Push the carthorses too far and they will rear up
Amid strike talk, James Corrigan says rugby union must heed lessons from the US of the strength of player power
Owners and authorities discovered that, without the talent, there was no NFL
With whispers of mutiny in rugby union’s dressing rooms, it is apt that today marks the 30th anniversary of one of the most bitter strikes in the history of professional sport.
Certainly the game’s power-brokers should recall the chaos and farce which came to pass at the start of the 1987 American football season and understand that when you push the carthorses too, far they will eventually rear up.
Billy Vunipola and Joe Marler are just two of the England internationals who have mentioned the possibility of industrial action if the domestic campaign is extended to 10 months from 2019; and headlines concerning a suggestion that England play their five-match Six Nations over six weeks, instead of seven, will only add further fuel to their fire, however unlikely the proposals are to succeed.
Vunipola has used the lockdowns over the pond as examples of how the workers in the jerseys can get things changed and he will realise that the rugby players’ arguments about player welfare and long-term health are so much more likely to gain sympathy and support than the case of their helmeted cousins three decades ago.
Then, on Sept 21, the NFL Players Association called a strike essentially looking for a bigger slice of the pie, as well as fairer employment terms. An NFL player’s average career span at the time was less than 3½ years and their average lifespan was only 55 years compared to the national average back then of 70. Short and risky only began to describe it.
Inevitably, however, there were individuals on huge contracts and the wealthy on a picket line is never a good look. As Boomer Esiason, the great Cincinnati Bengals quarterback, can attest.
“That strike made me public enemy No1 in Cincinnati,” Esiason told Sports Illustrated. “The fans hated a guy making $1.2 million going on strike. I threw for 409 yards against Pittsburgh [after the strike had ended] and was walking up the tunnel and got hit with a full beer. But looking back, it was worth it. The owners saw the scars it left, and they knew how dangerous another strike would be.”
The thing is, the owners actually “won” that dispute. They called the association’s bluff and fielded teams made up of emergency replacements. With such little time, they were forced to look everywhere for players, way beyond those who had been cut from training camps.
Washington Redskins signed a quarterback on a work-release programme from prison, while there were bouncers plucked off nightclub doors.
Inevitably, the football, played to half-empty stadiums and to rapidly dwindling TV audiences, was awful and the joke was there was better action on the picket lines.
As well as Joe Montana, Mark Gastineau became a “scab”, with the legendary defensive end claiming he needed the money to pay alimony.
One morning as he crossed the line, he ended up in a fist fight with a New York Jets team-mate who spat in his face. It was a sordid 24-day, three-match saga, in which the players backed down. But they made their point and the owners and authorities had discovered that, without the talent, there was no NFL.
Not to say this was the end of player power in American sports. The World Series was wiped out in 1994-95 when the baseball players embarked on a 232-day strike and, as recently as 2011, the NBA was locked down for the first two months of the season.
Rugby union, and its club owners, would do well to keep these instances in mind.
“Something has to give,” Vunipola said. Yes, it does, and at the moment the game seems destined for a scrummage at the stadium gates.