Rugby sets example in honouring fans
The odds are that if you are reading this column you are a sports fan. That’s fantastic news. Being a sports fan is good for your health. You are more likely to feel connected to other people. You are more likely to experience joy. You are more likely to feel that moment of human beauty that elevates the soul.
We saw so much of this at the Rugby World Cup where there was a thrilling respect for the fans in the stadium. Who can forget Michael Leitch leading the connected phalanx of the Japan team to the edge of the spectators. Who can forget all those teams that lined up after the match and bowed to the people in the stadium. Respect.
And we deserve that respect. Many of us travel thousand of miles and spend money that we can scarcely afford in order to follow our team. There is just as much heroism going on in the stands as there is on the pitch.
And that single, wonderful, bowing gesture made me think about something very precious that we are in danger of losing in New Zealand and in many other countries around the world. We are in danger of losing the physical experience of being a fan, of going to games, of being in touch with other people.
The human soul craves the village. It is how we evolved. We crave being in touch with a smallish group of like-minded souls. And that is what being a fan can give us. It helps us feel good in the company of other people.
So here’s my worry. Not everything about being a fan is good for us. Apparently we are more likely to eat junk food, although I might ask whose fault that is. The overpriced garbage served up in most New Zealand stadia is a disgrace.
But there is something more insidious than the vile grease-gristle battered sausages being squeezed down out throats. I wonder if you and I are being globalised. The point of being a fan is to bond with a group of people with whom we learn and suffer and celebrate. But more and more the fan is being morphed into something bigger than you and I can handle.
Manchester United now has 659 million social network followers around the world. These people matter more to sharks like the Glazers, the American owners of the club, than the fans who go to the ground each week. And so the true fan, as opposed to the virtual fan, is being marginalised in so many ways.
My mate is a big Sheffield United fan. And the Blades are a great story. A squad that consists of nearly 80 per cent Englishmen, with old-school values of loyalty to the club, have been beating the mercenaries. They are doing it through innovative tactics and wanting to play for each other and for the fans just that little bit more.
Yet when my mate went to watch Sheffield United at Tottenham the other day, the only way he could get a ticket was to sign up to some lifelong Tottenham supporters’ club. That’s because Tottenham fans were allocated well over 90 per cent of the tickets.
The fans then had to stand around in silence for three-and-a-half minutes in the second half while some geek in a box decided whether their team had equalised on the basis of a hair follicle or a loose fingernail being marginally in front of a defender’s left ear. Goal disallowed. The fans then chanted their righteous disgust for the next 10 minutes.
The match was played at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. It used to be called White Hart Lane, a name with decades of history and memories but that has been erased while the moguls wait for some Arab billionaire or American hedge fund to pay millions for the naming rights.
This is another example of the slow erosion of the soul of a club. Sometimes there are good and understandable reasons, such as the discussion surrounding the Crusaders. But too often it is just vulgar commercialism.
When Abu Dhabi came in as sponsors, Real Madrid removed the cross from the top of the club crest for merchandising in the UAE. When Barcelona sold out to Qatar and Qatar Airlines, a company with questionable treatment of employees, fans protested.
The fans issued a statement saying, ‘‘Barcelona’s millions of fans see the team as ‘more than a club’, revered not only for the quality of its players but for its allegiance to ethics, fairness and social justice. We cannot legitimise a company that exploits thousands of vulnerable workers. It is against the values of the sport. We need to drop Qatar Airways as a sponsor.’’
Good luck with that lads and lasses. The other day I was up in the attic going through some boxes of my mum’s stuff when I came across a 1967 edition of the Cricketer magazine, cost two shillings and sixpence. In it my father had interviewed Colin Cowdrey, the Kent batsman and deposed England captain.
Cowdrey said of the intrusion of yet another of these reports into the game, the
Beancounter Report or some such; ‘‘I don’t think you can measure the interest of ordinary people, interest which never has a financial expression and never will have. But it’s part of England; a part of our way of life.’’
Oh, but that is exactly what we have become. Us fans have become a measurement. Social cohesion and affordable ticket prices are a long way down the list of most sport’s team priorities. And money is top of the list by a very long way. Rugby may be a part of New Zealand and a part of our way of life, but the many people who once packed into our grounds to follow their team, no longer feel that way.
We, the fans, have become disenfranchised. Michael Atherton wrote in the Times the other day of John Aston, the Manchester United footballer who won man of the match at the 1968 European Cup final. Aston said; ‘‘I could play on a Saturday, go to the local, have a couple of pints and people would say ‘well played’ or ‘blimey, that was poor stuff.’’’
That is now a fantasy. Sponsors form a dividing wall now between fans and players. And that is why Japan was so nourishing. It gave us an imperfect glimpse of what still could be. And it gave us a glimpse of what players and fans could do to bring a community and a country together.
Rassie Erasmus, the coach of South Africa, spoke of it being ‘‘not our responsibility, it is our privilege’’ to play for the people and the country. Captain Siya Kolisi said, ‘‘We appreciate all the support – people in the taverns, in the shebeens, farms, homeless people and people in the rural areas. Thank you so much, we appreciate the support. We love you South Africa and we can achieve anything if we work together as one.’’
Together as one. It’s not a bad thought for the incoming CEO of New Zealand Rugby. The sport unites communities. Make it affordable for people to return to the grounds. Give them good food and make the wonderful new technologies available to them. Show them you care. Bow deeply. Because if we can bring fans back into our grounds, then New Zealand will be a better place.
Together as one.
‘‘We appreciate all the support – people in the taverns, in the shebeens, farms, homeless people and people in the rural areas. We love you South Africa and we can achieve anything if we work together as one.’’ Boks captain Siya Kolisi