Though some Team No-Side members found love for the game overseas, many will soon be seeing a live match for the first time
Two days out from opening night, Tokyo Stadium was buzzing with workers fixing the trimmings, hanging banners from the gantries, stacking crates of beer behind the bars, peeling back the plastic wrapping from the deep-pile carpets in the VIP suites. Wandering around among them was a crocodile of 70 merry volunteers getting their first look at the place, and their final instructions for what to do on Friday night. World Rugby has recruited 13,000 volunteers altogether. For the next six weeks they will be trying to shepherd half-a-million “tired and emotional” rugby fans through Tokyo, Shinjuku, Shibuya and all the other rail stations on their way to and from the grounds.
Around two-thirds of the volunteers speak English, the rest, says World Rugby’s director of workforce Deb Jones, have been taught that they can get by with a smile and a high-five. They are called Team No-Side which, Jones says, is an interesting little story in itself. Way back in the day referees would call “no-side” at the end of the match, when neither team had the ball. It’s fallen out of use in England, but it’s stuck in Japan, where it has grown into an idiom that means everyone should put aside their differences and get together to share a drink at the end of the game, the idea being that there’s “no side” for winners or losers.
Written by Andy Bull in Tokyo
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/sep/18/rugby-world-cup-volunteers-japan-team-no-side under the title “Volunteers introduce World Cup fans to Japan … and themselves to rugby”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
