Drunken yobs end Craig’s 50-year Wales love affair
Craig James has been watching Wales since his father took him at the age of nine for what turned out to be Gareth Edwards’ first international try at the Arms Park.
He has hardly missed a match during the half century since that late January day in 1970, his investment of £10,000 in debentures maintaining the family tradition of taking his sons to see their team just as his dad, a steelworker from Maesteg, had taken him.
They were there, as usual, last weekend but unless there is a collective change of minds they won’t be going back, not for this afternoon’s match against Fiji, or for the one against Australia the following week or for the Six Nations in the New Year.
What Craig experienced during the South Africa match left him thinking: ‘Never again’. Changing the habit of a lifetime has nothing to do with any health issue, nothing to do with the escalating price of tickets, nothing to do with any waning of his lifelong love affair with rugby itself.
His objection has nothing to do with anything on the field but everything off it. The conversion of their stadium into the world’s biggest citycentre pub may be a money-spinner for the Welsh Rugby Union but there is a price to be paid for it and Craig James is merely the latest to conclude that it is no longer one worth paying.
What he saw and heard all around his seat in the more expensive areas of the stand last Saturday provided depressing examples of loutish behaviour fuelled by alcohol. And that was long before a 21-year-old club player was able to invade the pitch and come ludicrously close to sabotaging what might easily have been the winning Welsh try.
“The WRU are killing the game,’’ says Craig. “If they are not encouraging the next generation to watch their heroes in a welcoming atmosphere, then the crowds will start to dwindle at a still faster rate.
“Instead of protecting and nurturing them, the young boys and girls find themselves in an environment with people using foul language all around them. Worse still, nothing is done about it.
“I’m a rugby man through and through. My wife is a football fan and so I go with her to watch the Wales football team. The football crowd is far better behaved than the rugby one and that’s something I never thought I’d ever live to see.
“There are a lot more stewards at the Cardiff City stadium and there are a lot more children, far more than watch the rugby team. If there’s any hooliganism, those responsible are identified very quickly and it’s nipped in the bud. That doesn’t happen at Welsh rugby matches.
“The crowd at the Principality Stadium has changed for the worse especially in the last five years. General behaviour and language has really plummeted in that time and that’s because of the drinking culture, that thing about the world’s biggest pub. It’s turned into a right old pig show.
“I took one of my sons and he was really unhappy with what was going on. There was a row of youngsters in front of us and behind them a group of middle-aged Springbok supporters who were very, very drunk.
“Just about every decision the referee made produced a torrent of abusive language, effing this and effing that at the top of their voices. Those kids kept turning round in sheer disbelief at what they were hearing when they should have been enjoying the game.”
Craig, a principal in the telecoms industry, goes on: “There was nobody in any official capacity to intervene and try and make those children feel a little less uncomfortable. There was a steward at either end of our block but they were fully occupied showing people to their seats.
“Welsh rugby is going the same way football went a while back. Football has been through the mill and sorted itself out. The days when rugby could claim the moral high ground have long gone.
“That deterioration in behaviour has got to a stage where a lot of people choose to stay away. The WRU may have sold all their tickets but there were still empty seats where clubs had bought their allocation but couldn’t sell them all. And that’s for a match against the world champions.
“I can understand why because it’s not a pleasant experience, all that getting up and down to allow people to pass bringing back trays of drinks. It’s a tough work-out for your quads!
“And when they’re not coming back with drinks, you’ve got to get out of your seat again because they need the toilet. That started in the second minute of the All Blacks match and didn’t stop.
“It’s made me think hard about whether I go again and that’s something I would never have dreamt of doing. Now I’m thinking: ‘That’s it for us’.
“I bought two debentures which cost £10,000 (repayable in 2031). They entitle me to buy tickets for the same seats but now I’m thinking of selling them. There are two obvious courses of action: one a 3pm kick-off to limit pre-match drinking and, two, major policing. I know the first can’t be done because of TV scheduling but why not proper policing?
“Incidents like last week and the one the previous week against the All Blacks of spectators invading the pitch make us look a laughing stock. I’m ex-Royal Navy so I know about having a good time but can they not do without a beer for 80 minutes to watch the match?’’
Four years ago, as what seemed a sop to the sober-minded fans used to watching international matches without disruption, the WRU provided an alcohol-free zone, not in a central position but at one end behind the goalposts.
In doing so they were effectively punishing supporters, like the James family, by giving up better seats for an inferior vantage point. Before the Union made their half-hearted gesture, Craig and two other debenture holders had asked to be relocated to another part of the stadium in an abortive attempt to move out of earshot of the swearing.
“We all wanted to sit together somewhere else and explained our reasons,’’ says Craig. “The WRU wanted to charge us an admin fee of £850. I’d paid ten grand for my seats. Why should I or anyone else have to go to further expense to move away from people who can’t control themselves?’’
The stadium’s bars, all 20-plus of them, stay open throughout the match. Closing them, as former chief executive Martyn Phillips conceded, would reduce the member clubs’ annual funding by £1,000-per-club.
But how much are they now in danger of losing because long-term supporters are no longer prepared to tolerate the anti-social atmosphere?
“The WRU are at a tipping point,’’ says Craig. “They either do something to counter the drink culture or they risk further damage to their reputation. And that will be reflected in more empty seats.’’
Of course, the WRU say they are big on family values in which event they ought to have been mightily concerned about some of the stadium experiences as related on a Radio Wales phone-in the other day. One elderly woman said she felt ‘unsafe’ at the South Africa game, others reinforced Craig James’ point about too much drinking and too little stewarding.
Try telling them about family values.
“Every decision the referee made produced a torrent of abusive language”