Ruck that for a game of soldiers – or, why I write about West Point Rugby

Written by: Martin Pengelly, breaking news editor for Guardian US

The other day, I had lunch with Bob Kimmitt. Bob has been US ambassador to Germany and deputy secretary of the treasury. He now sits on the board at Meta.

Nearly 60 years ago, Bob was a second row forward on the rugby team at West Point. A little more than 20 years ago, I was a second row forward at Rosslyn Park FC. We were having lunch because this year, after eight years’ work, I published the book that grew from a game Park played against West Point in 2002 – Brotherhood: When West Point Rugby Went To War.

I work for the Guardian newspaper in Washington, covering the White House and Congress. Bob is a major figure in political circles. So we talked politics, sure. But mostly, we talked rugby.

This is how, in my book, I remember my feelings after Park v West Point:

Game done, out of the showers, back into everyday clothes. Hair gel and steam. Walk stiff-limbed to the bar. Beer on a split lip. Antiseptic sting. Stand carefully, raked skin raw on trousers and shirt. Vision muddied. Tired weight behind the eyes. A sort of cracked bliss.

It’s relevant here because I am proud to say I had an excellent lunch with a titan of Washington but spent part of that time reminiscing about proper rucking.

To the uninitiated: in rugby, a ruck is the contest for possession that forms over any tackled man. Defenders try to steal the ball. Attackers try to keep it. Forwards and backs alike drive into each other above the man on the floor, seeking to gain momentum and present the ball to their team.

In my day, as in Bob’s, that meant the tackled man, and perhaps the tackler or other fallen players, were fair game for a rucking. Meaning, a trampling. Put simply, the art of rucking lay in the deployment of one’s cleats to, shall we say, encourage bodies out of the way.

When it came to rucking, as in a lot of situations in rugby, the line between fair play and foul was a thin one. Often, gossamer. Sideways movement of the boot, or raking, was fine on the legs or body. Stamping or kicking was not. Nothing was allowed on the head. The force – or, OK, savagery – of it could depend on the referee or indeed the general culture of the city or county or country in which the game was played.

In some places – New Zealand, the Scottish borders, Yorkshire where I learned the game – “shoe pie” was simply part of rugby. We had a phrase: “If he’s on the floor, he’s grass.” Not to be stamped on or kicked but to be raked, if necessary. Or, quite often, if not.

No longer. Rugby has, well, stamped out the practice.

Why makes sense, of course. Bloody injuries do not appeal to advertisers, TV producers or parents. As in other areas of the game, when crossed (or snapped) that thin line between fair rucking and foul play could produce acts that if committed in public might well lead to time in jail.

But still, there I was, in a booth at Joe’s Seafood on 15th and H, round the corner from the White House, one of two old forwards happily reminiscing about rucking and being rucked. In my case, I described another game for Park, when some Wasps forwards found me lying on the wrong side of the ball. Afterwards, the Park coaches took Polaroids of my back, which had become a sort of livid abstract scrawl, a De Kooning swirl of studmarks, bruising and blood. 

It was a happy memory. Honest. My back hurt in the showers but not too badly, really. It healed quick enough. I wish I still had the prints. I miss rucking, and being rucked. So does Bob. 

In our comfortable booth, over steak and shrimp, he and I were laughing over our time doing something – playing rugby, in all its ugly glory – which is by any standard an extraordinarily stupid thing to do. In the 1960s, he knew it was stupid, in the 2000s I knew it was stupid and those who play the game now – men, women, boys, girls – know it is stupid and yet love it we all do. There may not be proper rucking anymore but there is proper rugby, in colleges and clubs around the world and increasingly in America too.

That is why the story of the West Point cadets of 2002 grabbed me and will now stay with me long after my book is forgotten. At West Point, the proper spirit of the game (like many things in that military hothouse) is concentrated and channeled into fierce expression. When West Point rugby players call each other brother – or sister – they mean it. When they play fiercely to win, they mean it. When they go out into the US Army, they take that spirit with them. Through reunions and friendships, they maintain it with the brothers and sisters they found.

That is the central theme of my book, which tells the stories of the rugby players of 2002: how they came to West Point, how they found their game, how they went out into the army and what they did when they got there. It tells the stories of three of those men who died young, two in accidents and one at war in Baghdad. It tells the story of a fourth who died recently, swiftly and sadly of cancer. It tells how the surviving brothers came together to mourn.

Last week, I traveled to New York City, to be interviewed by Sean Mullin. He is the director of It Ain’t Over, a documentary about the baseball great Yogi Berra that is generating deserved awards buzz. He’s also a former West Point rugby player and soldier and he is now making a documentary about Army rugby.

I told Sean about the appeal of rugby as an extraordinarily stupid thing to do, and about how I started doing that stupid thing when I was only seven. I told him how I came to play against West Point in ’02, and why that game stuck in my mind as I grew up, married an American and moved my life over here. I told him the ’02 team hit like hell. I told him we, Rosslyn Park, happily hit them back. And then, in a bar at the British Army stadium, we shook hands and had a drink before – gingerly but happily, in my case – we went our separate ways.

Sean’s documentary is simply called “Brothers.” Simply put, I’m honored to contribute.

For more information about today’s contributor please visit:  @MartinPengelly

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