This article explores the evolution of Harlequins' annual Big Game fixture, tracing its origins from Stade Francais' flamboyant events at the Stade de France to its establishment as the biggest yearly fixture in club rugby at Twickenham.
Listen on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra, BBC Sounds and the BBC Sport website and app, and read the match report on the BBC Sport website and app.All are Harlequins jerseys, but none are in the club's trademark colours of blue, magenta, brown and grey. One is camouflage khaki, another has neon laser stripes jagging across it, a third glows in the dark.
They are all special editions, created for their Big Game, an annual festive fixture for which Harlequins make the half-mile trip from their 14,800-capacity Stoop to the 82,000-seater Allianz Stadium.Since the first Big Game in 2008, it has become the biggest yearly fixture in club rugby anywhere in the world.Harlequins ran out 15-10 winners to poop Stade Francais' Stade de France party in December 2008 'I'll never forget running out at the Stade de France, and there being can-can girls, knights jousting on horseback and gymnasts doing these amazing flips on the pitch,' said scrum-half Danny Care.It was 8 December 2008 and Harlequins were part of the cast for Stade Francais' latest gaudy jaunt to France's national stadium. Media magnate Max Guazzini was Stade's owner and known for his flamboyant marketing of the team. Eye-popping kits, calendars featuring naked players and celebrity visits to the changing room fed the hype. Staging matches at the Stade de France, and attracting near 80,000 crowds in the process, was another of his ringmaster tricks. It may have come as a shock to Care, but Harlequins chief executive Mark Evans had been watching for a while. By the time Quins and Care played in Paris, Evans had already booked out Twickenham for three weeks later and a match against Leicester.'Paris is not a big rugby city - it was even less so back then - and I thought if they can get 80,000 people in on a combination of staging an event and pricing which made a large percentage of seats affordable, I was sure London could do the sam
RUGBY HARLEQUINS BIG GAME STAADE DE FRANCE TWICKENHAM
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