The Joiner: Ironsides Rugby Football Club

In 2006, the Ironsides won the intermediate division: the Bingham Bowl. It came as a surprise to many: the 2006 Ironsides squad was weak. Mike Clark, a handsome, straight Scottish transplant recalls that the team lost nearly every game in the regular season. Something clicked at the Bingham Bowl, he said, and the Ironsides "played like animals from hell."

Club Vice President Joe Lyman hinted at what sparked the team's inner Cerberuses. The memorial tournament, and the biannual speech from Alice Hoglan, Bingham's mother, "is an event fraught with meaning."

Mike Clark has a rugby formula: "Half is trying to kill each other on the field, and half is going to the bar afterward." The event after the match is called the drink-up, and rugby teams everywhere respect the tradition. On Saturday, the Ironsides were joined by the victors of the day, the visiting Berkshire Rugby Club. Due, on the one hand, to the darts, trophies, old flyers, and pool table and, on the other, the scattered oil barrels and corrugated metal room dividers, the room at the Alley Bar seemed like a warehouse going under the knife to become a pub.

"What are all the barrels for?" asked a member of the Berkshire Rugby Club. His query went unanswered when a teammate found an equally inexplicable sheep-shaped blow-up doll.

After the match, the Ironsides always take the visitors to a Boston gay bar. Even when the opponents have been mostly straight, the acrimony has been left on the field. Sometimes, however, things turn a little odd.

Seth Clarke, a tall New Englander with lively eyes, a quick wit, and a faux hawk recalls the Ironsides' first home match against a straight team. In rugby, there is a tradition called, somewhat insensitively, the "Zulu," in which a player who scored his first team points during the game must dance naked at the drink-up. That day, the Ironsides lost to the straight team by nearly 100 points, which meant only one thing. "You had fifteen straight guys dancing naked on the bar at Machine," Clarke said, counting them off with his hands.

Of course, the Ironsides do more than drink beer. There is the fundraising -- the Ironsides hope to attend the Spring 2008 Bingham tournament in Dublin, Ireland -- booking the playing fields and, during the winter, the gyms with the City of Boston, and making sure there is beer at the drink-up -- all tasks handled by the volunteer club board. And then there is the half of rugby where you try to kill the other team on the field.

"I've never worked so hard in my life," said Dennis Noonan, the Ironsides President, who joined the club because he values team sports and wants to set a good example for his young son. Playing with Ironsides involves a big-time commitment -- semi-weekly practice and Saturday games, which are often out of town. But it also requires a relaxed attitude toward personal injury.

"I think injuries are hysterical," said Izzy Berdan (an alias), who is serving a three-game suspension for a roughness call that got him proclaimed man of the match. Berdan is also a walking almanac of Ironsides injuries -- he can and, as one spectator discovered, will tell you when, where, and how every teammate got banged up. (The Ironsides require all players to have health insurance to cover the inevitable broken bits.)

With seven more matches remaining in the Fall season, the Ironsides have time to reverse Saturday's poor showing. But they may need help. The team suffers annual attrition and is currently hardly capable of fielding the required fifteen players. They are accepting applications, but don't expect to see Bostonist on the pitch in the near future. We are too afraid of public nudity.

Organization: Boston Ironsides
Membership Restrictions: Must be male, have health insurance, and pay dues. Must have patience with rugby-related puns.

Boston's women play rugby, too. Here are two teams:
Boston's Women's Rugby Club
Beantown Rugby Football Club