Bob Hanney was a typical Gloucester 'boy'. He was stocky, almost always turned out in a tracksuit (even during Speech Days at the grammar school at which he taught), had a hard but knowing face through which shimmered a certain pained warmth, and, nine times out of 10, had a
Lambert & Butler hanging out of his mouth.
Technically, he was a maths 'stroke' games teacher at Sir Thomas Rich's, a Gloucester grammar school, although the maths was really only a pretext for the game that he lived and loved: rugby. It was he who, catching us 'freshers' kicking a football in the playing fields only a few green days into our first term, walked over, picked up the ball, stared us in the eyes one by one and muttered, without a hint of irony: "Now, let me tell you something about this school. There's only one game inside these gates, inside Gloucester — and it's rugby. It's a game you'll grow to love, so you can forget this poofter's sport altogether." With that, he turned around and walked off with Cudby's shiny leather football — and that, as they say, was that.
Years later, after thousands of cries of "Bind and drive", "Tackle him boy" and, my personal favourite, "Bury 'em blues"; after dozens and dozens of glorious victories (mainly due to our precocious Number 8, Neil, who, it was agreed, could have gone on to play for Wales were it not for an equally precocious taste for women and drink); and after two broken noses, I had indeed come to love rugby, and will do always. In Gloucester, rugby isn't a game, it's a religion — and I was converted.
Which brings me onto the Rugby World Cup 2007, and Visa's decent piece of marketing around it. Visa are an official worldwide partner of the World Cup and have put up a great website in the build up to the September kick-off of the competition:
www.visarugby.com.
Basically, Visa has brought together five of the all time greats of world rugby: Martin Johnson, John Eales, Zinzan Brooke, Joel Stransky and Philippe Sella. These five legends of the game feature in a number of (often user-generated) online activities, e.g.
- Video clips where, chaired by Sky's Simon Lazenby, they give their views on who is the greatest player in a number of select positions (see screengrab below)
- Podcasts where the greats give their views on some of the defining rugby moments and players across 20 years of the Rugby World Cup
- An online forum where the greats start debates on topics of interest to the rugby community
- Sign a ball and five jerseys which are given away each week and month respectively to a lucky registered user who has submitted a post on any of the forums
- Downloadable wallpapers and screensavers of the famous five
Until mid-July, visitors to the site also had the chance to select their all-time Rugby World Cup XV. If they came up with the same XV agreed by the 'Visa Legends' — note bullish (over-bullish?) brand association — then they could potentially win flights and tickets to the October final in Paris.
From the first week of September until the end of the Rugby World Cup, the five greats will also be online once a week to answer people's questions in real time. This site is pretty straightforward but it strikes the right note with rugby fans and the message boards and forums are full.
My only gripe relates to the downloadable audio podcasts. Oh Visa, come on — no matter how exciting the content (and it is, and I, as a die-hard rugby fan, love the site), staring at a little grey bar with a little grey moving button on a white page is so yesterday. It just comes across as so 1.0.