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Show . " 1 ' X-fr5"- 1 ! . , .. III .1 I M ,., The turnout at Saturday's Founder's Game was so sparse that all of the players and most of the spectators managed to fit into this photograph. J photos by David Hampshire Mucker has-beens relive days of gore by David Mueller The opponent failed to show up. Temperatures were discouragingly hot. City Park was strangely deserted, even with thousands of people passing less than a block away. ... But there stood a keg of beer in the shade of the Mucker bus and gathered around were 21 Park City ruggers from years past. Six current Muckers had taken a break from the Main Street beer garden. Three fans begrudgingly volunteered their services. That made 30 and the game was on. "Who needs the Dead Goat!" was the general attitude. It is curious how Old Timer rugby matches sometimes develop into better bet-ter than expected performances. perfor-mances. Generally the tackling is a little more forgiving and the pursuit from marauding loose forwards for-wards is much less a factor. This opens a great deal of space for the back lines to operate and if the old hands can just catch the ball an entertaining en-tertaining flow happens. Saturday's match was no exception. Nary a knock-on was committed. Play rushed up and down the pitch as seldom seen in American rugby. The only thing that kept the scoring below 50 points for each side was the benevolent spirit of the op ponents for each other. "I'd rather hang it on some Salt Lake clown," said one retiree as he quaffed a post-match beverage. "We just took turns letting each other off the hook." Even Carole Fontana made a comeback at touch judge, a position she held through the early seventies until her flag arm was injured in-jured in an industrial accident. ac-cident. "The arm has healed nicely," she said. "No problem now." The match aligned those wearing the traditional Mucker cardinal and gold jerseys against those wearing a motley assortment assort-ment of t-shirts and tank tops known as the Rainbows. Although the rivalry was less than intense, even in the most gracious of social situations someone always loses contact with the idea and ruins the fun. When Dave Sturges left the pitch for a patella alignment, Fred Grambau came on to replace him and immediately scored. That did it. The rest of the day got ugly. With the Cardinal and Golds (C and Gs) up 4-0, Rainbow captain Ken Binatena called for swift and terrible retribution. An inspired Alan Booth shot through a gap in the C and G defense and ran over the last opponent to tie the match just prior to halftime. "That was my first try in my spotty North American rugby career," boasted Booth, "and my most rewarding." Tim "Razor" Sharp began the second half with a strategy which would turn the tide for the Rainbows: deliberately allowing a kick to be blocked. This action precipitated severe neck injuries in-juries in the C and G side, the forwards getting whip-lash trying to follow the rebounding rebound-ing of all the blocked balls. "We had to try something new," said Sharp. While the first period scoring belonged to the Hall of Fame, the second half was controlled by the few active Muckers in the game; Blackie Jones touched down for the Rainbows and Scott Thompson reached in-goal for the Cardinal and Golds. The final difference, however, was the kicking toe of Bruce Reid. As in days of yore, Reid split the uprights with a booming boot to give the Rainbows their final two-point two-point margin of victory (10-8). (10-8). "How long did we play?" wondered one Hall of Fame candidate. When told the match lasted a full 60 minutes he mused: "I must be in better shape than four years ago; we only played 40 minutes then." Fat chance. v ; vvv . . lf'y '.... .. . ::!' .. -:. .r . . . r..x lllill&ili-: m: : $. III "Are you with me or against me?" Jack Schirman (with the ball) and Don Sturges are wearing similar jerseys, but seem to be eyeing each other with suspicion. |