They sneer at the soul who thinks life is lived to its fullest when the backside is nestled deep in the sofa.
It’s conceivable the health nuts are half right. But surely, during these past seven days of sport, there could have been no finer existence than the couch kumaras. It was couch bliss. It was ecstasy on an ottoman — a sports epoch during which we drones of the divan could vegetate in front of all manner of froth-buggling excitement.
We had the Kiwi yachties versus bad Captain Spittle and the billionaires of Bermuda. It being summer in England, the doughty Black Caps bat on in galoshes at the ICC Champion’s Trophy. The tennis princes hurl rackets at Roland Garros. And the couch potato must fit these extra joys between his fraught schedule of grand prix, Super Rugby, and golf.
And of course there were the Lions. I have history with the Lions. But for the 1966 team, I may have remained a sprightly "go-to-the-match" enthusiast, instead of being glued to the screen at home. Best I explain.
I was in the back bar of the Kiwi, a student pub in Auckland, where the fashion of the callow was to drink 26-ounce bottles of Tui. These were the golden times when there was only one Tui, and it was nearly as black as Guinness. (Yeah right? Yeah right!)
We were discussing Franz Kafka, Immanuel Kant, and (I think) the Mary Quant mini skirt, when one of the smarter intellects cried: "Bugger Balzac, it’s only an hour till the Lions kick off."
Eden Park was but a taxi ride away, and Chris Laidlaw, the Otago uni halfback, had made the All Blacks. It was a Tui’s no-brainer to The Student Editor, The Samoan Chief, and Myself. This bumble of three eventually found itself disgorged from a cab that had gone to the wrong Eden Park gates — not to the plebeian terraces entry, but to the gates of the main grandstand.
We found these rushed by crowds of impatient, voluble, well-offs, worried they wouldn’t make the kick-off. And lo, the only admissions left were the pre-sold tickets these people clutched.
Beaten? Only for a moment. The Chief walked grandly to the turnstile, nodded to the attendant, and addressed him in a kingly manner. (The Chief was very tall, and now old enough to grow a beard).
"The fellow behind me carries my tickets," he announced, and marched imperiously through.
The Editor was a quick learner.
"Yeah, next bloke has them," he breathed, brushing through, and pointing to me. Huh? Me? I looked at the frazzled attendant, and hearing the "Get a Move On!" yells from the crowd behind, had a moment of clarity.
I pointed to a respectable man in a military blazer who was two back in the queue, and said: "C’mon, hurry up, Dad’s got ’em."
The stairwell ushers were the next obstacle. With a minute still to spare, The Editor spotted an unused door, and The Chief led us through. We rushed down a dark concrete corridor past other doors, turned a corner, and suddenly emerged into a blinding light, and thunderous ovation.
We’d run out the players’ tunnel. As the 1966 Lions brushed past us on to the field, the Three Stooges quickly made themselves scarce amongst a large group of 7-year-olds. The kids had played five minutes of nipper rugby, and been sat on benches only three metres from the halfway flag. The nippers didn’t object — we looked like grown-ups.
These were better seats than the Governor-General’s. I watched a while, and then courtesy of Tui, had a kip until woken when a large man in black — possibly a Meads — slid across the touch line into our seats. By then the Lions were about thrashed — it was 24-11, I’m told.
Of course, our trio would be toast today. They’ve invented bar codes on tickets, and people called "Security".
Last I heard of The Samoan Chief, he’d put his talents to good use and become a con-man — that is, a diplomat at the United Nations. The Editor had a backroom job hosing down fires in the Beehive. And myself? Well since the 1966 Lions, I could never see the point of paying for the lesser tickets. I became, and remain, a sofa spectator.
- John Lapsley is an Arrowtown writer.
