Peter Bills : The changing face of "Twickers"

The All Blacks perform the haka in Twickenham Stadium. Photo / Getty Images

Images abound ... of great and glorious deeds of derring do, of spectacular tries, for sure.

But there is and always has been more to Twickenham than just exploits with a rugby ball.

The home of English rugby - home of the game itself, say the more
pretentious of the Rugby Football Union's most insufferable brigade and brigadiers - has always represented as much a theatre of England and itssocial nuances as a plain old rugby ground.

New Zealand's return to the ground this weekend, anevent now increasingly devalued by the game's sell-out to satellite
television and the consequent glut of international games, offers another reminder of this famous old ground's role in the history of British society.

Down the years, perusing the various classes of British society
at their leisure has often been as interesting an exercise as watching the matches themselves at
Twickenham.

"Twickers" as England's upper class fondly still describe it, has exemplified as well as any other institution Britain's age-old class system.

Entry to the hallowed corridors of the old ground was always
denied to the hoi polloi, the riff-raff as opposed to
the toffs.

While the former crammed onto the trains from Waterloo and ate
their pork pies noisily in Clapham Junction station, the latter strolled
to the ground from the famous west car park in their well-cut suits and
striking hats, a certain social class of Britishsociety which revelled in the days of Empire.

Once comfortably ensconced inside, theysipped fine wines, ate heartily and discussedevents in the City or in the Empire.

For an Empire still existed on the famous day in January 1936 when England achieved their first victory over New Zealand, a 13-0 success.

Programmes cost twopence and some still believed that there wouldn't actually be a war against Hitler's Germany.

Alas, Obolensky's match, as it came to be known, soon faded into the memory as Hermann Goering's game became apparent with a Blitzkreig campaign in Poland tha triggered the Second World War, three years
later.

The world changed, post-1945, but not Twickenham. Still, the
crusty colonels and their batmen, gardeners, sisters, brothers and
lovers turned up in their droves.

The pre-match barbecue in the vast West stand car park became popular and flourished, at least until the EU's 'elfand safety officers heard
about it.

They stopped all that pleasure in a trice.

But the esteemed officers and gentlemen of the old RFU went on much as before. TheTwickenham wine cellar is said to be one of the best nywhere in England,and the privileged fewawarded high office were anded a free ticket forlife on the merry-go-round.

And in fairness, it wasa unique ground. A smallwooden, cream painted fence, ran around thetouchline which meant those in the front rowsnearest to the pitch enjoyed a marvellous intimacy with the game
and its participants. And it was all so relaxed in those days.

In 1963, for the match against France, Isomehow took a wrongentrance, followed the noise of the crowd in thefirst moments of the game... and found myself onthe touchline just asFrench wing Christian Darrouy flew past me intothe corner for the opening try.

The image remainsvivid in my mindDown the years, the lower echelons of society,the less fortunate, fillednot the covered west and ast stands but the open south stand at Twickenham. This could be a rough place.

In 1970, when England played Wales, about 25,000 were sardined into this segment of the ground, an old part with concrete terraces that was usually pretty full with 10,000. On this day, whenever Wales threatened to score, a tidal wave of humans was swept down towards the front, feet dangling uselessly in the air.

Even before the game started, most women had somehow fought their way out, fearing for their safety.

At the start, I was standing next to my father, but by half-time, he was 50 yards away across the terraces wearing the exhausted
expression of a miner after a day at the coal face.

How any of us survived that day without death or serious injury I will never know. The Scots brought different challenges. A bottle or two of whiskey before the start and its inevitable reaction on the human body does wonders for creating some space on a packed terrace.

Even in a ground containing 70,000 plus, one drunken Scotsman had yards of terracing all to himself one year ...

In those times, you eagerly anticipated the arrival of the famous All
Blacks, the Wallabies or the Springboks. They came so rarely, sometimes not for four, five or six years, that expectation was heightened, the
impending excitement elevated for young boys.

Alas, today, they come here on an annual pilgrimage to the shrine
of high finance. Missed 'em last year? Don't worry, they're here again.

Can't make it to Twickenham this year? Don't bother, they'll be here again next year.

The game loses a lot by mislaying that mystique. Twickenham, today, is
of course another ground. The old personal touch has gone, the proximity to supporters long since a thing of the past. The old
stadium is no more, the splintered wooden seats which caught so painfully the unwary bottom, replaced by a plastic paradise. A crowd of
83,000 can now be accommodated, earning the RFU upwards of 4.5
million every time England plays a game.

So is it better? Not really. Just very, very different.

But of the two; the old, intimate ground and the impersonal modern version, I'd have to say I am not alone in preferring the former.

* Peter Bills is a writer for Independent News and Media