Go (B)lues!!!

Our Christmas trip to England started off with a 5hr. delay of our flight. Not the types to miss an opportunity, we seized another couple and forced them to play Ziegen Kriegen with us to pass the time. As it was a flight to England, it wasn't surprising to find out they spoke English. The hapless couple, Ané and Jeandré from South Africa, hadn't been in Lyon very long (Ané just one month) so they weren't very good at avoiding eye contact with weirdos. This is a skill you MUST develop if you are to ride the buses and metro a lot. Both of them proceeded to clobber us at the game as we chatted and passed the time. Jeandré, it turns out, plays rugby for the Lyon team and on Sunday Ané called us up to ask if we wanted free tickets to see a match with them. You bet!!!

That evening it started raining lightly, but then turned heavier as we got our hot wine, hot chocolate, and hot dogs and settled into our seats. The stadium wasn't huge and all the seats were covered so everyone had close, comfortable seats. Jeandré had an injury so he couldn't play, but that meant we got to sit with both of them - and it was fun being with a star as he shook hands with fans in the crowd.

In one France guide I had read you can always shout out "Allez les bleus!" (Go Blues!) for sporting events. But, what if your team isn't blue? Our team colors were black and red - yet I could hear people shouting what sounded like the traditional French sports chant. Aha! The team name is Les Lous. Very clever! In case you are wondering here are the words to the chant:

Allez les bleus! Allez les bleus!
Allez! Allez! Allez les bleus!!!
(repeat ad nauseum)

Now if you are in Lyon, even after a couple of gallons of hot mulled wine, you can reasonably modify this to fit the local team name. In fact, slurring may help!

Meanwhile, down on the field, the rain continued to fall and you could easily spot the substitutes as they went in from their clean uniforms. I was reminded of when I was back in school on the wrestling team. On rainy days we'd sometimes head to the field and play "rugby." Our version was mostly just an excuse to pound on each other in the mud - we rarely, if ever, passed the ball and nobody ever told us about kicking it. Our games ended when one team no longer had the strength to stop the other team from scoring at will. Something like that was happening down below, as our team gradually began to wear the other team down. Finally we started scoring field goals and then as time went on the score went up quicker and quicker until in the end the score was 34-0. Whoo Hoo! Allez Les Lous!