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Monye and Harlequin FC Come Full Circle

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Ugo Monye has been an ever present figure for Harlequin FC – having witnessed the despair of the fans when the club got relegated from the Premiership in 2005, the scandal and now, finally, he considers his stint at the club to have come full circle with The Quins winning their first ever Aviva Premiership title. The 29 year old winger is the longest serving player for the club at the moment, having spent 11 years of his career at Twickenham Stoop and having had to wait this long for the biggest success in the professional sport of the country, it is obviously very special to him.

Monye was also a part of The Quins side that won the Amlin Cup last season but the triumph of the club at the Aviva Premiership is bigger than any other win. The journey has been long and rigorous for the flanker, who made his debut for Harlequin FC back in 2002 and now that he has finally tasted the champagne of victory, he wants more such moments before he decides to call time on his career and hang up his boots.

According to Monye, he and his team mates had always known that success was going to come at some point in time, the question was when. He also cited Matt Hopper, who was playing in the playoffs of the Championship last year and now, has a Premiership medal around his neck and although he has had to wait a long time for success, it is worth it.

According to Ugo, this is the first major trophy for the club. Although the Amlin Cup victory of Harlequin FC was important, it was more of a springboard toward greater success than a success in itself and the cub will now aim for the Heineken Cup.

SARACENS vs HARLEQUINS

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Two of the biggest names in the Aviva Premiership, Saracens FC and Harlequins Football Club go head to head this week and as per the ticket sales, the London derby might just be the biggest ever in the history of the game with as many as 85,000 people expected to make their way into the stadium to cheer on their respective teams. This milestone, should it be reached, will represent a huge step forward for rugby as a club based game in England since the start of the Aviva Premiership in 1997.

At that time, Mark McCall, the Director of Rugby for Saracens and his counterpart at Harlequins Football Club Conor O’Shea were teammates for another Aviva Premiership side the London Irish and the biggest home crowd that they could expect at the home stadium of The Exiles at The Avenue was a meager 5,000. According to officials of Saracens, they just have a few hundred tickets still left to be sold and with the match taking place at Wembley, which has a capacity of 90,779, they are well on their way to beat the attendance record set in the match between the Leicester Tigers and the Celtic League side from Ireland, Munster Rugby which was recorded to be 82,208.

According to McCall, it is great for English rugby to be selling games out like this and he also extended his gratitude to The Quins who are as much responsible for pulling such a huge crowd for the match as they are – Nick Easter in particular has been sensational recently.

Harlequins Football Club might be struggling in the European Challenge Cup and was knocked out unceremoniously, but they are still on top and a victory against the arch enemies will give them immense confidence ahead of the next few matches that are left and the new season.