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Fiji Rugby's famous day
23 October 2014
The things you find at home all these years later. While rummaging through some family shots I came across this picture I took from the commentary scaffold at what was then Buckhurst Park in Suva, Fiji. It shows the Fiji and British Isles teams coming onto the field before the playing of the last game of the Lions 26 match tour of New Zealand and Fiji in 1977. I think the high aspect of the shot might make it unique to Fiji rugby history. The scaffold was so rickety no photographers were allowed on it. This was the day Fiji's national team scored perhaps their most famous home victory. Fiji won 25-21. They could be rightly proud of course but it is true the Lions did not approach the fixture with true dedication. I can still recall their poolside party raging on and keeping me awake 16 hours before kickoff!
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Every day there is Rugby History 14 July 1979
Click to show A Bastille Day victory for the fighting French!
Always a day of historical traditions for French people. More lustre is added with this brilliant 24-19 win over the All Blacks in Auckland.
A-Z of Rugby
Click to show ALLIGADOO
ALLIGADOO
A rugby term sometimes spelt ‘alickadoo’ and rarely heard outside Britain, which means a club official or highly-placed committee man.
One story says the spelling ‘alickadoo’ is derived from the words ‘all he can do [is talk]’.
The other story comes from J.B.G. Thomas’s Great Rugger Players, where it is said Ireland’s ‘Jammie’ Clinch was asked by his team-mate, Ernie Crawford, about the subject matter of a story Clinch was reading on a train, while returning from an international in 1925. When Clinch replied, ‘I’m reading about a Spaniard called Alicardo, who thinks a lot of himself and is always blowing his load,’ (bragging) Crawford was highly amused and likened Alicardo to the rugby officials riding on the train with the team.
After that Crawford used the word frequently around Dublin. It became distorted by Irish accents to ‘alligadoo’ but it stuck as a term for an officious committee man.
10 Questions to well known sporting people
Today's KQ Rugby Quiz
Fiji played its first test match is bare feet. Until what year?
What do you think?
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