Football is more than the national sport here. It is a passion and an obsession. A recent study revealed that West Ham United fans thought about their team 87 times a day. Entire families can be seen on the Tube wearing their team’s colours and scarves. The players, managers and owners are celebrities. Even the wives and girlfriends are famous.

I reckon that football is the biggest business in England. I read in the paper that the English football club’s salary looks to be €1 billion over the spending of the teams in the rest of Europe next year. They just opened Wembley Stadium five stops up the Jubilee line from us. It is the biggest and most expensive stadium in Europe at a final bill of £753million. And it is only used for World Cup and Championship games.

But it’s not all sunshine and giggles. The fans are an utter mob. If you are caught standing up at Upton Park, home of the West Ham United, you can loose your season ticket. The opposing team’s supporters have to be kept separated or they will kill each other. English fans have been all but banned from Europe altogether. Sadly, all of the players on England’s World Cup team last year have churned forth autobiographies at an average age of 26, as have many of the orange-skinned accessory wives. And there is another, deeper, more troubling problem.

The game is deathly boring to watch. I’ve tried, I have. We purposefully watched Liverpool FC contest AC Milan in Athens to be the champions of all of Europe. You’d have though it was the 3 metre springboard event at the Olympics there was so much diving. If the field were less than a kilometre long, there might have been a greater combined total of about eight shots on goal. I woke up in time to see Liverpool lose.

So what can be done? What are sporting-starved hockey fan Canadians to do? Well there is hope. That hope, is Rugby. This now, is a game played by non-diving, hard-hitting, fast-running men. Not just men, but Men. The size of Coke machines. All played with no padding save a little tape to hold the ears on.

It has been said that the war was won on the Rugby fields of Eton. Snooty posturing, perhaps, but arguments could be made. To get to the grounds, a free bus was put on from the Tube station in Richmond and supporters of both sides file in together without the inevitable donnybrooks of football fans. Once inside, supporters of both sides, and new fans like us sat and enjoyed Guinness and the world’s worst hot dogs (although the wrapper says The World’s Best Hot Dog). It seems Rugby can even do irony well.

As this was the championship game, we expected a SuperBowl atmosphere. There was, instead, no marching bands, dancing children or military fly-over. The announcer welcomed the fans, introduced the teams as a group and the ref blew the whistle to start the game. The epitome of understatement.

On the field, the Leicester Tigers were looking to add to their championship totals over Gloucester. The game was contested in weather that ranged from weak sunshine to heavy rain. Alesana Tuilagi, the enormous Samoan thundered down the field three times to lead the Tigers to a 44 – 16 win and the championship. The game was great to see live, the crowd of 56,000 was boisterous and the beer was, well, lukewarm. All as it should be and all good reasons to become Rugby fans. Somebody mail us Rugby Canada shirts!