Northampton Saints
News: AP: Northampton Saints vs Leicester Tigers - Preview
By PelerinStJames
March 27 2014
It's THE local derby of the Aviva Premiership season this weekend as plucky Northampton Saints welcome the mighty Leicester Tigers to a sold-out Franklin's Gardens in what could be a season defining match. COYSDC's very own Dan Brown, PelerinStJames, takes a "novel" look at what lies ahead...
NORTHAMPTON SAINTS vs LEICESTER TIGERS
AP: Saturday 29th March 2014 - 3.15pm (BT)
FRANKLIN'S GARDENS, NORTHAMPTON
MATCH PREVIEW
Northampton v Leicester : Da Wayney Code Uncovered
Like many of you, I was at Twickenham last May to witness first-hand the Northampton Saints latest (and closest) attempt to achieve the Holy Grail of their first ever English Premiership Title. Sadly for those of us wearing Green, Black and Gold, it was not to be, and our greatest rivals, the Leicester Tigers, took the spoils. Of course, it can never be proved definitively either way whom Dylan was referring to as he muttered those infamous words, but the referee that day, dear old Wayne Barnes, certainly had a huge impact on the days proceeding. Indeed as he blew the final whistle, I very much doubt that any Leicester fans were watching or cared about what I saw as most of my fellow Saints fans were heading for the exits. My eyes, however, were firmly fixed on the man with the whistle as various Tigers players (Cole, Crane, Parling, Balmain, Harrison, Parling(again), Youngs B, Morris, Hawkins, Tait, Slater and Mafi) all dutifully and diligently went up and shook Wayneys hand as he left the pitch. Nothing too odd or unusual about that you might think, but I can assure you that they were the only Tigers to do so dear friends, and to find out the significance of these actions, we must first turn to both our clubs shared and hidden histories and dip into the dark and murky world of that most shadowy and shady of organisations, The Illiterati.
Now, for all you Dan Brown Conspiracy theorists out there, I hasten to point out that this group has nothing to do with the Illuminati. I can find no evidence what so ever to support the existence of an angry crazed shaven headed albino self-flagellating lunatic assassin who lives in a bare padded cell which may, or may not, house the infamous Illuminati branding irons (a known colloquially by the Vatican staff as the Stub Hub) nor that the spread-eagled body of Toby Flood mysteriously pointed the way to the mystical Holy Grail (the assertions that Dan Coles knee prevented him from doing so, and this was why a concussed Flood got sent back on and consequently this was the hidden catalyst for a foul mouthed rant at the 4th official quite frankly have no basis in fact and remain in my mind atleast, pure speculation). However, my careful and diligent historical research has unearthed some startling facts, not least the power wielded by the organisation which grew out of a desperate need to help the intellectually challenged populous of Leicestershire, and which has since risen to control the world of professional club rugby.
So where to begin? Wikipedia and the relevant club websites will give the founding years of both clubs as 1880. It is generally accepted that the Saints were founded in the parish of St James as a rugby club to reform badly behaved boys. I doubt that any Tigers fans will dispute this, and indeed, many will claim that this founding mission is still in operation today, albeit with varying levels of success. The Leicester team apparently adopted the Tigers nickname due to the orange stripes in their shirts. I would venture to suggest that there is actually a previously untold history that binds these two great clubs together, and one which explains the intense rivalry between us, and reveals the true beginnings of these East Midlands Rivals, including the original name of our friends from up the road.
So, my research shows that the story actually begin in 1244, at the infamous siege of Montsegur in France. Legend has it that 4 Knights escaped the Spanish Inquisition at this Cathar stronghold, and took with them the “Cathar Treasure” often thought to be the Holy Grail. These men are alleged to have fled to The Shire from France and legend has it that they brought with them the last copies of two books of the Bible which were rejected at the Council of Carthage in AD397. Two books venerated and by the legendary Knights of St James and two books that challenged the traditional scriptures held by the Catholic church and were taken to safety in a small village on Northamptonshire/Leicestershire borders called Rushton. Here, the Knights of St James swore to protect the books of Wendy and of Murphy and it was here that Thomas Tresham housed them in a rather ornate triangular lodge close to the Leicester/Northants border.
Little is known as to how the split between the descendants of these brave and noble men came about, but in 1880, a division occurred within the Holy Order; the Knights of St James headed south and built their fortress complete with a huge watchtower to keep the Book of Wendy safe, whilst another group headed North with the Book of Murphy and protected their book by digging a moat which surrounded their camp. Sadly, they forgot to fill it with water, and it simply became a roadway where peasants would endlessly circle with their horses and carts, a practice which can still be seen today.
As to the exact content of each book, very little is known, however it is my belief that Wendy was not just the wife of St James, but also a close friend and confident of Mary Magdalene. Allegedly, the Book of Wendy contains many confidential and intimate details on Mary’s different relationships and sheds doubt on whether the Holy bloodline as suggested by Dan Brown, was not that of Jesus but that of Murphy. These days, not a lot is known about Murphy, other than that he was reputed to have come from Jordon, and his book detailed how he never get caught doing anything naughty, no matter how much he continually transgressed the laws of the biblical lands. As far as I can tell, The Epistles of St Benjamin contains the only other known reference to the existence of Murphy of Jordon, however, official sources have always concluded that as St Benjamin was the only man present amongst a crowd of 24,000 to claim it was Murphy who rose from the dead and not Lazarus, Murphy didn’t exist. Yet, hidden away behind a secret door in the wooden panelling of the main staircase at Rushton Hall, lies a hidden chapel containing a 14th century plaster relief of the crucifixion of Murphy, the central character in which bears more than a passing resemblance to the current descendants of this bloodline.
However, I digress, back to 1880 and the formation of the Northampton Saints and the Leicester Thai Girls, to give them their original name. As each group of Knights had good hearts and were intent to do good, the Northampton contingent sought to reform local lads, whilst the Leicester group sought to address the educational needs of their new neighbours, who for generations had been intellectual challenged, and unable to read. Both factions sought inspiration from the nearby Rugby School, where one of the enlightened Professors had sort to teach his young men the alphabet by encouraging them to wear lettered Shirts, and encouraging them to stand in line in various formations to help them with their spelling.
One day, a football was being used as an impromptu full stop, when a rather large kid fell over and squashed it out of shape. So incensed were his class mates that they rounded on him, so poor old William Webb-Ellis had no alternative but to pick up the ball and run. In Leicester, it was therefore discovered that chasing a fat bloke with a ball was rather an enjoyable practice (second only in the region to the manufacture and eating of pork pies), as well as an extremely effective method of trying to teach the uneducated men to read. In Northampton, however, this technique proved extremely successful and the Knights of St James were soon able to abandon the lettered shirts, unlike their northern brethren.
Indeed, the noted local historian Professor C.P Snodgrass in his 1974 dissertation “1880 and The Enlightenment of Northampton Man” explains this is in far more detail for those that are interested, however, the basic tenets of his theory are that the Northampton men are far more handsome, far more articulate and far more educated than their less fortunate cousins in the surrounding counties, and as a consequence, the women of the midlands flocked in their thousands to the Rose of the Shires, where birth rates skyrocketed beyond belief. Conversely, back in Leicester, angry groups of Leicester men would congregate in the waterless moat to beseech their masters to bring across ladies from Bangkok in order to compensate for this distinct lack of local women. Their guttural cries of “Thai Girls, Thai Girls” unified the Leicester men and so this chant became synonymous with the Club, and provided them with their original name, Leicester Thai Girls. Yet, the problem remained that education within the province had always been slow progress; Thai Girls contains 2 words and 9 letters, including a silent H, and no matter how much they tried, the Men of the Illiterati who had sworn to teach Leicestershire to read, could not get their pupils to understand this. With a degree of resignation, they finally decided to change the name to Tigers, which after all sounds very similar, and is only one word and contains 6 letters, with, it has to be said a large degree of success.
Even today, thousands of Leicester folk still congregate to chant “Thai Girls, Thai Girls” in unison, and it has to be said any attempt to develop the number of chants and songs has to be frank fallen flat. The only progress has been to train the faithful in communal clapping, interspersed with the age old chant of Tigers. Granted there are no new words, but at least it is different (well, sort of).
So what, I hear you cry, has this to do with last years premiership final, and indeed the upcoming game on Saturday. Well, I would contend everything. You see that whilst the Leicester folk struggled with their ABC’s, only dispensing with the lettered shirts in the late 20th century, they did become very good at Rugby Football. And with this success, the men of the Illiterati have grown in power and authority across the rugby pitches and committees across the land. I would simply suggest that you look at most top flight English rugby teams, and almost certainly you will see a seemingly disproportionate connection to the Thai Girls amongst their coaching staff and indeed players.
Co-incidence or design? It is hard to say, but the desperate need for the Thai Girls to be seen as the Underdog may shed some light on this, with the question being why would such a successful team simply not enjoy the glory and celebrate their success, yet seek to be seen as less powerful that there record shows them to be. After careful research, I would venture to suggest that Rugby Club is merely a front for the Illterati, whose shadowy existence now extends far further than a roundabout in Leicester. Through this carefully constructed old boys network, Men of the Illiterati reach deep in to all areas of our great game and even beyond that into such revered organisations as British Olympics Association. Indeed, the most successful England sides of recent years, were jam packed full their members, and although this influence has recently wained, the naked hostility towards the House of Lancaster is hardly concealed amongst their faithful.
It is my opinion therefore that The Thai Girls are never the Underdogs, no matter what team they put out, they will always be extremely competitive, and most especially when playing Northampton. It is irrelevant how many injuries they have had, or how many players are not available. Recent history clearly shows them to be the favourites despite the continued efforts of the Illiterati to disguise this by using such underhand methods of underplaying their abilities by deliberately losing the odd game and employing such dastardly tactics such as signing Ryan Lamb, or starting an email campaign calling for their own coaching staff to be banned (I can exclusively reveal that the first email received by HQ on this subject came from none other than Brad.Stone@Thaigirls4eva.com)
To the neutral fans, it has become more and more obvious that the gap between the Thai Girls and the Saints has narrowed in the last 18 months. Indeed if you look at the suggested two teams for this weekend, you will see that it is Northampton that has the most current internationals, and on paper, the stronger squad. Most, I suspect given this seasons form and home advantage, would go for a close match with Saints just edging it, but as we all know these matches are a law unto themselves. Still, you can look at the suggested teams and draw your own conclusions.
Foden 15 Tait
Elliott 14 Thompstone
Pisi G 13 Tuilagi
Burrell 12 Allen
North 11 Goneva
Myler 10 Flood
Dickson 9 Youngs B
Waller A 1 Mulipola
Hartley 2 Youngs T
Ma’afu 3 Ayerza
Lawes 4 Deacon
Day 5 Slater
Clark 6 Gibson
Wood 7 Salvi
Dickinson 8 Crane
And this is clearly what scares the Illiterati most is the fact that they may no longer have the best team on the pitch and losing to their nearest and dearest rivals is something that is totally and utterly unthinkable, particularly in the Premiership Final. Had that happened then, the consequences would have been unthinkable; Northampton Saints not just stealing their women for over a century, but then taking their place as the best Rugby Team in the country. No, the Illiterati had to act, and as desperate times called for desperate measures, I would contend that unable to influence any of the players, there appears to be a significant trend regarding the Match officials.
Admittedly, I may be biased, but the same man has taken charge of 4 of the last 5 derbies, during which any number of contentious decisions have gone the way of the Thai Girls, and few the way of the Saints. Is it purely by chance that in the other game, the Saints managed a draw, yet lost the others by wide margins? How can it be that out of the 16 times that this man has refereed the Saints, they have only won 4? And let us examine once again the Thai Girls players who shook Wayneys hand after the cup final: Cole, Crane, Parling, Balmain, Harrison, Parling(again), Youngs B, Morris, Hawkins, Tait, Slater and Mafi. As we know, Thai Girls all have letters on their shirts to help them learn the alphabet, and I hope I don’t need to spell this out, but my belief is that there is a secret message hidden within this sequence. Of course, I fully understand that by giving an infinite number of Chimps infinite access to the internet, one day you will get a fully functioning fans forum, but seriously, this message cannot be co-incidence, can it?
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A smashing piece of work - thank you, good sir!
Totally barmy . Excellent.
Saint 'til I die
Did I type that out loud?
Re the picture it was from a series of pics I did on the old site titled 'Life at Pooh Corner' (its because its where Tigger lives, not the smell).
This one was captioned something like 'It didn't take long to find the traitor in the Pooh Corner ranks'
I wonder if the rest, there's about a dozen of them, still exist?
Quote:ChrisG.
I wonder if the rest, there's about a dozen of them, still exist?
They are about somewhere, Chris - I'll take a look this afternoon...
Phil 
Apparently Myler is going to be another late decision, he can't be far off as he's been on the team sheet until 5 minutes before kick-off for the last two weeks!
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Thais me in knots...
COYS!!
*I could agree with you - but then we'd both be wrong...*
Quote:Alphonse the Dog
Hmmm I see no pattern here (and hope you don't recognise our dastardly cheating in changing the back row to be 6, 8, 7 as F, G, H, so are you sure Crane shook his hand?)
Hmm, got to admit I was way up in the upper tiers so it may have been Salvi not Crane, but I would have expected atleast one spelling mistake in the coded message anyway.
Using [en.wikipedia.org] wiki/Rugby_union_numbering_schemes
Cole tight head ..................... C
Crane no 8 ..................... G or flanker? F or H
Parling lock ..................... D or E?
Balmain loose? head prop .............. A or C?
Harrison scrum half ................... I or bench P onwards
Parling (again) lock .................. D or E
Youngs B scrum half .................. I
Morris wing ........................... K or N
Hawkins hooker ....................... B
Tait full back ....................... O
Slater lock ......................... D or E or F or H
Mafi lock ............................ D or E
Ok so plainly CHEA, only literary combo, then Harrison ... gulp... off the bench P or T? Steady.. now was this fellow Youngs B really their first choice scrummy? That would be an I. Recap CHEATI or CHEAPI or CHEAT I or CHEAP I. Next can only be N... CHEATIN or CHEAPIN? The latter would be CHEEPIN as with the birds wouldn't it? So... looks like CHEATIN is favourite.
Did Hawkins ever play at No 8, G, think not, time for an apostrophe CHEATIN'... New word, replacement hooker probably not B must be P onwards but wait oh wait did Tait, O, Tait ever play loosehead A, eh? Tempting but no put the possible BA out of your minds and go for a combination of PO or RO or SO... Wait...followed by a possible D? Hmmm...let me think ...ROD...
Now did Mafi come on as a replacement and why would he wear the same S as Hawkins' S? Got it! Obviously Tiggers are such CHEATIN' SODE'S they're not above trying to confuse the referee and us with duplicate letters.
Oh no! Disaster! Accidently left out Parling's second coming, but and this is terribly spooky Pelerin, perhaps the CHEATIN' SODE'S did actually bring Parling on twice with different letters on his back in that final! There's more, much more, to this sorcery than dots the I, mark my words, BLUD will be mis-spilt! Agane and agane.
Also thank you for pointing us towards the coded messages as an alternative to my rather simplistic view that they have got a pact with the Devil.
Bridesmaids no more.
So I felt like it was fitting to use a whole bunch of strangely apt emoticons I never use to celebrate your masterpiece.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014:03:27:18:43:22 by SaintMaul.
That was a classic write-up sir, we need more of that kind of stuff to keep the smiles on our faces.
Per Ardua Ad Astra
No alcohol for January. I'm a dryathlete in aid of cancer research.
Dryathlon
Quote:oldtoastersaint
Are there prizes for cracking the secret Wayney code message Pelerin? Here goes anyway.
Using [en.wikipedia.org] wiki/Rugby_union_numbering_schemes
Cole tight head ..................... C
Crane no 8 ..................... G or flanker? F or H
Parling lock ..................... D or E?
Balmain loose? head prop .............. A or C?
Harrison scrum half ................... I or bench P onwards
Parling (again) lock .................. D or E
Youngs B scrum half .................. I
Morris wing ........................... K or N
Hawkins hooker ....................... B
Tait full back ....................... O
Slater lock ......................... D or E or F or H
Mafi lock ............................ D or E
Ok so plainly CHEA, only literary combo, then Harrison ... gulp... off the bench P or T? Steady.. now was this fellow Youngs B really their first choice scrummy? That would be an I. Recap CHEATI or CHEAPI or CHEAT I or CHEAP I. Next can only be N... CHEATIN or CHEAPIN? The latter would be CHEEPIN as with the birds wouldn't it? So... looks like CHEATIN is favourite.
Did Hawkins ever play at No 8, G, think not, time for an apostrophe CHEATIN'... New word, replacement hooker probably not B must be P onwards but wait oh wait did Tait, O, Tait ever play loosehead A, eh? Tempting but no put the possible BA out of your minds and go for a combination of PO or RO or SO... Wait...followed by a possible D? Hmmm...let me think ...ROD...
Now did Mafi come on as a replacement and why would he wear the same S as Hawkins' S? Got it! Obviously Tiggers are such CHEATIN' SODE'S they're not above trying to confuse the referee and us with duplicate letters.
Oh no! Disaster! Accidently left out Parling's second coming, but and this is terribly spooky Pelerin, perhaps the CHEATIN' SODE'S did actually bring Parling on twice with different letters on his back in that final! There's more, much more, to this sorcery than dots the I, mark my words, BLUD will be mis-spilt! Agane and agane.
Toaster, You are using the wrong cipher! Try your using your programme from the Final
I really hope that Tigers don't have a little extra that we're not expecting this weekend, much like some of the afore mentioned ladies!
Well done sir. I feel like I can never scribe again as I am not worthy.
So not the right answer eh? Use... Final... programme. Odd CAPITILISATION clue noted involving F and p. Third Reich connotations... Final programme, Final programme, Final... Zolution ach nein.. Solution SOLUTION!!! Let me think.
Zo p is SS venn in front of ein I, when followed by O und not also by Y, venn B vill be D either side of C , then F vill return swiftly to B, if Y defeats U U vill remain at C, Take VIER from GERMANY, oddly add B, how familiar a face has this mystery.
Und they say vee are not ein poetical race!!!
Zo Vikipedia haff not the Holy Grail been*, was it not so?
* citation required
"Concision is to style as circumcision is to substance." copyright OTS 2014
The only aphorism whose point is not to get the point!
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