Rock-bottom, but Jake finds silver lining at Green & Whites
DANIEL GALLAN talks to Nottingham vice-captain about life at bottom of Tier Two
Jake Farnworth couldn’t help but feel a slight pang of jealousy this past week. As football fans around the world rejected the notion of a proposed European Super League, filling social media with their contempt and protesting at famous grounds, the 26-year-old Nottingham hooker and vice-captain wondered what would happen if similar ideas were suggested in rugby.
“I’m not naive,” he assured The Rugby Paper. “I know that rugby and football exist in different universes. But yes, it did occur to me that rugby is trending towards a structure that resembles a super league. There’s talk of ring-fencing here and the bigger teams are seemingly protected from those smaller clubs who could punch above their weight. But even if rugby fans protested or took to social media they wouldn’t have the numbers to effect change.”
Over the phone, Farnworth’s tone is upbeat throughout our conversation but his despondency is palpable. It’s a wonder he’s able to find any positivity to cling to given recent events.
At the time of speaking, his team had lost all five of their Championship games and sat bottom of the table. The club’s playing staff were forced to go part time ahead of the season as a result of budget cuts, further hampering their ability to compete against better resourced opponents.
“It’s been a season of learning,” he said when asked to sum up the campaign at the halfway mark. “But what we clearly haven’t learned how to do is win games. We haven’t played a quality 80 minute game yet. We’re good in patches. Against the Cornish
Pirates and Hartpury in particular I feel we should have won.
“But it’s a free swing this season, really, with no relegation. Normally I’m one of the youngest players in the squad. Now I’m one of the oldest. At first we weren’t down on ourselves when we lost but things are changing. We don’t want losing to become a habit. We’re now starting to be hard on ourselves.”
Compounding the sense of growing dread in the Midlands, club legend and head coach Neil Fowkes will be ending his 30-year relationship with the Green and Whites to take up a permanent position as Wasps’ scrum coach.
“It’s a massive loss for the club,” Farnworth said of Fowkes, whose Nottingham journey began as an U7s minis player and included 210 first team appearances between 1999 and 2011. “In many ways he is Nottingham Rugby. He’s seen everything here, he’s experienced it all. He knows how everything works. But we’re not totally sad.We’re all delighted he’s been given this chance to grow. We don’t begrudge people chasing their dreams and fulfilling their potential.”
Not that clubs like Nottingham have much choice. Farnworth singles out homegrown talents such as Jordan Coghlan and David Williams – both now at Leicester Tigers – as well as Tim Cardall and Ben Morris, plying their trade for Wasps. Whatever spin one puts on it, the fact is that Nottingham are in a class that gives more than it receives.
“That’s capitalism, right?” Farnworth points out. “People can complain about how Google and Amazon and Apple dominate their markets, but the fact is they provide the best product. Sport is the same. And yes, we like to think that anyone can beat anyone on their day, but that is an idealistic way of looking at the world.
“The top teams produce the best product, attract the most fans, make more money, and therefore keep improving. That’s why those big football clubs thought they could get away with a Super League, even though some of them haven’t won anything for a long time. But then look at Exeter. It wasn’t long ago they were where we are now. Will we see another club follow that path? I’m not so sure.”
If it does happen, Farnworth won’t be around to see it. At least not from the inside of the game. He says he never intended on staying in rugby beyond some possible youth coaching once he does hang up his boots. “Even if I had the best career I could have had I would have pursued something else eventually,” he said.
Last year he graduated with a law degree from Nottingham Trent University and is working as a legal assistant at a local firm. He hopes he will be offered a contract once this initial training period is up. From there, it will be the corporate ladder rather than rampaging centres he’ll be grappling with.
“I was lucky,” he said, “most of the guys in the team have struggled since we went part time. I was working as a labourer when lockdown first hit. Then from Christmas til around March I was with a civil engineering firm installing fibre optic cables in Derby. That was 7am to 5pm every day in the dead of winter while trying to keep fit during pre-season. If I didn’t land this job I’m not sure how I would have earned money. There’s no way I could have done that hard labour in the week after a game on the weekend.”
Like anyone who has picked up a ball, Farnworth once had grand designs for a life in rugby. From the age of 16 he spent three years in Leicester Tigers’ academy and then another two years with the first team. But he failed to impress and was released before finding a home at Moseley Rugby Club in Birmingham in the National League where he first got a taste of life as a part-timer.
“I realised then that I needed to have another string to my bow,” he said. “There’s a lot of money in this game but it’s not evenly distributed. The thing is though, there are a lot of guys playing in the Championship that deserve to be in the Premiership and the opposite is also true. A lot of the time it’s luck. You’re lucky with which high school you go to, which academy signs you, which coach likes you and who your teammates are. Of course talent and hard work are both important but this imbalance that exists feels random at times.”
Farnworth does not take the bait when given the chance to heap scorn on the RFU and the Premiership. He insists that Championship clubs need to take responsibility and generate the revenue necessary to stand on their own.
“There’s been a lot of complaining about how we don’t get the support we need,” he said. “That’s true a lot of the time but look at the grounds. Compare Lady Bay on match day to the stadium of Nottingham Forest [FC]. They couldn’t be more different and yet we play in comparative leagues. We have to find a way of bringing that energy.”
Nottingham have launched a campaign to bridge this divide. Under the #NAMETHESHIRT, supporters can pay to have their names embroidered on the team’s kit for next season and featured on the club’s website. The funds will be used in part to offset the losses caused by the pandemic and raise the estimated £400,000 chairman Alistair Bow has cited as necessary to keep the organisation alive.
It is the pandemic that has in effect ring-fenced the Championship this season. With this form, Nottingham would be staring at life in the National League for the first time in 17 years. Back then the Green and Whites might have dreamed of higher honours, perhaps even playing in the top flight again after their last outing there in 1992.
Now their dreams are more modest, best exemplified by Farnworth’s story and the imminent exit of Fowkes. That’s the nature of modern sport and its collision with cold economics. If only rugby fans could follow their football counterparts and rage against the system.
“There’s a lot of money in this game but it’s not evenly distributed”