26th Annual General meeting on the Great Wall of China

On Sunday 5th June 2011 the Rhinos Rugby Football Club held their 26th Annual General meeting on the Great Wall of China. So, on that memorable day, for just a few hours, the Rhinos RFC were the only rugby club in the world visible from the moon. An epic, and somewhat explosive, day in the club’s long and diverse history.

In the days prior to the Rhinos long march up and onto the Great Wall the touring party had been enjoying the delights of the Chinese capital. A main feature of the Beijing tour was the squad’s visit to the infamous Tiananmen Square and the adjacent Forbidden City. The fact that the day the Rhinos visited Tiananmen Square also just happened to be the 12th anniversary of the Tiananmen Day Massacre (sorry - Incident) did not go unnoticed by the Rhinos tourists. Nor did the Rhinos tourists go unnoticed by the veritable army of uniformed and very plain clothed security forces milling around the square – who, en mass, followed the suspicious looking Rhinos around the square at the statutory two steps to the rear. The Chinese security officers became particularly interested in the Rhinos when The Rt. Hon David Guthrie took it upon himself to lie down in the road immediately in front of a parked police car – ‘It was just for a quick snap shot,’ David later explained to one of the many police and army officers that just happened to pounce upon him. ‘They’re a bit touchy,’ David later exclaimed whilst dusting himself off. After this excitement had died down the boys resigned themselves to being ripped off by acquiring Tiananmen Square tat (sorry, memorabilia) such as communist caps and Chairman Mao wrist watches. Another memorable touring day.

The tour match itself was against the Beijing Devils, who were not only the current Beijing club champions but also holders of the Yellow Sea Cup. These boys were splendid hosts, and most evenings saw the Beijing guys dragging the Rhinos, yet again, into the Den Pub! The game was a hard fought encounter with both teams taking no prisoners. The 26-26 final score line (the first ever Rhinos annual tour drawn match) probably was a fair result in the end, although hat trick try scoring Rhinos skipper Ollie Jones was a little disappointed at not delivering the win. But after he soon got over it after getting a few beers down him.

Another highlight of the tour was the squads visit to the Beijing Migrant Children Foundation, an NGO school that takes care of underprivileged children. Here the boys visited the children in their classrooms, distributed small sized rugby shirts, squishy rugby balls and other colourful bits and bobs. The whole visit ended in mayhem as both kids and Rhinos ran around the school throwing the squishy balls at each other. A great day.

Details of the Beijing squad hotel cannot be left out of this brief summery. The name of the hotel was the A Hotel and it was located within the 60,000 seat Beijing Workers Sports Stadium. Well, not exactly in the stadium, but around the edges of the stadium - with each room adjacent to the next this then required the world’s longest hotel corridor which circumnavigated the stadium perimeter. If (as I was – Charwallah) your room happened to be situated on the opposite side of the stadium to the hotel entrance, then a walk of about 2km was required along the dark and dingy corridor before actually arriving at ones room. This walk was particularly welcome when returning to the hotel at 3am, and also really convenient if, upon arriving at reception from your room, you just happened to remember that you had left something behind and yet another 2km trek (x 2) in complete darkness was required. The name of the hotel – The A Hotel, also was the cause of some jovial exchanges. For example:

Taxi driver: ‘Where you go?’
Rhino passenger: ‘Back to A Hotel please.’
Taxi driver: ‘What name hotel?’
Rhino passenger: ‘A Hotel.’
Taxi Driver: ‘Yeh, but what name hotel?’
Rhino passenger: ‘A Hotel.’
Taxi Driver: ‘Yeh but…..’

And so on……….

So, there we are, another memorable tour. A final mention should be made of the excellent performance of this year’s new Rhinos. In addition to all their usual duties they not only humped crates of beer to the summit of the Great Wall of China, but they were also required to ‘sedan chair’ a one-legged, 130kg, Rhinos tour director to the highest point on the Great Wall!!

Another cracking tour.

Beijing Tourists: Aitkin, Bateson, Bird, Bulloch, Chalon, Corkery, Cowie, Davis, Douglas, Edwards, Field, Guthrie, Hewlett, Hewitson, Hobler, Hutton, Huyler, Jones B, Jones H, Jones O, Judges, Knowles, Mason, McRobbie, Morrison, Naylor, Nelson, Parfitt, Perkins, Rippon, Russell, Rutland, Swift, Wells, Wilkins, Wylle.

Another cracking tour

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