HK7s - THE GREATEST PARTY ON EARTH

Upfront, let me tell you that it isn't hype. HK7s genuinely are - absolutely - the greatest party on earth. You cannot imagine how much fun it is. It really is one of those things you have to do at least once in life: come to HK to watch the HK7s.

(SCMP forbids you to use their 
photographs in blogs, but, hey, 
this is a photograph taken by me 
so how can they object to that!)

And if you need any urging to fall in love with this game yourself, check out this short:






And if that doesn't work, try this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDyb8rqlLNI

OK, now that you've seen it played, did you fall in love with the game?

HISTORY

HK7s began - obviously - in Hong Kong back in the 1850s because they couldn't get enough players to put together a regular match schedule (Cantonese played soccer back then, although they do play Rugby now - only not well - but they're getting better all the time) so they decided to field only seven men per side while playing on a field of the same size. Naturally they then had to adjust the game slightly to accommodate.

For 120 years, 7s was endemic to here, but, back in the early 1970s, the Kiwis and Fijians noticed how fast and slick this game is, so challenged HK to a match. It was so much fun and everyone just loved it so much, they regulated it into an annual event ...

... and, to everyone's astonishment, HK7s turned out to be the biggest and best party in SE Asia, so it's just grown and grown til now, thirty years later, it's got 82 nations who vie for the Melrose Cup every four years and 124 nations who play it.

(I could tell you that I used to date Jack Davies who was a player at the very first HK7s ever, but that would give you some idea about how old I am.)

And there are 100 things, according to the papers, that have made HK7s so great. I'm definitely not typing out all 100, but here are The Top Ten:

THE LEGENDS OF HK7S

#1 The South Stand: This is where all the naughty people sit. Total party zone! Everyone wears fancy dress and behaves badly. (2005, Jackie Powell from Savu Savu was trying to organise all the Fiji people to claim a spot there for Sunday's games but I noticed on TV the Fiji group was sitting just immediately outside it so I guess no one arrived in time. Isn't that so Typical Fiji-style!)

#2 Fiji's Waisale Serevi "The Magician". Also known as "The Sorcerer". I feel so proud!

#3 New Zealand's Jonah Lomu, "The Colossus". After years of battling his kidney failure, he came to HKs in 2004 (I think. Don't entirely trust my memory) as a guest of HK Rugby and when HK saw him in the stands the entire stadium of 40,000 people stood up and clapped and cheered for over ten minutes. Ever see a big man cry?

#4 All-Black Eric Rush "The Indomitable"

#5 "The Pie-Man": This is the fat guy who, for the last decade, sits shirtless in the South Stand eating pies and drinking beer! He's hideous and during the boring bits between games, someone in the South Stand always shoutss "Who gobbled all the pies?" and everyone else chants "The Fat Bastard! The Fat Bastard!" and the pie-man stands up and bows, his enormous belly wobbling disgustingly! And it's always shown on the giant TV screens and beamed out to the world. And now he's LEGEND #5! Good one!

# 6 Oz David Campese "The Wing Wonder"

#7 "The Mad Hatters": this is a bunch of South Stand women who, for 30 years, have been turning up in identical stupid hats.

#8 The enormous TV screens: Biggest in Asia

#9 "The Waking Dragon": Back in 1991, China noticed Rugby for the first time and liked what they saw and, ever since the Handover in 1997, they've been sending a team to HK7s; pretty crappy teams, sure, but still ... give them time! According to our friend Nathan, Rugby players are fostered from toddler-hood, so it'll take an entire generation before we need to take China seriously. (I should tell you more about Nathan's treatise on "Why China can't play Rugby", but some other time.)

#10 The Clean-up Crew: so deserved! See, every year HK City Council Cleaning Team - aka The Grumpy Grandmas - end each of the three days of play soaking wet, literally dripping with the vast quantities of beer thrown at them by drunken revelers, then they stay up all night to clean the Stadium between days and they say it takes them a full week to clean up after the weekend's over - with four days spent on The South Stand alone ...

... and never once in 30 years has a Grandma ever lost her temper, grabbed a spectator and screamed, in Cantonese obviously, "I'll do you, Jimmy!" so they definitely deserve their Legend Status!

So that's your Top Ten Legends of HK7! Now, let me read the rest of this list and see if there's anything you'll be missing out on if you don't know.

Oh, here's one: LEGEND # 13: The Minnows: right from the start, thirty years ago, the decision was made to allow "Minnows" to play during those years when it isn't the World Cup. This means that any country just needs to ask and space is made for them in the schedule. The oddest countries/people are forever turning up, like once there was a village team from PNG.

Minnows are always slaughtered, sure, but everyone always cheers them on, and if they ever get a try or do something even marginally great the 40,000 strong crowd goes wild.

2006's Minnows were Sri Lanka and Madagascar, both of whom wanted to celebrate their tsunami recovery by sending a team. Normally, they couldn't afford it but the world was very generous to them when their countries were wiped out! (Isn't it nice to think that all your donations were put to such great use.) But you have to admit it was spectacular to think that fielding a team for the HK7s was top of their list of things to do with the last of their charity donations.

Anyway, here in HK we'd been hearing so much about the aftermath of the tsumani - because we, as a country, donated zillions to the cause - that when the various charities said these places had finally done all the clean-up and rebuilding, and under budget too, we said they could keep the last US$20,000 to do with as they wanted...

... and both these countries said "We want to send our best rugby team to the HK7s!!!" Isn't that astonishing! We were #1 on two different countries wish list!!! This touched such an enormous chord with HK, they were welcomed with open arms - and penguins in the case of Madagascar.

No, seriously! A anonymous bunch of guys dressed up as penguins and followed the team around the whole time they were here ... and since the movie "Madagascar" was never shown in Madagascar, not a single one of them got the joke. Honestly, they must have thought HK was mad! Anyway, when HK realised that we had Madagascar completely flummoxed, their hotel put on a special showing of the film. Nice, la? They liked the film too, but were still vaguely insulted that the rest of the world saw them that way!

Oh, and never let anyone tell you that Sri Lankans are small. Those players were at least as big as the Kenyans and Kenyans are BIG!

But if you want to know anything bad about the game, the worst thing about the 7s is that there are 40,000 seats and only 5% of the tickets are sold in HK. Yup, with a population of six and a half million, they only put 2000 tickets on sale here. The rest of the world gets the rest, so never assume you can just rock up here and get them. You can't. They are like hen's teeth. (Oh, wait! Yes, you can get them here. Scalpers from England hanging around the stadium on the day always have a heap to sell, and they charge major bucks for them too, particularly for the Sunday games, so if you want to do it this way bring your fattest wallet full of cash.)

REVIEW OF HK7s

Back in 2006, I found an amazing review of The Game by somebody big in the British sporting world. After talking lots about what a great game HK7s was in general, he went on to talk about Fiji calling it a "Shining Star amid a Galaxy of Stars", and he throws in lots of words about Fiji players, saying how they were "magical and mesmerising" and he then talked about our "resourcefulness, athleticism, power, pace, grace and flamboyance".

He also used the word "dazzling" in abundance.

And then he ends the section talking about the 7s game he'd just watched, saying he had to pinch himself that two of the best players he had ever known - who he'd previously seen playing for Bordeaux and London - Nanuku and Rokobiau - were, when they played for Fiji, scarcely needed. He said he could scarcely credit that any country could be so rich in talent that these two mainly sat on the bench.

He then talked about the ones who were played in the game:

Cousins A. and V. Satala he called "huge, fast magic-makers."

Naveo he called "the man-mountain with a furious turn of speed"

William Ryder "the new heir" who had "twinkling feet"

Delasau he called "ruthless, with astonishing strength and speed",

and then he waxed lyrical for a long time about "the irrepressible, magnificent Bobo."

And when he came to Waisale Serevi himself our hero got several long paragraphs covering his entire 20 year career and he was called things like "wizard" and "sorcerer" and "magic-maker".

Really good stuff. I was so proud.