Royalty Tours USA

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Royalty sees a Rugby World Cup match in Leicester, England!‏

While I was in Leicester, England back on Tuesday October 6th, I wound up going to see a Rugby World Cup match between Canada & Romania (Pool D) at Leicester City Stadium aka King Power Stadium, home of the Leicester City FC of the English Premier League.

Wilko
Rob, Angela Campion & I
After my pal Rob Campion & I spend a little time at his house, we went out & he drove us over to a nearby neighborhood where we could park the car on the street for free. By doing so‎, we were able to take a twenty minute walk to the Stadium. Since it was raining at the time, Rob let me borrow some rain gear. Once we got out of the car, we started walking. On the way, we stopped off at a local chain  store that sells housewares called Wilko. Rob's wife Angela works there. We stopped in for a short time to say hello. It was great to see her again. We initially met when they visited the States for the first time in September.

Outside Leicester City Stadium
Canada vs. Romania Pool D
Me & Rob Campion
After we said goodbye, Rob & I continued to make our way over to the Stadium. As we got close, we saw a rainbow. Thankfully the rain ended in time for the ‎match to be played without a hitch. When we got to the Stadium, Rob & I walked around the outside of the venue. We took pictures & enjoyed the atmosphere before we headed inside. Rob got us tickets when they went on sale back in July. He wound up buying a package that included a few other matches they were playing there as well. Our seats wound up being in the corner of the pitch. It worked out well as the section right next to our seats was relatively empty so we were able to move over. As a result, we had some stretching room. Since there were restrictions once you got inside, we were limited to where we could walk around. As a result, we weren't able to meet up with my pal Sean MacDonald who was also at the match. He was sitting in a different part of the Stadium. We wound meeting him outside by the team store afterwards.

View from our seats
Scrum
As for the match we saw, Sean was disappointed as his country Canada blew a 15-0 lead they had at ‎halftime. In the second half, Romania came alive. They scored 17 unanswered points as they went on to defeat Canada, 17-15 overcoming the largest deficit to ever win a Rugby World Cup  match. As a result, we all saw history. We also got to see some scrums, tries, conversions & penalty kicks. It was fun watching people from both countries root on their teams. 

Romania celebrates their victory
Thank you for attending RWC 2015
Unfortunately here in the United States even though we have a National team, rugby is one sport that I barely know exists. This was only the second rugby match I've witnessed live. The other one was in Melbourne, Australia. I personally enjoy watching it. I plan to get more involved as time goes on.

Dinner at Turtle Bay
Once we got outside, Rob & I met up with Sean. We proceeded to walk back to Rob's car together. ‎We all went to have dinner. We wound up eating at Turtle Bay which was a Caribbean restaurant within walking distance of the train station. I wound up having some ribs that came with cole slaw & fries. I also had a local craft beer. While we ate, we all got to share our different travel experiences along with our passion for watching live sporting events. We all had a great time spending precious time together. While Rob showed me around the City & the suburbs before the rugby match, Sean told us he went to visit King Richard III's dynasty death & discovery. It was a learning experience for all of us.

Sean MacDonald, Rob Campion & I
King Richard III Pub
After we finished eating, we said our goodbyes. Rob went back to his car & he drove home while Sean & I walked over to the train station to catch our 9:58PM train back to London which arrived at St. Pancras at 11:30PM. Sean & I said our goodbyes. He was heading back home that Wednesday morning. As for me, I had a few more days there before I returned back home.

Stay tuned for another special post that will go into detail how I spent that Wednesday.

Thank you for reading & following along.

Yours truly,

Gary Herman

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