Only the word Yorkshire saved Carnegie’s bacon
In his column last weekend, Jeff Probyn made the case for England’s final RWC warm-up game being held in Yorkshire rather than at St James’ Park, and the basis of his argument was to stimulate the growth of the game in England’s largest county.
More and more in recent weeks I’ve been asking myself why is there a fixation with Yorkshire rugby?
It’s all tied in with which particular world view you have: should English rugby be run like a command and control economy, or should the market decide which clubs prosper and which ones fail?
During the week we saw Bury FC go under, with pictures on our screens of sobbing fans, but the Football League’s administrators took the view that shoring up a clearly sinking ship wasn’t a good thing to do.
One way of looking at this is to get emotional and moan about the heart being torn out of the community, but the other is to think the League is stronger because it has one less basket case, which brings us to Yorkshire Carnegie, hereafter referred to as Leeds, the Championship’s very own problem child.
Leeds would have gone bust had they not managed to get a Creditors’ Voluning
tary Agreement (CVA) in place: players’ contracts got terminated early, medical bills didn’t get honoured, and the CVA reportedly offered a meagre 15p in the pound.
Under normal circumstances that would have brought heavy sanctions down on Leeds, but the RFU decided that wasn’t appropriate, and I fear it was the Yorkshire factor coming into play.
It would be lovely if there was a thriving Premiership club in Yorkshire, but there isn’t, and recent history suggests there just isn’t the demand for one, other than from a few journos and former players. Yorkshire’s not alone in that, same argument applies to Lincolnshire, Hampshire, Cornwall and many other counties.
Rotherham came up like a rocket, and then went down like a stick, Leeds have never really managed to make a serious go of it, and that’s because not enough paying punters want to watch Rugby Union in a League stronghold.
There’s a world of difference between amateur rugby, and the elite professional game, and Leeds’ travails simply illustrate that. Yorkshire’s a huge county with some enormously rich business people in it but seemingly none of them are attracted to funding a club at the required level. Changing their name from Leeds Carnegie to Yorkshire Carnegie back in 2014 made not a jot of difference to the club’s situation – it was a classic case of marketing people putting lipstick on a pig!
The choices are to continue flogging the dying horse, which seems to be the RFU stance, or accept the realities of the situation which have been obvious for long enough.
I’ve got some sympathy for the RFU, as it wasn’t easy to deal with this sorry mess: if they’d punished Leeds, as I believe they should have done, then they’d have been lambasted for turning their back on Yorkshire, but by keep the Leeds alive they’ve managed to antagonise a whole other audience. I have zero sympathy for Richmond who had a right whinge about the Leeds decision – the fact is that they came bottom and got relegated on merit (if that’s the right word!), and then tried to stay in the league on a technicality.
We live in the world as it is, not as some would like it to be had different decisions been taken more than 30 years ago, and the Leeds omnishambles illustrates perfectly the gulf that exists between the Premiership and the rest.
The elite professional game is based on money. That investment comes from private individuals, from broadcasting money, outside investment, and the RFU ‘renting’ the clubs’ players. If there’s enough cash coming in from those sources then a club is viable, and competes at the top level – if there isn’t enough then they die.
The current Premiership set-up is made up of old clubs that have found a way to survive and prosper in the professional era, and a glance at the pre-1995 fixture lists will show you the list of illustrious names that didn’t make it. It’s always sad when a famous old club falls on hard times but having a century-old pedigree doesn’t, and shouldn’t ever, be a guarantee of current viability.