Dave Does Leeds

On Friday Anne and I went our own way fro a couple of days with me going to Leeds and Manchester and Anne doing the rounds of the Lancashire rellies. In Leeds I’m going to watch the Leeds Rhinos play Bradford and in Manchester I’m going to sort out an extension to the rental car deal and see Jeff Beck at the Apollo.

My mate Jeff from Leeds often visits New Zealand and Australia and catches up with the freinds he has made online through rugby league websites. He’s been visiting me since 1999 and every time he visits he invites me to Leeds to stay with him, watch his Leeds Rhino team and eat the finest curry meals in the UK.

So I was finally able to take him up on  his offer. I caught the train from Skipton to Leeds and enjoyed an hour of the scenery before arriving at Leeds Station where I was met by Jeff.

After taking me for a coffee we toured the towns markets and then did a lap of honour at the Leeds Museum.

Jeff shares a very similar political viewpoint to me so it was great sit down and discuss what I had seen here with him and get his perspective on it.

Jeff’s dad is not too well right now so we paid him a visit and it was nice to finally meet him as we’d spoke briefly from time to time whenever I’d rung Jeff. I found he had an encyclopedic knowledge of the game of rugby league and he knew all of nthe great Kiwi players of the past 50 years so the visit was a great curtain raiser for going to the famous cricket ground at Headingley to watch Leeds play the a derby with Bradford.

As we entered the stadium we were offered a free sample of Scotland’s superstar soft drink “Irn Bru.”

Irn Bru

Irn Bru has long been the most popular soft drink in Scotland, outselling Coca-Cola, but recent fierce competition between the two brands has brought their sales to roughly equal levels. It is also the third best selling soft drink in the UK, after Coca-Cola and Pepsi, outselling high-profile brands such as Fanta, Dr Pepper, Sprite and 7-Up.

Irn-Bru’s advertising slogans used to be “Scotland’s other National Drink”, referring to whisky, and “Bru’d in Scotland from girders”, though the closest one can come to substantiating this claim is the 0.002% ammonium ferric citrate listed in the ingredients.

After sampling Irn Bru and finding it far too sugary from my sensative to sugar metabolism our next stop was the club shop where I picked up a club jersey.

Just outside the shop we bumped into 2 British Bobbies so I had a quick chat with them and asked if they would pose for a photo for the blog which they agreed to do.

Dave's Brush with the Bobbies

By now the crowd was filling up and I heard the strains of some bloke singing opera. Leeds use Opera Man to warm up the crowd, not that they need much warming up.

Now I’ve watched a fair bit of rugby league in New Zealand and it’s fair to say the the Kiwi crowds are fairly subdued, especially compared to the league crowds in Australia. But in the north of England the atmosphere can only be described as bordering on madness.

There are no players on the field yet and the crowd is singing songs and chanting slogans as one choreographed unit, the din is defeaning. Someone somewhere is providing accompaniment with a trombone, drummers are in each stand making sure everyone keeps the beat. You get the feeling you are at an ancient coleseum about to watch Christians being fed to lions, and into this walk Bradford.

I’ll give them 11 out of 10 for turning up and making it competitive but leeds are just too good and slaughter them 33 to 20 which is a result that doesn’t really describe how close the game was for most of the time.

Leeds 33 Bradford 20

After the game we head up the road for a rather spectacular curry meal, then a taxi to Jeff’s place for a coffee and bit of gas bagging before crashing for the night.