WORLD SIGNS UP FOR BIGGEST RUGBY FESTIVAL AS SCOTS MAKE IT 100


With seven months still to go 100 rugby teams from around the world have signed up for the 17th Air New Zealand Golden Oldies World Rugby Festival, which will be staged in Edinburgh in September this year.


Gavin Hastings, Scotland’s all-time Rugby World Cup record point scorer and Ambassador of the 2008 Golden Oldies World Rugby Festival said:

“We set a target of 150 teams coming to Edinburgh in September, so reaching 100 entries this early on is great news. Edinburgh is well on track for delivering the world’s biggest rugby festival
“We’ve got teams coming from Australia, Bahamas, Canada, Cook Islands, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland and USA. We have also had a large number of enquiries from elsewhere including across the UK, Andorra and even Trinidad and Tobago!”

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Tour report courtesy of Pete Muscroft

Participating in their first Vintage Rugby Festival but their 11th Old Boys Festival, the Conchs took a party of 31 people to the Argentinian Capital for their 2nd Vintage Rugby Festival.

A total of 50 teams participated from 12 countries.

The week started with the opening Ceremony and the Conchs were again the loudest group in the opening parade with their unique style of Junkanoo. Thanks to Bahamian Ted Pyfrom who lives in Buenos Aires we had three goat skin drums and a number of cow bells. All that was missing was some musicians!
The opening Cocktail party was held on facilities over looking the River Plate, which is the widest river in the world (you sure? - Ed.). Tour rookie, Paul Winder was feeling no pain at this point having consumed a few bottles of local wine during the afternoon and had to depart early.


The first game for the Conchs was against Villiersdorp from South Africa a team that the Conchs had previously played in Toulouse in 2001. Billy Lee making his first appearance for the Conchs in 11 years had the unique experience of being yellow carded whilst on the bench for remarks made to the referee. Not wishing to lose our “Hawaiian” for the next game we kept him out of the rest of this game. There’s a rumour going around that Billy only plays rugby in the Southern Hemisphere, which has certainly been the case over the last 20 years. Our sole Freeport representative Kirk Antoni injured his knee in this game and missed the next game against the Queensland XXXX, named after the local beer of Queensland. People from New South Wales say that they use 4 x’s because they don't know how to spell beer in Queensland!


Anyway there was plenty of beer flowing after this game and although our game kicked off at 11.45am Bill Mills, Steve Gallagher & myself had to catch the staff bus back to the hotel having missed the last bus for the players and arrived back at 8pm.


Thursday saw the team dinner and again Ted Pyfrom excelled in arranging a boat cruise on the River Plate amongst the islands and the homes of the wealthy ending at a restaurant which we had to ourselves. The amount of meat served that night must have beaten some records.

Awards for the week were made that evening:

The final game was against a Swiss team from Geneva who were staying in the same hotel as us and with whom we had shared many a beer. This was not however reflected in the game, although the half size pitch did not help. Anyway why spoil a good nights drinking with a bad game of rugby.
That evening saw the Final Banquet with more meat to eat, more wine to drink and many new friends to say goodbye to. Another Festival had come to an end but with many fond memories. We now look forward to the next one in 2008.


The favoured destination appears to be Edinburgh where the Air New Zealand Festival will take place in September but maybe we might return to Christchurch, New Zealand and the Vintage Festival if only to allow Billy Lee to play!



Related Articles: Cracked Conchs in Argentina - The Pictures | Golden Oldies Rugby: Cracked Conchs v. Harvard

Before the 2006 Golden Oldies World Rugby Festival has kicked off in Wellington later this month organisers are already announcing plans for the next big gathering to be held in Edinburgh.


The seniors tournament, a biennial event, will be the first of its kind to be held in Scotland and judging by the level of interest shown in this year's bumper New Zealand event, the Scottish capital will be well served to start preparations early.

The Scottish Rugby Union is throwing its full support behind the event and already week-long accommodation packages are being finalised. The programme will include a welcome party, "Highland Fling" picnic day and a grand finale dinner, all certain to be eagerly anticipated - once this year's event concludes of course.


The rugby festival commences the week after the famous Edinburgh festival.

A successful trip to Freeport over the weekend I believe.


Some 12 'Conchs' made the trip and with a bit of help from Freeport and a couple of ringers (Harvard had two as well!) we were able to come away with a 28-12 win. Not that we should have been keeping the score. A big thanks to everyone who made the trip.


Highlights of the game was the tackling of Ninja & GT which saved most of us from the less fun part of the game. New discoveries were Bill "Crash Ball" Mills (Moi Bawl!) in the centre and Mike Lamb as hooker who won all his own ball (Uncontested scrums) but seemed to want to throw all the line out ball to the tallest jumper who just happened to be wearing the other sides colours!

Ken Hutton looks like a capable candidate to take over Mike Neville's mandate from David Duckham as

"the only player that walks faster than he can run"

Ken's 50 yard amble down the field on Saturday had to be seen to be appreciated. He also scored a try in the third period turning up on the wing when everyone else was on the other side of the field.


Freeport hope to make this festival an annual event so make arrangements for next Easter. We are also hoping to schedule a game with Freeport in Nassau next season.


Source: Peter 'Refs better than Stevie Wonder' Muscroft