For three decades the Lincoln Park Rugby Club has toured the world, spreading the city’s name in a positive way to people in Europe, Asia, South America, Australia, and the West Indies. But one evening last week a city cop, apparently acting on Park District orders, barred the team from the lighted section of the park where they’ve been practicing for years, on the grounds that they were a danger to the grass. He told them to stop practicing or even jogging, directed them to an unlighted portion of the park, where they couldn’t see to play, and warned them they could be ticketed and arrested for disobeying his commands.
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In those days the Park District was run by a crude bunch of Democratic loyalists who made no pretense of being anything other than what they were–party hacks. They usually operated out of the dusty back rooms of old field houses, where they spent their days playing cards and smoking cigars. This was an era of clout, yet they let just about anyone, even hippies, play in the parks for free. “As I recall, we were getting permits for a while, and then they stopped requiring them,” says Fohrman. “It was all very informal. We just played.”
Generally the team practiced at the south end of the park, near North Avenue on a field it shared with softball and soccer teams, Frisbee throwers, kite fliers, dog walkers, artists, lovers, and pot smokers. They competed in national and international tournaments, and frequently hosted players who dropped in from all over the world, knowing only that somewhere in Chicago was a park named for Lincoln where rugby was played.
“We see the Social Club all the time–their games are going on all around us,” says Williams. “We always stay out of their way. If one of their balls rolled into where we were playing, we’d scatter and let the outfielder track it down. It’s not my kind of thing–it’s mainly a pick-up scene–but I’ve got nothing against them. Still, it bothers me that they get all the permits for this part of the park. It’s not fair that they can muscle us out.” (Social Club officials would not comment.)
Williams and his teammates were outraged. Booting them from the park seemed unfair and arbitrary, particularly when they saw the Social Club playing football on the very field supposedly reserved as open space. Williams wrote Mayor Daley. When that failed to ease his frustration, he wrote park superintendent Forrest Claypool. “That the Park District allows soccer, from which rugby was derived, and football, a sport derived from rugby, while [prohibiting] rugby is illogical,” he wrote Claypool.
“They do, because they’re a team that wants that park space at the same time every week.”
The rugby players remain dissatisfied with Ackermann’s explanation and solution. “We want our old field back–it’s much better lighted than Clarendon Park,” says Williams. “Let the Social Club play in Clarendon Park. We were in Lincoln Park first. It comes down to this: they have clout and we don’t.”
