Rugby in LA - The Recap

Mr. Magaidi

The sea of red black green and white at the Home Depot center in Los Angeles was a sight to behold. Kenyans from all walks of life, all corners of the continental United States flocked to cheer their underdog team against rugby powerhouses gathered for the USA Sevens. In addition to this, we were treated to a fun filled weekend. I met distinguished personalities from the KBW ring, anonymity was a priority, and if you’re sharp enough, you might just tell who they were but it ain’t coming from me. It was a great pleasure though. Most classy moment of the whole tournament for me was after Kenya beat USA to win the Shield Title (26-12), Kenyan fans acknowledged the USA team with as much vigor as they did their own team. For revelers we had a range of choices on where we wanted to ‘row de boat’, one was ‘pon de river’ literally as Nameless and Bamboo entertained folk at the world renowned ‘Queen Mary’ ship while others enjoyed music by Kenya’s top disc jockeys DJ Adrian, DJ Babu, DJ Pinye at other venues. Additionally Code Red DJ Stylez, Chicago’s DJ Top Donn and Dallas’ own DJ XP among many other excellent turn table-ists. Kleptomaniax, Mercy Myra and others also performed.

Overall:

It was great to see country men & women come out and cheer on their team. Of even more significance is the fact that no incidents of violence were seen/reported. Generally the crowd was reserved, much better, camaraderie was evidenced all over the place. Intermingling freely with statesmen/women from other regions including Tonga, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, England and other places. The distinct feeling was general: you didn’t have to be a rugby fan to enjoy your time there. I had very interesting conversations with KBW members and the we all came out feeling that we should definitely arrange a meet up and discuss issues we consider affect us. Hopefully we will all be able to make some time in the near future with more time to make arrangements. Suggestions as usual are welcome (the earlier the better, at this moment I have my eye on memorial weekend).