The Rugby Football Union has transformed Twickenham into a working Japanese railway station ahead of England's meeting with Japan, with platforms laid across the pitch and a timetable displayed on the north stand at an interval of four minutes.
Stewards have been issued with white gloves and instructed to push spectators into carriages one by one, a procedure the union described as "the only sensible way to fill a stadium that seats eighty thousand people". Each supporter is handed a cardboard ticket stamped with the time of entry, and anyone found standing outside the marked lines is escorted back to the concourse by a steward in a peaked cap.
A spokesperson for the union confirmed that the scheme was devised after the fixtures committee concluded that rugby supporters were insufficiently punctual. "We have hired eleven retired commuters from the Yamanote line to train our staff," the spokesperson said. "By kick-off, the crowd will be sitting in perfect rows and will bow to the referee before he blows the whistle."
Local residents in Whitton and Twickenham Green have reported that the nearby high street now closes at five every afternoon in accordance with a notice issued by the council, and that a queue of several hundred people has formed outside the newsagent waiting for a bento box. The England coaching staff have been asked to wear suits.