From mid-September, the city is to be inundated with rugby fans from around the world. The Octagon will apparently be struggling to contain them. The Dunedin City Council is now desperately looking for innovative ways of amusing them while they are here.
Duh? It is a no-brainer. With Carisbrook, we have just bought ourselves a huge 30,000-seater entertainment venue ideally suited to the purpose. It is clearly time for the old "Retro Rugby" proposal to be dusted off and to finally come of age!
In a previous opinion piece, penned when the Carisbrook Development Trust was quite properly still focusing on developing Carisbrook, I suggested that the Otago Rugby Union should secede from the NZ Union and allow Carisbrook to sink back in time.
We should celebrate Carisbrook as the last of the great grounds, with concrete terraces, iron railings, and dodgy toilet facilities.
It would be three points for a try, no substitutes, pies at halftime, and just the St Kilda pipe band for entertainment. The pitch would deliberately be allowed to regress into a boggy marsh, and the changing room showers would be cold.
A bucket for gold coin donations would be passed around the crowd at halftime, and all corporate boxes would be ripped out. At the time, I was certain that the city's economy would boom.
Traditionalists would love it. Golden Oldies tours would flock here all year round from Wales and South Africa in particular.
It would provide hyper-bragging rights to any club player from around the world who could return home and claim to have played a game at Carisbrook. Rugby, the way it used to be played.
And so here we are, four years later, and the opportunity has quietly opened up right in front of our eyes.
The official World Cup games have been finally secured for the new stadium, so now is the time for the council to cut loose with its own crafty plan. We should immediately set about hosting a "Fringe" International Festival of Rugby, different enough and edgy enough from the main show to avoid the inevitable litigation from the miserly and mealy spirited NZRFU.
Our supplementary rugby festival could be a huge success for the city. It would be promoted as a celebration of the traditional spirit of Rugby Union, but would also suck in thousands of extra tourist dollars to the region.
Dunedin could host up to 30 international competitive games of admittedly dubious standard, but full of passion and fun. Fat overweight props and pale skinny wingers with knobbly knees would suddenly become our new heroes.
Television rights could be sold, and the DCC, as the new owner of Carisbrook, would stand to profit hugely from the opportunity. We may even end up making more money than Auckland, despite its fancy quota of flashier games.
The Fringe Festival of Rugby would also provide a positive focus for all those sad-sacks around town who still blather on negatively about the new stadium.
Instead, they could get in behind a crazy scheme that complements and draws positive energy from the main schedule. For the first time since the new stadium was originally mooted, we could all be aligned in a common purpose, which of course is to promote our city to the world.
Naming rights and sponsorship deals for the fringe games would be strictly limited to community groups, or public services that have been hitherto starved of funding. As a result, the Farmers Market could sponsor the Welsh, while the Yellow Eyed Penguin Trust could get in behind the Scots.
No money would change hands, but profiles would be raised and relationships forged. The theme would be unrelentingly not-for-profit.
Pubs and bars in South Dunedin would be pumping throughout the tournament, and those good old steak and chips meals that we love so much would take on a warm "retro" feel. Paninis would be banned, unless specifically requested by the Italians.
The Carisbrook ground could serve as a campervan city overnight, but would be cleared by lunchtime in order for afternoon games to be played. In the evenings, Bill Acklin would be required to play night after night on a temporary stage, and would undoubtedly become a worldwide legend as a result.
Students would be banned, and only "over 35"-year-olds would be allowed into the social events. This would ensure that older people could dance stupidly and talk loud nonsense without fear of ridicule. Finally, the destruction of property would be systematically encouraged.
Planned correctly, the eventual demolition bill for dismantling Carisbrook could be halved, and all participants would be encouraged to take a little piece of the ground home with them when they leave.
By the time the World Cup is over, the DCC would have made a tidy profit, would have gained worldwide exposure, and would have quietly halved the number of world-class rugby stadiums that it owns.
So, there is plenty to chew on here, but the main question is ... just what is the DCC planning to do with Carisbrook during the World Cup? A free training ground for England? Or are they paying? Or is it too commercially sensitive?
We have recently bought the facility, so let us now decide how we are going to use it to best effect. Time is marching on.
• Chris Skellett lives in Warrington.
