A fan of fandom and fanaticism
Living in a land of rugby-holics can be hard, even if you are one of the holics. It’s even worse if you’re an All Black, knowing New Zealand must win and that bit’s up to you. So when the Rugby World Cup comes to the semifinals and it’s the All Blacks against England, we care – we really, really care. And the Brits? They care not so much.
That’s why England didn’t deserve to win last night; they had mere fans cheering them on; while New Zealand had fanatics.
Yet, Kiwi passion can be our Achilles heel. We seethe; a forward pass thrown 12 years ago still rankles, 24 years on we’re still trying to find Susie the waitress, the poisoner of rugby dreams.
For all Wallabies halfback George Gregan has achieved, across the land of the long all black cloud, his ‘‘four more years boys’’ snipe still stings, 16 years after the 2003 semifinal.
England coach Eddie Jones knew this, so he and his players spent all week playing mind games, heaping on pressure with allegations of spying and alleged failings, all little stabs to our rugby hearts.
Jones knew the buttons to press. Love rugby or not, few Kiwis are untouched by it. Everyone knows someone who plays, a rabid fan, a member of a rugby club. Even if you despise it, you know rugby well.
You go from playing for – or cheering on – your primary school, to your high school, to your club, and into the grandstands to support ‘‘your’’ province, and ‘‘your’’ All Blacks.
It is the most watched, played and talked about sport in New Zealand. It grabs possession of news headlines, it occupies homepage territory on news
It’s perfectly natural for New Zealanders to see black as good, and England as evil; in fact, they’re acting quite reasonably.
websites. Given its origins in communities, it resonates from the urban areas to the smallest of towns.
Top All Blacks earn more than the prime minister, yet it’s rare to hear anyone question whether that should be the case. Beauden Barrett gets more for controlling part of a rugby field than Jacinda Ardern is paid for controlling the fate of a country.
In England, the rugby’s largely over when it’s over. Off goes the TV, down goes the warm pint, a few steps from Twickenham you’d struggle to find a rugby ball.
In a Wimbledon pub visited during the 2015 Rugby World Cup, the patrons spent more time whining that Chelsea football club had been
bumped off the telly by the RWC than they did watching our beautiful game.
So, England didn’t deserve to win this Rugby World Cup semifinal. They simply didn’t. New Zealand did, we wanted it more, we needed it more.
We wear black. We stream and scream. And when the game is over, we can be irrationally happy, irrationally sad, irrationally angry at the referee, or fuming at that bozo who missed a crucial touch.
Wait... did I say irrational? Well that’s what I thought, until I discovered Eric Simons the San Francisco-based author of The Secret Lives of Sports Fans: The Science of Sports Obsession.
He says it’s perfectly normal for sports fans to lose perspective. In the face of evidence to the contrary, they will get outraged at suggestions their team has a potentially offensive name or logo, such as Redskins or Crusaders, or that they have behaved poorly on or off the field.
But when it comes to the OTHER team, let’s say England, the rugby boot is on the opposite foot: then it’s all Owen Farrell got what he deserved when he was high-tackled; RWC-winning coach Sir Clive Woodward knows nothing; British journalist Stephen Jones is an annoying pest.
It’s Black. And it’s White. Just like the semifinal jerseys.
Simons indicates it’s perfectly natural for New Zealanders to see black as good, and England as evil; in fact, they’re acting quite reasonably.
It’s not a bit of a stretch to call the All Blacks ‘‘we’’, when all you’re doing to win the RWC is scoffing KFC on the sofa, and chucking back beersies. That’s simply your brain having trouble with what is ‘‘me’’ and what is ‘‘the team.’’
As well as feeling self-esteem, pride, identity, and a sense of belonging ‘‘you are quite biased toward yourself and your in-group’’, Simons reckons.
When the All Blacks win, you feel great. When they lose, it’s a dark day, even if the sun does still come up.
And you may be surprised just who best knows how ‘‘we’’ feel today. The English fans, that’s who, those slave song-singing, rose-wearing fans, with their Brexit-bungling Government.
Research has proven when it comes to two groups of sports fans, they have more similarities than they have differences. In short, ardent England rugby fans are pretty much just like you and me. They Are Us.
‘‘There typically is very little, if anything, that distinguishes these two groups of fans,’’ Susan Krauss Whitbourne wrote in Psychology Today.
‘‘They are passionate about their teams, know every detail about the players, and religiously follow the progress of their hometown heroes. The only factor that differentiates these groups is the team they root for.’’
So today, if you need to feel better about yourself, find an England fan and give them a hug. You know you want to.