Injury and illness can't stop the fun

IT'S time to dip back into the 1974 Lions tour again and 50 years ago today exactly - July 14 a much agitated manager of the Marine Hotel in what used to be called Port Elizabeth was looking for Lions manager Alun Thomas to demand both an explanation and reparation.

Why had all the fire hoses in his five star establishment been let off during the night and why were the swish carpets on a number of floors waterlogged and ruined? It was a fair enough question and without being facetious the answer is that the Lions had just made history. The previous day the tourists had beaten a pumped South Africa 26-9 just down the road at Boet Erasmus to take the series 3-0 and had felt the urgent need to make some noise and let off some steam.

As you do when you have scaled rugby's Everest.

Much to his frustration nobody could be found although he was confident suitable compensation would be forthcoming before the sun set. Pretty much the entire tour party had just left for a day of enthusiastic R & R at the renowned Sardinia Bay - Sards to the locals - which is now a nature reserve as well as a sun-drenched beach on the Indian Ocean.

You are probably familiar with the image of a smiling Willie John McBride riding an old bicycle along the beach that brisk winter's morning like an extra from some avant garde French film. It's all slightly surreal but given South Africa's dominance for most of the 20th century the events of the previous ten weeks or so had been borderline surreal. Surely at some stage the Boks would bite back and bring the Lions' triumphant march round South Africa to a juddering halt.

That was the expectation of many just 24 hours earlier when the two sides had run out for the series decider and although retrospectively it all seems a walk in the park. At the time nerves and tension abounded.