Away Days: the Bingham Cup

We’re at the southern end of Woollahra Oval in Sydney’s east on a sunny and fine Sunday morning. My three little boys are amusing the New Zealand Falcons by mimicking their stretching exercises when a bloke from the adjoining golf club, nudging 70, leans against the chain-link fence, and says: “Excuse me, mate. Are all these blokes gay?” “Yes, mate, just about,” I reply. “They’re from all over. London, Ireland. All over America. Canada. This mob here’s from New Zealand. On the field you’ve got Sydney Convicts and Chicago Dragons.” “Fair dinkum,” says our man. “Never thought there’d be that many gay blokes who played rugby. Some bloody big boys out there.” Then, as you’re half-expecting a quip one might hear from a chap of this chap’s vintage, he adds: “Good on ’em. Good luck to ’em.”

The exchange typifies the veritable tsunami of goodwill towards the Bingham Cup, the World Cup of gay rugby. For a week they’ve played hard and partied – players, coaches, supporters, administrators, from all around the world. They’ve celebrated their brotherhood, and tried to combat homophobia in sport. They aim to challenge stereotypes, alter perceptions of what it is to be gay. What is it to be a man. But mainly to play rugby. And have fun. And as old mate said, good luck to them. For it’s a fairly complex old thing, isn’t it, what it is to be yourself. What is it to be gay? What is it to be straight? Fill the box: “Straight people like [insert thing here]”. You could put literally anything, anything in the world. Denmark. Darth Vader. The Dagwood Dog. Straight people like all sorts of stuff. And so do The Gays.

“The Gays”? I’m running with it. For it’s been sort of tricky writing this yarn given the usually gag-laden nature of the journo’s gibber. Like a chicken stepping through a minefield, the journo wondered which gags are OK, which might insult. Are positive stereotypes okay? Or patronising? Who am I to say? Do they speak English in What? But then I thought, Hell with it. Write the bastard. What you saw, what you felt. Let it all hang out. So! Here we are again in glorious present tense on the south side of Woollahra Oval, a suburban footy field and home ground of Eastern Suburbs Beasts. Muddy after a week of rain but it’s come up OK.

On the field Convicts Firsts have just beaten Convicts Seconds 58-0 in the Cup semi-final. The teams shake hands and hug, and gather behind the posts to sing the club song. Same club, same brotherhood. The Convicts started in 2004, Australia’s first gay rugby club. Now they have three teams, heap of officials. And, this week at least, more press than the Wallabies.

Since their inception, the Sydney Convicts have become a big operation.
Photograph: MediaServicesAP/ MediaServicesAP/Demotix/Corbis

New Zealand Falcons have a team photograph. First one they’re arms akimbo. Second one they ham it up like they’re aboard that bus called Priscilla. Across the field comes the familiar upwards-lilting tones of Gordon Bray on the intercom. Referees are “conflict resolvers”. Malcolm Turnbull’s photo hangs on the fence. This is his electorate, his people. Probably his land, how much cash he has. People like Malcolm, though, despite his inaptly named Liberal party. He’s for same-sex marriage, for one. Seems a nice man. Rest of his mob … not so much.

I meet Robert Barry, manager of the Falcons. The club is just 18 months old, with players mostly from Auckland. Some are new to rugby, which in New Zealand is like a camel being unfamiliar with sand. They run out to play Dublin’s Emerald Valkyries and rip off a specially composed haka, quite like the All Blacks’ “Kapa O Pango”, complete with crazy tongues and throat-slitting gestures. “We played a team from the States early in the tournament,” says Barry. “They’d never seen the haka. One of them said, ‘Oh! We’ll twerk in reply!’ We were like, ‘No, no, it’s not that sort of challenge.’ ”

And so to kick-off, and we’re away. And Falcons swoop. And score! Everyone cheers. It’s like everyone’s on the same team. Which they sort of are, after a fashion, which is one of those gags the minefield chicken ran through the censor. Think it came up clean. And so upstairs to Easts’ function room where the beer is cheap (indeed it is free), comes in glass, and spectators care less that they can’t see the game. And you think, cool thing that rugby has, this brotherhood. Gay, straight, whatever. The game lends itself to tournament rugby, to gatherings of friendly tribes. Rugby league, not so much. Not even cricket, the national game, has the fraternal feel of rugby.

The A-listers Malcolm Turnbull, with Nick Farr-Jones, Fuzz Purchas and former Wallabies captain John Eales.
Photograph: MediaServicesAP/ MediaServicesAP/Demotix/Corbis

Star spotting: Bill Pulver is here, the ARU boss. There’s Jane Fleming, a running person from the telly. Mentioned Gordon Bray. Mal Turnbull, of course. Marie Bashir, the New South Wales guv’nor. The US ambassador John Berry. Some other pols. Bulldogs legend Steve Mortimer. Tim Wilson! The super-smart free speech guy who’s that rarest of creatures, the gay conservative. There’s Daniel Kowalski, he won Olympic gold in the pool in Sydney. Came out in 2010, inspired by Welsh rugby international Gareth Thomas. Wonder if they asked Ian Thorpe along. Wonder if he would have come … Branding everywhere. Corporate Australia loves The Gays. They get to plaster their brand about and latch onto the goodwill hurled at Bingham Cup. Telstra, Commonwealth Bank, Canon, Lend Lease, the NSW Government. Big end of town. Money loves The Gays.

On the field the Valkyries of Ireland are giving a fine account of themselves against the powerful Kiwis. Did you know that until 1993 it was illegal to be gay in Ireland? Illegal! Imagine that, imagine who you are being against the law of your land. Illegal. Punishable. Imagine being “brought to justice” because of who you are, something you have no control over. Can’t imagine it? It is hard to empathise with. But imagine having red hair or being left-handed or Jewish, and that being deemed anti-society, even evil. Imagine being brought up believing it, having it drummed in that Person X is evil, and then discovering you’re Person X. That could mess a man up.

Falcons nippy man Junior Faata shreds the Valkyries like he’s done all day, shades of Pita Alatini about him. And there’s full-time and the Kiwis have won the Bingham Bowl. The players form tunnels, clap each other off, in the way of rugby. The Falcons are presented with a trophy. Rip off another haka. Irish boys applaud. Top stuff, rugby.

Pulver meets Bray. “I’m buying drinks. You want one?” Big of him, shouting drinks from an open bar. A man brings out ridiculously tasty morsels of something. Makes gags about burritos sounding like a name for a gay rugby team. “Wait until I bring out the pork sliders,” he quips. Girls giggle. Bingham Cup president Andrew “Fuzz” Purchas removes me from the VVIP section I’ve wandered into and so I head downstairs (with my free beer) and hang about among The People, hearing the following snippets of conversation:

“Let’s go where no man has dared to go.”
“No. I don’t like Aquarians.”

“Did you get in a fight?”
“Yes, in Hong Kong.”
“In Hong Kong? What were you doing in Hong Kong?”
“Fighting.”

“I’ve been following the Convicts all tournament.”
“Are they any good?”
“I haven’t seen any of their games.”

The Bingham Cup is an international affair.
Photograph: MediaServicesAP/ MediaServicesAP/Demotix/Corbis

Melbourne Chargers beat San Francisco Fog 31-10 to win the Bingham Plate. Pulver pulls on a footy jumper with “Pulver” on the back. I meet media man Erik Denison, he was on Canadian television doing environment reports a decade ago, reporting about how cold it was. “Cold again, viewers. Minus thirty. Cold, people. Cold.” We talk rugby and Vancouver and the shared experience of many of these men who’ve hidden sexuality from team-mates. “There was a Canada international who only came out once he’d emigrated for Australia,” says Denison. “People ask, ‘Why do you need a gay rugby tournament?’ Well, that’s why.”

Isn’t everyone “cool with it”? Most people are, probably. Yet on this very weekend there’s a World Congress of Families, or something, in Melbourne where Christian Catch the Fire types proclaim how people should live (though not let live), and which federal politicians such as Kevin Andrews (who wrote a book about relationships, promoted with a picture of he and his wife holding hands on a couch and smiling insanely like demons in high pants) were slated to attend before adverse publicity of the Congress warned them off. Anyway. A pox on these people, perhaps from God, like he did to the Hittites, say, or Israelites, or anybody who wanted to get on Noah’s boat but wasn’t allowed. It is written, or might have been. Saw Noah, the film, the other day, a stupendous pile of shit.

And so the final of the Bingham Cup, and Sydney Convicts take on Brisbane Hustlers. There’s a first-grade look about the teams. Athletes out here. And you wonder, how would a rep team go of all the gay rugby players in Australia. If everyone was out and running about. Just a thought. Around the ground there’d be 6,000 people. In the clubhouse it’s free beer, burritos and pork sliders. Everyone is ready to rumble. Convicts attack. Is it an uprising? A revolt? A prison riot? They pressure the line. A man is held up. They swing it both ways. And they’re over! Under the posts! Convicts 7, Hustlers nil.

The Convicts contest a scrum at the Bingham Cup.
Photograph: MediaServicesAP/ MediaServicesAP/Demotix/Corbis

Then, a very “rugby” moment. The Convicts have a scrum on the half-way. Half-back passes to five-eighth who chip-kicks for the winger who takes it and screams away to score. And there is much rejoicing on the try-line. And there, back on the half-way, two men, the Convicts’ tight-head prop and hooker, No 1 and No 2, pick themselves out of the mud and congratulate each other on the rock-solid scrum that allowed the backs their glory. Because for every movement by the fancier pants men, there’s a couple of trolls with their face in the muck. That’s rugby.

This game of rugby? All Convicts. Great ball movement. Full-back chiming into the line, inside ball, he hits a hole! Through! He tears into space, sends a fine long spiral ball to his winger and the speed man goes over. And there, back on the half-way, again, our “pigs” embrace. Top stuff. And at half-time it’s 26-0. Streakers! Two of ’em! Couple of funny, tubby types from Manchester Spartans who do a hot little streak out on to the ground, and run back. Then they do another one. Not as funny as the first time. Still funny. Just not as funny.

And so the Convicts score at the death and the Bingham Cup final finishes 31-0, Convicts. They sing their team song about “magnificent men”, a sort of oom-pah-pah thing in the ways of rugby. There’s a giant garland of rainbow balloons. All the dignitaries are out now. There’s our Fuzz, a tear in his eye. He founded the Convicts, played since inception. Was mates with Mark Bingham, the gay rugby pioneer who gave his life to stop al-Qaida crashing flight UA93 into Washington. That’s a hero, friend. Man’s name will live forever.

Sydney Convicts coach, captain Steven Thorn and Mark Bingham’s mother kiss the Bingham Cup.
Photograph: MediaServicesAP/ MediaServicesAP/Demotix/Corbis

And so media snaps away. Heap of media. Tears from the Hustlers. Tears, still, from Fuzz. He’s a tall man with a certain presence about him. The Convicts belt out their song and you think, lucky bastards. The prime of their active, physical life. Immersed in the brotherhood of the great game. There’d be no better feeling in a sporting life. Bingham’s mum, Alice Hoglan, is here, kitted out in her son’s jumper. She says, as she has often, she lost a son that day but gained thousands. Fuzz cries again. The journo mists up. She hands out medallions as she has at every Bingham Cup since 2002. And you think, this is beautiful. And then she says: “I wish Mark were here,” and that’s it, we’re all gone.

The players board buses to head off and get “frocked up” for their giant after-party at Justin Hemmes’ Ivy in the middle of town while your journo takes a ferry to Circular Quay and dines on oysters with lychees vinaigrette and a crisp sauvignon blanc, in honour of the good taste and livin’ large of my brothers in rugby, The Gays. Not really, I just like oysters. But sitting there by the Opera House musing about a day in the life of gay rugby – albeit a famous and fun one – I think, I would like to be involved in Convicts rugby. It’s a good thing among what look like good people. Amateur rugby is sport at its purest. Not for money, for brotherhood. For mateship. For love. As old mate said: Good luck to ’em.

Article source: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/apr/12/gloucester-bath-premiership-match-report

Away Days: the Bingham Cup