Alright so here’s what happened with this RCT Toulonnais rugby schedule mess. Woke up yesterday obsessed with finding match dates for this season because my mate Jean-Pierre kept pestering me about grabbing tickets. Figured it’d be simple right? Famous last words.
The Wild Goose Chase
First thing – jumped straight to Google shouting “RCT match calendar 2024” like an idiot. Nothing. Official site? Buried deep in some labyrinthine menu. Found last season’s fixtures like some cruel joke. Twitter? Just hype videos and player selfies. Instagram? Forget it – pretty stadium shots but zero dates. Felt like chasing ghosts.
Then I remembered seeing posters near Old Port last month. Slapped my forehead – hopped on the packed bus downtown. Squeezed against some dude’s backpack strap digging into my elbow. Got off, legs wobbly, scanned every lamppost from Place d’Armes to Cours Lafayette. Found one faded poster under rain stains – team logo clear as day but dates rubbed off completely. Nice.
Dumb Luck & Spreadsheet Rage
Gave up. Sat at a cafe sulking over burnt espresso. Grabbed my phone scrolling absent-mindedly through some local Toulon news site ad chaos. Bam! Tiny text block hidden below fish market price reports: “RCT Fixture List Released”. Nearly choked. Screeched my chair back so hard the waiter glared.
Copied dates frantically into phone notes. All crooked – Marseille away Dec 14th, Racing 92 home Jan 5th, Clermont nightmare trip Feb 29th. Realized Jean-Pierre works Sundays when half these games happen. Needed to visualize clashes.
- Opened Excel – hated it immediately
- Color-coded home/away games
- Highlighted Sunday matches blood red
- Starred derbies against Stade Francais
- Pasted Jean-Pierre’s shift patterns – messy yellow blocks everywhere
Looked like a toddler attacked it with highlighters. Jean-Pierre’s shifts overlapped five key games. Total disaster.
The “Solution”
Shoved laptop across the table. Called Jean-Pierre ranting about February clashes. He just laughed – “You didn’t see Stade Mayol posts their calendar behind the ticket counter?” Silence. My bus trip. The elbow pain. All pointless.
Printed my Frankenstein spreadsheet anyway. Taped it crooked above my desk as a monument to overcomplicating simple crap. Lesson learned? Sometimes rugby clubs suck at sharing schedules. And mates give terrible advice. Still forwarded Jean-Pierre the file. He replied “Merci!” – now I’m stuck helping his uncle decode it too.