“Rugby without fans is a film without dialogue”
As t he absence of cr owds is keenly f elt t hr oughout spor t, St ephen Jones pays t ribut e t o t he game’s lif eblood – suppor t er s
ANS. RUGBY fans. What would we do without them? Sadly, we are now finding out. Rugby is being played in ghost grounds, with just a mere splattering of coaches and coaching back-up, a few television technicians and a row or two of journalists. It is uncannily quiet and profoundly unsatisfying, even though some of the rugby being played – by Exeter, Wasps, Leinster and Ospreys – has been excellent.
FBut without the colourful cavalcade in their hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands, in the stadiums and towns and cities where the matches take place (or in their tens or hundreds in the amateur game), it seems that half the spectacle and almost all the sense of occasion has stayed at home along with them.
Where have we missed them most? Everywhere. Imagine the noise that would have greeted Leinster sealing the Guinness Pro14 against Ulster. And say the last Wasps game of the regular season, on 4 October against Exeter, had allowed fans in. When they are playing really well, Wasps can get more than 30,000 with ease, and they have been playing lovely rugby; the Willis brothers have become one of the biggest pulling points in the sport and they have a great stadium. How marvellous it could have been.
As Newcastle Falcons return to the English top flight, Mick Hogan says that every game without fans costs them £300,000 in their
magnificent fight to give the game a north-east pillar. It is just horrible.
Of them all, the fans I felt most sorry for were the Devonian Devils in Exeter and District. Their win over Toulouse in the Heineken Champions Cup semi-final deserved a crowd as big as the Maracanã, let alone the 14,000 they can pack in at Sandy Park. You felt so sad for the fans and also the players, because when the final whistle went and Exeter were in the final of Europe, the roof of the continent, there were just a few handclaps and the celebratory calls of the replacements to greet them.
The Scarlets have their own memories. Two seasons ago when they played La Rochelle at home, the stadium was absolutely bouncing, with the stirring YmaOHyd ringing all around West Wales. A stark contrast to the bleak silence of their first home game of this Guinness Pro14 season against Munster.
And true all-time greats such as
Brad Barritt and Richard Wigglesworth of Saracens and ultra-loyal clubmen such as Chris Robshaw had to leave their stadiums unapplauded.
Fans. At Twickenham on match day, journalists tend to arrive very early. I try to be in the media box four hours before kick-off, and not just because Andrew, the media box steward, serves lunch before the game. It is just that there is a fair amount to do and to contemplate.
As kick-off approaches, we will have heard the anthems being rehearsed – GodDefendNewZealand, or to be accurate God Defend New Zee-hee-land, does get you just a little upon fifth repetition. We will also hear GodSave theQueen at least five times as well, and loud roaring as the men or women on the microphones warm up their tonsils.
However, nothing of any note happens whatsoever, there is no sense of occasion and no adrenalin, until the fans arrive. Admittedly, way too many of you leave it way too near the kick-off to come in. You also crash and totter back and forth refilling your glasses during the game. But nothing you could say in pre-match analysis, either written or on broadcast media, nothing you could lay on before a game, could possibly create the tension and the expectancy like all you lot arriving in your hordes.
It is the same for every ground, at any level, anywhere in rugby. The great journalist Ian Wooldridge called the major stadiums “cathedrals of the game” and he was dead right. But what are cathedrals without congregations? Just hollow and soulless old buildings.
And that is the savage drawback of rugby right now. We must admire those rugby bodies and organisers and medical staff and security men and planners and everyone involved in
Major stadiums are called the game’s cathedrals. But what are cathedrals without congregations?
getting rugby on in the Gallagher Premiership and the Pro14 and the Champions Cup and the Six Nations, and now the Autumn Nations Cup.
If we did not have television money at present then we would not have much money at all, and how the treasurers must wince in agony to see 80,000 empty seats at Twickenham or 15,000 at the Rec or 25,000 at Thomond Park or to see Parc y Scarlets completed denuded. There is no one to blame bar the beastly virus. But no fans, no show.
Fans are lovable for their sheer good nature and patience. The game long ago stopped prioritising them. Ticket prices have gone through the roof, and after Covid-19 they will be in the stratosphere, no doubt. They shunt kick-off times for the benefit of television, probably to hours when you might be having some family time or be otherwise engaged.
They have stuck with the horror of Sunday Internationals where the numbers of travelling fans have been brutally cropped and the atmosphere diminished, and they have even staged those horrible Friday evening kick-offs, in cities that are already at a standstill with Friday evening traffic. Fans? Buy your tickets and be quiet. But still, those supporters are undaunted.
Frankly, I love you all. I love what you bring, the comments, the occasional barbs. The lack of friction with opponents. If I have one objection it lies in the rather pompous shushing when someone is having a kick at goal, a practice that is most prevalent amongst crowds who then resort to lack of sportsmanship and utter mercilessness. But thankfully, they are incredibly few and far between.
Fans. I love you when we are having a few quiet evenings in our hotel Down Under on a British & Irish Lions tour, then the next night you come down and 10,000 people dressed in red are queueing for the bar, delaying the lifts, but spending hard-earned cash and deserving to lap up every millisecond.
You even have to love the fans in Hong Kong. You realise after a couple of visits to the sevens that none of the hysterical roars that come from the huge bank of fancy-dressed loonies down the end are related to the action on the field – but they have paid their money, they add to the colour, they can do whatever they like.
To be serious, and while acknowledging beyond everything the danger of the pernicious virus and the guesswork as well as the science that it takes to curb, I was disappointed that after the successful initial experiments at rugby stadiums (Harlequins’ Stoop and Gloucester’s Kingsholm) to allow in 2,500 or so of the public, subsequent plans were cancelled in England, though Ulster have got a few in recently.
It is simply an opinion – I would not dream of trying to impose it on the authorities – but if they find that none of the 2,500 people in those trials caught the virus and so could not pass it on to others, and that the fierce health and safety measures and all the other preventative issues were in place, surely then they could have tried it with 4,000 people?
Granted, public transport is not an option but there are other ways of travel, there are other fields to park in. It could be done, and safely, surely.
As I write, the game in Britain was appealing to the Government for rescue funding to replace the millions upon millions that are being lost. And it would not be a charitable donation – sport itself and rugby in particular does wondrous good for health, both mental and physical, and does marvellous good for the soul as well as for the goodness of the competitive soul.
Probably, I fell in love with fans when I was one myself. At school, Mr Harries – our sports master – would be standing in the corridor with a handful of blue tickets given to him by Newport RFC. These were the complimentary tickets through which we became devoted followers of the Black and Ambers, and in turn that is one of the reasons why I knew in my heart that regional rugby in Wales would never work, and it has not.
Some seasons, we hardly missed a home game, went on the supporters’ bus to a good few away games. We stood in the Shed at Gloucester as teenagers, wearing our Newport scarves, taking all the stick going but never feeling in the least anxious. And now even the Shed has been empty, and what use is an empty Shed?
My first job in journalism was on this magazine as a tyro. I always used to go to Cardiff Arms Park and stand on the North terrace and when I became a journalist, I declared to my friends that I would never leave them, I would always stand with them on the terrace.
I did it once, then tried – as an experiment – my media box ticket.
Blimey. It was a great view, none of the jostling, and a free lunch. I have to admit that I turned my back on the terraces, never to return. Two-faced, maybe. But metaphorically at least, I was still down there with them. And I still am. Rugby without fans is a film without dialogue, or without scenery.
Fans. You have all been grievously missed, and the day you all come charging back in (safely) will be the day when rugby becomes itself again.
Armchairs are all very well. Being there is everything.