Infamous Muscat Rugby Club to re-open this weekend

Muscat Rugby Club is a famous boozing joint, where occasional rugby is played too, out in Al Khuwair near the ABA school. It used to be a regular place for expats to go watch sport and get smashed on cheap drinks.

But, last year when a drunken crew of visiting Kuwait-based expat rugby boys abused the ROP for trying to interrupt their bacchanalian revels, after their post-match party had spilled into the street outside (with stories of a few of the players being in drag for some reason), the ROP came back with their own version of ‘fcuk you too’ and simply closed the whole place down, withdrawing their license.

Which seems fair enough.

But I’ve been told this info obviously hadn’t reached the big boss. When an Englishman, who was known by the Diwan to be a rugby fan, was meeting with a senior aide to His Majesty a few months ago on an unrelated matter, he was apparently asked how the Muscat rugby club was doing. On being told that it had been closed down by the ROP for ages, the aide looked a bit ill and scurried to HM, returning to say that the club had been a gift from HM to the British people of Muscat and that the situation would be sorted asap. Clearly no-one had bothered to think the club’s closure was something HM needed to know.

And so, it’s officially open for business again chaps. With a bit of a tightening of the rules naturally, and I especially like the revised guidelines on "how not to piss off the good officers of His Majesties Royal Oman Police after imbibing 12 pints of Stella while wearing a skirt". Membership is a quite reasonable 60 rials a year, entitling you to enjoy subsidized alcohol in the company of extremely inebriated British and Ex-Colonial rugby lads, who generally enjoy a bit of full contact ball-playing with their pals. If that’s what you’re into, there is no finer establishment in the Sultanate.

What most expats don’t seem to know that almost all the pubs and drinking holes in Oman have a regular watcher from Internal Security keeping an eye on things. Ever noticed the quiet middle aged Omani guy, usually in the corner at the bar on his own, quietly nursing a pint of beer and looking bored out of his skull? That’s him. It’s mainly to keep an eye on the younger Omani lads and to call the ROP riot squad in a timely fashion if things get out of hand, or to know if one of the less constrained HHs [His Highnesses] from the extended Royal Family is getting a bit wayward. Have a friendly chat with him next time, and you may make a very useful acquaintance.

Perhaps I'll see you at the MRC...