The story behind sports’ most unusual souvenir
By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports activities Columnist
Have you ever ever heard of a seven-dollar notice? No, neither had I till what’s now my new favourite sporting memento was actually handed to me by a shopkeeper in Fiji over the weekend. And all it price me was $3.50.
If issues are already getting complicated, let me simplify and backtrack a bit of. I’m presently in Fiji on a quick household trip, for the next causes: It’s a jaw-droppingly fantastic place, the individuals listed here are the happiest on earth (based on a 2014 survey) and, should you stay in Los Angeles, it’s really as low cost as flying to most American locations should you’re reserving late for a Memorial Day weekend journey.
Fiji, a breathtakingly stunning assortment of islands within the South Pacific, is sports-obsessed, and the digital entirety of that obsession is rugby. Fijians adore it. Each different product within the grocery store looks like it’s endorsed by the nationwide workforce. Youngsters play rugby on the road, within the park, on the pool, at college, out of faculty and on the seashore.
Regardless of a inhabitants of just below 1,000,000, Fiji is proof that such a deep love for one exercise results in sensible outcomes. In rugby sevens, the shortened model of the sport that has been a part of the final two Olympics, Fiji punches properly above its weight.
Within the 2020 Tokyo Video games rescheduled to final summer season, the boys’s squad clinched gold for the second straight time, trouncing rugby heavyweights New Zealand, Australia and Nice Britain alongside the way in which. The outpouring of nationwide pleasure was off the charts, a lot in order that the federal government stated to heck with the centuries-old norms of forex dominations, and went with fortunate No. 7.
The Fijian seven-dollar notice is a factor of magnificence too, coloured in gold (after all), that includes the picture of the victorious Olympic squad singing the nationwide anthem on the medal ceremony and captain Osei Kolinsau trying skyward. The present change fee to U.S. {dollars} is 2:1, therefore the $3.50 valuation.
For somebody who nerds out about sports activities as a lot as I do, unexpectedly receiving the banknote as change in a lodge reward store was a very wondrous improvement. It is a place the place you possibly can strike up a dialog about sports activities with completely anybody you meet, so long as it’s about rugby. The native newspaper had 14 pages on Saturday, all of it devoted to the sport the locals love.
In 22 years as a sportswriter, I’ve been terribly fortunate to witness a few of the world’s biggest occasions, however there have additionally been instances when different, extra native experiences, have both landed simply earlier than or simply after my journey to a rustic. For instance, on a piece go to to Japan a number of years in the past, the largest sumo wrestling event of the yr started simply hours after I had departed.
This time, nonetheless, I hit the jackpot. Our arrival in Nadi coincided with recreation day for the Fijian Drua, a membership comprised virtually fully of the Fiji nationwide workforce squad, and which performs towards franchises from Australia and New Zealand in Tremendous Rugby – one of many strongest membership competitions on the earth.
I watched at a bar surrounded by the nice and cozy and welcoming locals, because the Drua mounted a livid comeback earlier than shedding a nail-biter, 35-34, towards the visiting Chiefs workforce from New Zealand, which featured a number of members of the mighty All Blacks.
In a rustic the place rugby is king, the whole lot else stops. Anybody searching for a tv set not tuned into the sport on Saturday was out of luck. On the sold-out Churchill Park stadium, the cameras often zoomed in on Voreqe Bainimarama, Fiji’s prime minister and the person who ordered these rugby-themed banknotes, sitting within the stands.
Informed you it was critical stuff.
Within the days since, it has grow to be clear that even possessing a bit of rugby information is gas for an instantaneous dialog starter right here. Fiji is a supremely kindhearted place, the climate is balmy, you get compliments should you put on colourful flowery tropical shirts, and pleasant chatter is a given.
That is paradise as if it was invented by a sports activities junkie – all of the sandy seashores, sunny skies, crystal blue waters and occasional palm timber in place – however with a sporting theme working by means of every day life that’s ever-present.
The holiday is coming to an finish, however Fiji’s love of rugby by no means will. And the seven-dollar notice, clearly, is coming residence with me. Price as a lot as a cup of espresso, however so, a lot extra.
Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports activities and the creator of the FOX Sports activities Insider E-newsletter. You’ll be able to subscribe to the publication right here.
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