England's Other Sport

Almost everyone knows that, in England, football is king. That was evidenced by all the effort put into their recent massive bid for the 2018 World Cup, a prize they coveted but ultimately did not receive. However, there is another sport popular here that is not so well known around the world-rugby. Rugby is England’s second passion, sometimes forgotten by people in the United States but certainly not here. That was evident in the rugby match I went to recently at Twickenham Stadium, the largest all-rugby stadium in the world, between the England Barbarians and South Africa. While most would assume there would be a one-sided crowd, it was not the case at all, as some of England’s largest South African populations live near the stadium. A game that is as physically and mentally demanding as rugby requires a certain amount of excitement from the crowd, as the players feed off of their reaction. And the crowd at Twickenham did not disappoint. While the stadium was only about half full, seemingly every person in attendance was a die-hard fan, and there was a surprising amount of noise and intensity from a stadium with barely the lower decks filled on a dreary, raw December afternoon. Even though it ended up to be a bit of a blowout from the start, the crowd was in it the whole time and it was an amazing experience to be able to see a match in one of the most famous rugby stadiums in the world. As a sports management major, I was also paying attention to how their stadiums were set up, and to my surprise most of the concessions were outside the actual stadium itself, which is in contrast to a lot of stadiums in the United States. Twickenham Stadium was an amazing experience for me both as a sports management major and a rugby fan.