Rugby World Cup 1999: Why we dislike the English

BUSINESS DAY, 22 OCTOBER 1999

‘IF WE LOSE to England on Sunday,” said Sad Henry, down at the Chalk ’n Cue, “I am going to quit my job and become a full-time alcoholic.” We were not much troubled by this threat. Sad Henry has quit his job in order to become a full-time alcoholic on at least four occasions since 1992, but Sad Henry has expensive taste in alcohol, and it does not take him long to realise that in order to be a full-time alcoholic he needs at least a part-time job. Ideally Sad Henry should have a job that combines the two, but Percy Sonn has already taken it.

Still, we understood Sad Henry’s anxiety. Of all possible ways to go out of the World Cup, losing to England ranks even lower than having the entire team expelled for being discovered at a private sauna party jointly hosted by Elton John and George Michael. There is not a country in the world to whom I would less like to lose, not even New Zealand. If we find the All Blacks unpalatable, it is largely because they remind us too much of ourselves. Sometimes New Zealand and South Africa sound like nothing so much as a pair of society matrons who have arrived at a party and discovered that they are both wearing the same dress. But to lose to England is not just infuriating, it is disgraceful.

One of my happiest rugby memories was Danie Gerber’s inside swerve past Dusty Hare to score during the 1984 tour by John Scott’s Englishmen, but that moment of almost transcendental pleasure was superseded by Jonah Lomu wiping the soil from his studs on Mike “Pussy” Catt’s chest at Newlands in 1995. Who does not smile to remember the English cricket team losing to Mashonaland, or being bowled out for something like 24 by Curtley Ambrose on a flat pitch? Who is not, in their heart of hearts, looking forward to the spectacle of the English soccer team lining up to face another penalty shoot-out in a major tournament?

The delight in tormenting the Poms is the common bond uniting the southern superpowers. During the NZ–England pool match in this World Cup, Wayne Graham, a Kiwi commentator who makes Bill Lawry’s cricket ravings sound like the measured wisdom of Solomon, took an especial liking to Lomu’s try: “Yes! Yes! He’s showing them a thing or two! They mispronounce his name over here! Yes, they do! They call him Low-mu! But he’s shoving it down the face of the lofty English!”

Graham had to be hauled off for an emergency sponge bath, but South African hearts, even as they quailed before the spectacle of Big Jonah in full flight, could not help a twinge of pleasure. It was easy to forget that handing off Jeremy Guscott is only slightly more impressive than side-stepping a tackle bag; the pleasure lay entirely in watching someone, well, shoving it down the collective English face.

It is hard to account for such vehemence of feeling. Perhaps it is the shared shame of having once been ruled by a people who, by all recent evidence, are such a shower of unmitigated losers. There was a newspaper report this week. “English men,” it declared, “are closet pork-pie addicts!”

Apparently the pasty-faced, pastry-loving Brits secretively scoff their meaty treats before they get home, lest the wife get wind of it. Not bad enough that they are a people whose idea of a good time is a pork pie, but they cannot even stand up and eat them at home with a straight back and chin held high. Is it any wonder that Sad Henry is so troubled? The English are the secret shadow of weakness that lurks within all of us, but that we so forcefully suppress. To lose on Sunday would be to face that unspeakable shadow. Fortunately, we are not going to lose.