A joy to behold as a new star is born
Just like those low budget airlines that promise to deliver you to your required European destination but land in the back end of nowhere, this is where you will find the home of the ‘London’ Wasps, reigning European champions.
Stadiums, of course, can be stumbled upon in all sorts of strange places. European visitors to these shores are frequently taken aback by the sight of Croke Park, like many an Irish and British venue, hemmed in on all sides by 19th century terraced housing.
Monte Carlo’s Louis IV stadium is built over a covered car park while the Ataturk Stadium in Istanbul, where Liverpool won the Champions League, is famously miles to the west of the city in splendid isolation.
Though the word ‘London’ in Wasps’ title would seem to suggest a clear violation of the Trade Descriptions Act, the club is very much a product of the nation’s capital, having been founded in 1867 at the now defunct Eton and Middlesex Tavern in north London.
Their first home was close by in Finchley Road and they have rented accommodation in various other parts of the city since, with recent stops including Sudbury — still considered the club’s spiritual home — and Loftus Road.
Following the club from the city these days is no longer just a question of jumping on the Tube. The journey from London Marylebone takes 50 minutes on Chiltern Railways followed by a shuttle bus through High Wycombe.
Half of that last stretch is through a grey landscape of warehouse-sized offices selling furniture, paint and other industrial products before, at the very end and like a light at the end of a dark tunnel, the floodlights from Adams Park come into view.
It is here where everything changes for the better at the small, but comfy home of Wycombe Wanderers FC. Get there early enough and you will see the likes of Lawrence Dallaglio and English rugby’s new poster boy, Danny Cipriani, stroll through the car park mingling with the fans.
Like most rugby occasions, the air is convivial. Beer, pies and pasties are the sustenance of choice — with the odd hip flask thrown in, of course — but the main course arrives with the rugby.
More often than not, watching Wasps has been a pleasure this past 10 years, a spell in which they have won four league titles, two European Cups, two domestic cups, one Anglo-Welsh title and what was the Parker Pen Shield.
The Heineken Cup has had its own share of memorable matches in the same timeframe and any list of the very best will now have to include Wasps’ Pool Five encounter with Clermont Auvergne earlier this month.
The French side’s trip to Adams Park was being talked about as the tie of the weekend but, with just over half an hour gone, Shaun Edwards’ troops were 22-0 ahead and one try away from a seemingly simple five points.
How could it be any different? French clubs are traditionally about as comfortable away from home as an Eskimo in a Swedish sauna and Clermont were shorn key players through injury after the dramatic 10-point win over Wasps at home the previous weekend.
Like all sports, rugby can be a torturous exercise to watch when it is played badly but, now and again, all the stars align to produce something of real beauty. This was just such an occasion, and to see it first hand was a rare treat.
Central to the drama was Cipriani, a youngster barely out of his teens and one with a fearless attitude to playing a game that has yet to curb his exuberance. The most seasoned of writers were blown away by the out-half.
One well-respected English broadsheet writer described it as the most impressive display of attacking rugby from a British number 10 since Jonathan Davies first emerged onto the scene at Neath back in the 1980s.
This observer was reminded of another genius however, one closer to home.
It’s just over four years now since Kerry and Laois played out an NFL Division Two football final in an equally cold but twice as wet Gaelic Grounds in Limerick. It was the day Colm Cooper made his entrance for the Kingdom. The Gooch had the ball in the net within minutes and a legend was born.
Looking back, it still feels like a privilege to have been there to see such a talent blossom and the same was true with Cipriani. If he isn’t helming the good ship England in the very near future, serious questions will have to be raised.
The kid did it all in that first half but it was his turn of pace that really blew you away. Though an out-half, he was clearly the quickest man on a pitch that also contained the likes of Paul Sackey and Aurelien Rougerie.
His elevation to greatness seemed assured there and then but the asterisk came in the second half when, after five minutes, his attempted cross-field kick was intercepted by Rougerie and returned for a try.
With that, the game was flipped on its head and what followed was one of the most pulsating rugby matches this pair of eyes has ever had the good fortune to take in.
Four times Wasps fell inches short of the line in that second period while Clermont scored two more tries to fall a point short of parity at the end. It was all too much for one home supporter, who took a swing at a visiting player with a match programme at one point.
Drama, controversy, plot twists, individual brilliance. After all that, even the two-hour journey back to London or the frost-bitten toes couldn’t dampen the spirits but it is Cipriani’s tour de force that will live longest in the memory.
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