Programme Notes 2007/8

Saracens

What is it with Quins and the Heineken Cup? Ever since I’ve been a season ticket holder, qualification has been a prime target for the season, but when it’s achieved it appears to disappear down the list of priorities. My first experience of this was the season we finished 4^th, just behind today’s opponents, having achieved a rare away victory at Bath, only to allow Keith “talisman” Wood to return to Munster for a season, and release both Dan Luger and Thierry Lacroix, one of the greatest Quins fly-halves of all time. Our European adventure was ended when we lost to Treviso at the Stoop, after leading 18-0 at half-time!! Over the years, things have not got any better. I don’t recall us even getting to the dizzy heights of third in our pool, although I’m very happy to be contradicted. 

Maybe I’m just being Mr Grumpy, but the season started so well and, from a GP perspective, still looks promising. It’s just that this Club used to be famous, or is that infamous, for being the great Cup team. Unless there was the possibility of ‘champers’ at the end of a Twickers Final, it was pointless getting oneself injured in a bread-and-butter match and put at risk the skiing holidays in Gstaad.

To be honest, the Heineken Cup didn’t really get me excited this season. Paris was certainly a great weekend, but can you seriously get excited about “foreign” jaunts to Cardiff and Bristol? I know they both speak a little strange, but a pint of Brains and a Ploughman’s Lunch could never be considered continental cuisine. Personally I prefer the Challenge Cup as Spain, Italy and the Midi-Pyrenees are a far better destination in my book, and what is even better is that sometimes we get a win. Be honest, what’s really better? A rare “bullock chop”, several large glasses of something rioja-ish, and 5 points in Valladolid, or ten pints of Guinness and a spanking in Limerick?

But supporting a club is not about trophy hunting. If that were the case we would all desert and follow Leicester, Wasps or, like most quasi-Irish, Munster, but strangely not in the Magners League, as they never look like winning that. I’m sure we enjoy our victories more than they theirs, but that is down to the fact that we don’t expect them in the way they do. I also know I’m just trying to find a “silver lining” round that very large, very dark cloud that’s floated over these past few weeks, but being a Quin, I also have a ridiculous amount of optimism that I’m convinced will be rewarded. 

I’d like to finish by wishing everyone; fellow supporters, the players and coaches, the office staff and even the management, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I would even extend this to the opposition in this season of goodwill. Like Quins, Saracens are a club whose supporters greet each season with such hope and promise only for reality to bite them on the posterior! Anyway, I know today will be our day. You never know, perhaps we’ll even qualify for the Heineken Cup again!

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