The year is 1994, sometime in mid-August and the green and gold school coach carrying the Namilyango College Rugby team turns into the gate of Kampala Rugby Union Football Club at Lugogo. Back then, the privilege to share a ride with our school heroes, smartly dressed in white and grey, with green and gold ties was to die for. To ride with them into the hallowed grounds that were shroud in awe-inspiring mystery, was the stuff of dreams.

For the wide-eyed 15-year-old rugby fanatic that I had, at that point become, this was a mixture of awe, fever pitch excitement and dread in equal measure. Awe at finally stepping out onto the grounds where giants literally strode. Excitement at the prospect of eighty minutes of adrenaline fuelled clashes between my heroes from school and the stars of Rhinos rugby, dread at the possibility of our team falling short of victory.

I still remember the way the sun felt on my face as I stepped out of the bus. The cool gentle breeze rustling the leaves of those huge mango tree sentinels on the side, towering witnesses of the many bruising battles on the grounds below. The clubhouse design and layout was set to maximize fields of view for the predominantly expatriate crowd that had turned up for the encounter. I stared, open-mouthed, and stared some more, drinking in with my eyes the pre-match swagger of the Rhinos players, the dressing room, the sound of rugby cleats on the paved courtyard, the speed and intensity of the first kick off and hit.

Such was the impact of this fabled ground on a rugby mad student in his senior 2, I was hooked for life. I would go on to play many games on this ground for school and club (Black Pirates RFC). 

This season, as I witness the unveiling of the newest rugby ground in Uganda, the Kings Park Arena in Bweyogerere, the new home of Black Pirates RFC, I cannot help but wonder what its impact will be to the sport of Rugby in Uganda, and sport in general. What will it mean to that curious boy or girl in Bweyogerere, with dreams to harness his/her raw talent and compete at the biggest arenas worldwide? Or that high school senior from the Ivy League rugby playing powerhouses, running on for a schools final, on the grounds hallowed by the blood and sweat of fully established international players for club and country.