Although I had played very few games for my school on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, it wasn’t until that first game for my one, only and beloved Buenos Aires Cricket and Rugby Club that a career loving the game really took shape.
And as much as that first game is still etched in my mind despite being 10 years old – playing at 10, scoring a try and playing outside Hernán Vidou (who would a few years later kick all of Argentina’s points against England in the famous 1990 win, back to him later) – it was the joy it gave my late father Ed seeing me wearing the blue shirt, blue shorts and red socks that he had worn for many years, that I now cherish.
I have a very small recollection of him as a player, seeing him warming-up for an away game and barking orders. He was more than the captain of the second fifteen. “Chief” became his nickname and few would call him anything else in the years that followed.
Back to that cold morning of June. What started that morning was also a connection through the game with my father that would unite us in ways that I can still feel, despite his passing in 2015.
For many years I’d play for school and club, two games a weekend. For a few of those years, school rugby meant Saturday afternoons, whilst BACRC, or BA – as it is well known as all over my country – was on Sundays. Dad would never come to see me play for my school, even though he had attended that same St. John’s School a few decades earlier. Saturdays for him meant going to suffer – most of the times – seeing our club’s First XV. Having gone with him from a very early age to “our club”, school rugby meant I would miss watching my heroes struggling in the then second division.
So, for club games, wherever we played – and some games were quite far from our place – he, together with a loyal band of fathers, would fill their car with many more kids than would be accepted today for insurance, and drive us to games. Many of those players would form the core of friends I still share my life with. That group of parents also became close.
I failed to understand at the time the joy a father can take from watching a son play the sport he also loved. Of course, he was more than a chauffeur and on the way home, once all of our passengers were dropped, he’d dissect my individual game allowing me to get better with each conversation.
As I grew older, I was fortunate to play for that same First XV Ed and my older brother James had played in; by then, we were competitive in the top division. It was a joyful time of my life; he never told me in words of the pride he felt… but I knew!
Mom would come to watch me play when I was in the First XV and even grandparents and uncles would come. They chose the peak of my rugby playing days, but Dad was there from the first day.
Frankie with his father after an U18 game
We also enjoyed together a tour to New Zealand and Australia in which he was manager and I was his not very useful assistant manager. Still, a blast and one of my best ever trips.
The game turned into my way-of-living as I embraced journalism and was lucky to choose rugby as my main subject. He would share some of my stories with his rugby mates, many of whom would eventually regale me with stories of Ed’s pride.
In 2002, England played a midweek game at our club’s old premises. I was away on business in South Africa, but Ed made sure that the travelling media were well looked after, dined and wined. I would have loved to tell my media friends that I had organised that in my absence, but it was one hundred per cent Ed!
Over the years, some of them would ask me how he was doing. After retiring after a long and successful career in shipping, Ed started with early signs of Parkinson’s disease. His love of the game never diminished and would attend First XV games, health deteriorating until he could no longer drive. His club friends would ensure he was there on Thursday for dinner and at pre-game lunch, and back at home a few hours after final whistle.
He was already turning for the worse when my kids started to play the game, so he was not as ever-present as when I played. He would eventually also be hit by Alzheimer’s and he no longer was able to be pitch-side. A year and a half after his last visit to the club, to his second home, he died.
As I enjoy – damned COVID-19, that joy is currently unavailable – my two youngest kids playing rugby, I fully comprehend what Ed went through.
How enjoyable the early Saturday and Sunday rises and the long drives with them and their mates are, how I love seeing them enjoy their sport of choice, and how close I’ve become to the group of parents that follow the teams my two boys play in, is an imitation of what he went through – with me and James.
Marcos (U18) and Manuel (U16) are third generation at a club founded before 1864; the club was there more than a century before Ed walked into it for the first time, and will be there long after we are gone, but knowing that we’ve all contributed in some way or form, is filling.
All the male Deges – Ed, two sons and five grandsons – have played for BA.
Frankie with his father and older brother James, at the 150th anniversary of the club
All the male Deges after watching oldest grandson Lucas play Maidenhead’s U18s
Frankie with his three boys (left to right) Matías, Manuel and Marcos
As to that scrumhalf in my first game who would go on to become a Puma, his late father Horacio – also a former international – had played with my father. I grew up and played with Hernán for many more years and he is still a good friend. His son Marcos has now played for a few good years with Manuel. If that is not legacy, don’t know what it is.
Ed and Horacio never got around to watching their grandsons playing together, but they certainly watched Hernán and me for over a decade, continuing a lifetime of friendship which I hope for Manu and Marcos.
The other day, before being asked to write these words, I was thinking of how I might feel if my boys made it to the First XV. About the pride of seeing them repeat history in an environment that has made all of us better people.
For many at the club, I will always be “Chief’s” son. And my sons his grandchildren. It is a medal of honour I carry.
Ed, a few months before he passed away
I was asked to write a rugby history. Whatever you want they said.
This is my story. My Dad’s story. My children’s story. This is rugby.
I would have loved for him to be able to read it!
Memory added on April 13, 2021
Comments
No comments have yet been added to this memory.
