A ROMANIAN CULTURAL MOMENT
WITH ENGLAND COUNTIES XV

-text and photos Andrei Dorian Gheorghe
design Florin Alexandru Stancu-

This vision from 4 September 2017,
with the Full Moon over the Dambovita River
near the Mihai Bravu passage in Bucharest,
made me remember a special experience which I had lived two years ago
around the first crossroad on the left of the water flow.

Thus, in 2015, June 5
I decided I could try a multicultural afternoon in my city.

So after 8 (unpleasant, as usual) hours at my job,
I went to a crossroad,
the Mihai Bravu Way (former belt way of Bucharest 100 years ago) - Vitan Way
and I continued to go east to visit an interesting church
(with a strange aspect, but rich in solar-stellar symbols)
named Tarca and made in the 1820s,
at the same times when in England a young student named William Webb Ellis
founded the rugby game.

Astronomically, I tried to catch the Sun near it.

Then I advanced to the Olympia rugby stadium,
the scope of my small expedition being to watch an important rugby match,
Clubul Sportiv Municipal Bucuresti versus England Counties XV,
while above me the Sun seemed to begin
spectacular combinations with the clouds.

During that season
CSMB was the richest rugby section in Romania
and its first team obtained the 3rd place in the Superleague
(the strongest league of rugby XV
geographically placed between France and Japan,
with seven Romanian clubs and foreign players from
New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, UK, USA, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga,
Georgia, Moldova and Serbia),
its second team won the National Division (the second league)
and its two teams of rugby sevens played the final of the national championship.

England Counties came from the mother country of rugby
and was founded in 2002 as the selected team of the 3rd English league
to test tier 2 and 3 adversaries from all over the world.

During its history,
it defeated or outclassed Romania A (26-24 in 2003),
Russia, USA A, Canada A, Korea, East Japan, Uganda,
East Africa (Kenya +Uganda), Spain, Belgium and Emerging Georgia,
plus the selected teams of the Irish league and the Scottish league
(without their superior franchises which play in the Celtic League,
Champions Cup and Challenge Cup).

An excellent line of results,
although in 2003 the England Counties team was defeated
by the first team of Romania (24-46).

Returning to the day of my “escapade”,
the match was really captivating,
the (mainly Romanian) scrum of CSMB
being stronger,
the (mainly from the southern hemisphere) backwards of CSMB
playing more spectacular,
but the final result (18-26) was decided by
the superior complexity, science and efficiency of the English players.

After all, because rugby is a game almost total,
I could admire during this match features of character from more cultures and,
when it was the break time, I surrounded the stadium,
playing my own game with the Sun.

After the match,
I surrounded the stadium again,
seduced by crepuscular rays,
and I returned to the crossroad,
seduced by the colors of the dusk
and supposing that the priest who founded the Tarca Church
(named Tarca Raducanu Poenaru)
never imagined an international rugby match near it
after about two centuries.

Anyway, the conclusion is that, after so many years of existence,
the rugby game feels good.

The same about the Tarca Church.

Religion, rugby and skies.
Good for my soul, which sometimes flies.

A ROMANIAN CULTURAL MOMENT WITH ENGLAND COUNTIES XV

A ROMANIAN CULTURAL MOMENT
WITH ENGLAND COUNTIES XV