Rugby is a violent sport where people seek to beat up other people, within (but sometimes without) a set of baffling rules designed to deter outright thuggery. Those involved come from all walks of life – aristocrats and accountants; plumbers and plasterers. Yet, on the pitch, everyone is the same. You look out for them and they look out for you. That's the only way it works. The same applies in the bar afterwards and in life generally. You may have nothing else in common, but you have cemented a bond.
Rugby makes folk think better about themselves. It gets rid of aggression. It has saved many an individual from turning to crime. In the process, it spawns a parallel life of laughter, high jinks, pranks and japes, the bizarre and the banal, the whacky and the wonderful. Within it all, the golden rule is – what goes on tour, stays on tour.
No longer! This book, seen through the prism of one club in the English Midlands, Birmingham Moseley, smashes that mantra into a million pieces.