By LI Bohemian
February 25 2022

LI Bohemian kindly investigates the dark corridor that is supporting your team. We have all been there, I'm sure you'll hear echoes of your own experience here...

I never saw the home game against Saracens last Saturday. Firstly I had to work all day with just some music for company in a remote building in Oxfordshire. Secondly and more importantly, a pattern has emerged lately where if I watch or even listen to the game, Irish will lose or play badly. Now I know all about superstitious nonsense but superstitions have a habit of creeping up on you, before you know it, your saluting Magpies (I actually have never done this). I do not bother with the black cats, walking under ladders or any of the bad luck or good luck practices and yet when it comes to, when I played rugby and now a supporter of London Irish, the attitude to superstitious claptrap is somewhat lax.

The first time I intentionally did something that I thought would make me luckier was, as a player, before kick off I hit my little finger on the wall accidently. Although it ached it was not damaged, I taped it to the next finger just in case, in the game I scored two tries and from then on tape up fingers was a must. This was abandoned the following season and replaced with an equally ludicrous ritual, this carried on until I stopped playing.

The only game I have been able to attend this season was against Leicester at the BCS. I thoroughly enjoyed our new venue and the game was a tight affair that just got away from Irish in the last quarter of the match. For some reason I did not get to watch or follow the next two matches and was very surprised when I checked out the Exeter away result. I made a big effort to follow the next fixture which was the home game against Bristol Bears, which was not a win and so the pattern is was already starting to formulate subconsciously that implies - to support my team I have to ignore them.

I will soon choose a game to go to again in the near future and fingers crossed (I know) it will be a win and the pattern is broken but if Irish inexplicably lose a certain easy win game then you’ll know that it is the game this Albatross has attended.