Missoula's Farside Women's Rugby 

Mediocre Rugby, Wizened People, GREAT FUN!

2001 TROPHY FOR 25 YEARS PERFECT ATTENDANCE AT MAGGOTFEST 

CONTACT: Shelly Hayler,email:shelly.hayler@umontana.edu
CONTACT: Michele (Jersey) Mickleson, email: micmick@montana.com

The Farside is comprised of women who have had the distinction of being a University of Montana or Missoula's Betterside at one time or another. We don't have a schedule and we don't practice. We have priorities such as caring for our leftover body parts.

We meet as a muddled entity once a year at the Maggotfest. If you are a Farside person and we don't have your email address or some way to contact you, please send us a contact address and we will keep you posted for the next gathering.

Yikes, I'm too young for this page, get me to the Betterside!

FARSIDE ROUNDUP OF FEST 2001Our Farside adventure was a whopping success and the Silver Disco Diva's ruled. Friday night, people entering the Mo-club had to walk, squirm, squish their way through the silver tunnel of divas. During our first entrance of the night, a few of us took it upon ourselves to gain some "prime real estate" in the Mo. We then would lease out our property when we got the hankering to wander and get spanked by Bermudans or whatever weirdness would cross our paths.

We played two games Saturday and had great fun, to quote our own Stoner "we got our asses kicked but we are pretty". For a small consolation we did play two VERY young and good teams. In fact, one of them, the Rockers won the Best Play on Pitch for Women. Which brings me to a new factor of the Maggotfest. After the BetterSide won "Best Play on Pitch" last year the Maggots decided to present a Best on Pitch trophy to a womens side and a mens side,, sooo the MaggotFest will not see a Womens team win Best Play for the whole fest again. The Betterside ROCKS!

Saturday evening we enjoyed a dinner with the Betterside and Farside at Perugia. Barb Slott (mother rugger) gave us a funny and insightful rundown of the Betterside's beginnings. We learned:

1. The Betterside formed BEFORE there was a Maggots team.

2. The name "Betterside" came from being a better "side" than the men and everyone for that matter. However you say it, we are the BETTER SIDE! yee haw

3. The Orange Color came from some bum on the street's bad acid trip

4. The orange jersey with the Black hoops on the arms came from the Princeton Alumni team who had decided to ditch the god awful things. We were offered the jerseys at a basement bargain price. SOLD!

5. When the Betterside was formed 25 years ago, the founder mothers never dreamt that it would be the only American team in the Northwest to last the longest or have a PERFECT attendance at the Maggotfest.

We went through all the years that people had started playing and we were represented with someone from the year 1976 and the year 2001.

The Betterside presented Gifts of Appreciation to their coaches Sheri and Jersey.

After Dinner we hit the party, which had some great musicians playing but they just didn't have the Rock N Roll fever, plus the tolerance to beer throwing is lowering its threshold for us veterans, so off to our home away from home - MO CLUB! More fun.

Sunday we played our last game, thank god, it was grueling. The only points we made was from the ref who picked it up at the 40 and ran it in for us. Thanks Wags. With skinned up knees and bruised egos we quickly heightened our attitudes with a few brews and watched the awards, which were well worth watching as the BETTERSIDE was awarded a HUGE trophy for "25 years of perfect attendance to the MaggotFest". I think only one other team received this honor. Mother Rugger Barb accepted the trophy in PURE ELEGANCE and if you weren't there we can only say it was a sight to behold!

Moving onto Sean Kellys for Margaritas and/or the MaggotPitch for after Fest partying (like we needed it) ideas for 2002 costumes and game strategy were abundant. As people were catching or hitching their rides home, Kat and Paula, who had no idea how they were going to get to Spokane to catch their 6:30AM flight the next morning, SCORED on not just a ride but a couch to sleep on. Their ride was the Motorhome of Jeff Lombard (International Rugby Inc, guy), who just happened to be leaving the Maggot Pitch when they arrived at the pitch begging for a ride. Little did they know that he also had previously planned on parking the motor home 5 minutes from the Spokane Airport for the night. ONE for Jeff.

Stories like this make the Maggotfest what it is.

The Farside will be back next year. We have money left over which we can apply to next years entry fee, this will drop our playing fee considerably.

We hope those of you who could not join us will find the time next year, we would love to see you.