from Haywards Heath.

Amongst other items auctioned was a £5 gift voucher that was won and re-donated several times making it worth around £30 to the charity. Everyone that attended this event was absolutely magnificent with their support throughout the day.

Fines were issued for many things, bringing your own food and drink; playing football at a rugby club, wearing catching gloves on the field of play, using the water sport facility (jumping in the river), not dancing, dancing badly and many more and these were paid straight away without question.

Two Haywards Heath players fined themselves for playing for Haywards Heath.

Another player was fined for turning up at the wrong rugby club,……which wasn’t even a rugby club, but my house.

Sussex Referee’s Society supplied the refs which did an excellent job in officiating the day’s proceedings.

It was fantastic that they all took on the spirit of the day with the final be officiated by a strange looking toff in an outfit last seen in 1823 when William Webb Ellis first picked up the ball and ran with it.

Little did he know then of the horrors that would be created in an event that is becoming internationally known as the Crawley FatBoy Sevens

The whole event raised money for the Chase Foundation which supports Christopher’s Children’s Hospice. (www.chasecare.org.uk)

And thanks to the overwhelming generosity of all in attendance the net profit to be passed to Chase is £1400.  Many, many thanks to all of you that volunteered you services for the day, without you this fantastic day out for lumbering old men and their transvestite friends would not have been possible.

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