I was 9 years old when I went to my first Rugby Sevens. From the moment I stepped into Hong Kong Stadium, I was hooked. Whether dancing to Tina Turner-helmed halftime shows or showing up in costume and cheering on the players – and streakers – alongside 40,000 other fans, I was a typical Hong Kong international school kid in that I was obsessed with everything about the Sevens – sometimes even the rugby.

In some ways, I grew up at the Sevens and can map out my life through it. As a child, I’d sneak into the box level: a freebie goldmine of tiny Cathay Pacific-branded rugby balls and shirts. Or my dad would take me to the pitch entry points, to watch players jog into the stadium, which roared like a unified beast.

When my friends and I were teenagers, the East Stand was our kingdom. We bellowed whenever Hong Kong scored, painted flags on each other’s cheeks and did our GCSE coursework in the stands. One year, I migrated to the West Stand to hide from my Welsh father, as I was dating a boy with the Scottish flag spray-painted into his hair: a sure betrayal.

If the box level was Disneyland to a child, then to a teenager the South Stand was the kingdom of heaven. The Sevens’ famous party zone was guarded by exhausted security who spent the day batting us away.