ROTHERHAM TITANS
Brendan Gallagher analyses the struggle of rugby’s underdogs
BOTTOM placed Rotherham Titans have made the long journey to the Mennaye in Penzance this weekend to play the Cornish Pirates who are both old rivals and kindred spirits. Blood brothers almost. Both have fought the odds and the rugby establishment for decades now to bring top level rugby to their club and community while at the same time leading an almost week to week existence.
It’s a battle that never ceases and Rotherham are struggling right now. Championship play-off contenders as recently as May 2015, they have slumped to 10th and then 11th place in the last two seasons and finished the last campaign with a calamitous 82-3 defeat at London Irish.
Only London Welsh going into liquidation and then being expelled from the league in the New Year saved Rotherham from the drop in May. Ironically one of Roth’s best performances of the season was an opening day 33-32 win over the Exiles, a result that was subsequently expunged from the record books.
The Yorkshire side, however, continue to rage against the dying of the light in an attempt to avoid the fate that befell the likes of West Hartlepool, Orrell, Waterloo, London Welsh and to a lesser extent Rugby Lions. Once the slide starts, gravity seems to take over and it can be hellish difficult to arrest. Some – notably Richmond and London Scottish – who briefly plunged into obscurity rose again, but nothing is guaranteed.
Rotherham’s mindset has had to change. On the way up the team’s camaraderie builds naturally as you ascend the summit and the clubhouse trophy cabinet groans with silverware. And even when Rotherham, with everything weighted against them sometimes outrageously so, were struggling in the Premiership there was the anger and energy of fighting the good fight and trying to prove people wrong.
But what happens next, when rugby’s boat has sailed without you? There is no longer that tantalising glimpse of the promised land that once sustained you. Yet to survive mid-table in the Championship and more recently to fight off relegation requires every ounce of that spirit and camaraderie from the halcyon days.
That battle itself must become the reward. There is no other, except perhaps the bitter sweet sensation of being considered a nursery, a stopping off point for emerging talents heading to the top. So today Rotherham will be slugging it out as they have done every Saturday since leagues began in 1987.
For many years – and possibly even now – Rotherham were many people’s second team in that everybody admired their David v Goliath guts, ambition and endeavour. Again, Pirates also tend to fall into that category. Such clubs serve as rugby’s conscienc, a link back with a recent past.
Visits to Clifton Lane were rarely less than memorable, once you could find the ground that is. Pre satnav it was a magical mystery tour the moment you left the M1, but although the route always changed the welcome was constant: A reserved carpark space, friendly volunteers and steak and ale pies that warranted two Michelin stars. A pint of foaming ale was invariably thrust into your hand whether you requested it or not.
While not wishing to sound condescending – in fact the exact opposite – their modest ground and clubhouse which they share with the local cricket club is not dissimilar to many junior clubs around the country. The social scene was/is lively, there always seemed to be some upcoming event being advertised and the facilities are used extensively by the local community.
Their remorseless rise through the leagues from 1987, when they started in North East Division One, to their Premiership debut in 2000 involved eight promotions and throughout most of that period a tightknit group that grew together.
That collective spirit served them brilliantly but the dilemma for all such clubs was always how to augment the start-up squad – for want of a better phrase – when called upon to make the giant leap into the Premiership. Too many changes and you lose the chemistry, too few and you can struggle to compete.
Come their big moment it all went pear-shaped for Rotherham, just two wins in the 2000-2001 Premiership season, with the club’s lack of strength in depth being cruelly exposed in the second half of the campaign. Up until then there had been moments of heady encouragement – famous wins at home to Saracens and London Irish and picking up losing bonus points against Bristol and Gloucester.
There was much to admire but ultimately, they tailed off badly when they hit the wall and their slender playing resources were brutally exposed.
Being Rotherham, they stormed back the following season taking the Championship with 24 wins in 26 games, but their intention of returning immediately was thwarted when Premiership Rugby invoked their ground criteria and rejected both Clifton Lane and Millmoor – home of the Rotherham football team – as potential home venues.
Their plight ignited many fundamental arguments about the stillevolving Premiership in which a number of high profile individuals had invested considerable sums of money and wanted to protect that investment and have the final say over who was allowed into their cosy club. The ring fencing argument which continues apace to this day.
The Premiership had big plans and a glossy corporate image of itself going forward and Rotherham, and their homely but modest Clifton Lane ground in particular, did not fit that image. On the contrary, they were considered scruffy gate crashers.
It got very dirty with accusations that a number of Premiership club chairmen had effectively offered – or at least discussed the idea of – a payment to Rotherham, a considerable cash sum for ‘failing’ the ground criteria in the event of them winning promotion. The RFU set up an investigation – which took five months – chaired by Anthony Arlidge QC that, although finding no evidence of payments, made it quite clear that there had been informal discussions about the idea. Four Premiership chairman and Rotherham chairman Mike Yarlett were rebuked, a slap on the wrists if you like. Premier Rugby were also ordered to pay £90,00 towards the costs (£300,000) of the Inquiry.
RFU disciplinary chairman Jeff Blackett QC did not mince his words on receiving the report. “This whole affair has been caused because some who are involved are motivated solely by self-interest. This has apparently fuelled a willingness to side-step regulations, ignore the authority of the RFU and attempt to bring pressure to bear through the media.
“An essential part of rugby is that those involved have trust in each other, while acknowledging the preeminence of the RFU, their governing body, to whom disputes and allegations of wrongdoing should be referred for resolution. If that trust and mutual respect are undermined we risk losing part of the strength of the Game.”
Ouch! The entire process was a festering sore but on the field Rotherham angrily barnstormed their way through National Divison One in 2002-03 and then secured their place in the Premiership by defeating Worcester in the play-offs, with the Premiership, on this occasion, accepting that Millmoor was fit for purpose.
At which point the Rotherham fairytale turned into a complete nightmare. Always chronically short of finance in an arena in which top players came at a cost, and denied RFU funding to start an Academy – funding which all the other Premiership clubs were allowed – Roth were in a bad place and their Premiership campaign went from bad to worse.
Collectively they hit the wall, losing all 22 Premiership games, not gaining a single try bonus and garnering just three losing bonus points. By the end of the season they were 34 points behind 11th-placed Leeds Tykes.
There was no intimidation or awkwardness factor at Millmoor – it was just another football ground hired by a rugby club who couldn’t really afford it. Just over 4,000 attended the first home game against Harlequins but thereafter the crowd dipped steadily with a paltry 1,910 for the London Irish match being the nadir.
There was, however, a splendid show of defiance right at the death with over 5,000 attending Rotherham’s last game in the Premiership, a battling 26-20 defeat against Newcastle at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield which might have been a better venue from the off.
It seemed like the end, a feeling accentuated when Yarlett, the long time backer of the club, called it a day. But, as the new season approached, Rotherham kept battling on and refused to go the way of others.
Nick Cragg and Martin Jenkinson stepped in, supporters organised fund raisers, players accepted huge wage cuts and Rotherham Council, mindful of the club’s excellent work with the local community, offered as much support as they could. Somehow, they survived.
As Jenkinson wrote at the time: “There is a club here that goes back to the 1920s and there are a heck of a lot of people that this club means a heck of a lot to... there is a spirit here we all thought was worth saving. Nobody wanted to see rugby in this town die.”
The fires still burned, good habits remained and the club and its coaches still had an eye for young talent – David Strettle, Gareth Steenson and Sam Dickinson – and a knack of employing value for money overseas players such as Errie Claassens sand Ramiro Pez. Titans steadied the ship and there was even a second place in 2007 although the norm has become mid table respectability and, more recently, a desperate fight against relegation.
A wise man once said that the key to ‘success’ is playing the hand you have been dealt rather than the one you wanted and, having attempted to match the high rollers, that is now what Rotherham have been doing assiduously. It doesn’t result in silverware and accolades but Rotherham are still in the game, they haven’t folded, and that’s what counts most.