Sidestep on booze is as weak as the new beer
The Welsh Rugby Union’s half-hearted attempt to rectify their stadium’s portrayal as the world’s biggest pub prompted another dissatisfied customer to air his grievance.
The swillage seeping out of Downing Street on Thursday morning seemed positively small beer compared to the stuff sloshing around the Principality Stadium’s 34 bars, each and everyone ever ready to oil the communal thirst and leave the WRU counting the profit.
Even they now concede that some of the consequences have been ‘embarrassing’. For too long, too many victims have been counting the cost while the Union’s deafening silence sounded as if they were oblivious to the growing problem.
Cost? What cost? In the implausible event of their needing a jog to the memory, the BBC Radio Wales phonein would have provided it.
What ‘Steve from Cwmbran’ had to say amounted to a damning indictment of how sober-minded supporters suffer from a security failure to tackle anti-social behaviour at international matches.
“We complained that four boys behind us were drunk, swearing, getting trays of beer and spilling some of it over my wife,’’ Steve said, referring to one of the four Autumn Internationals. “Then they openly started taking drugs.
“The stewards’ solution? They moved us from our £100 seats to the cheap ones with restricted views. We went home and watched a recording of the match on telly. So we’ve gone from years of enjoying games at the stadium to watching them at home.’’
Long before Steve phoned in from Cwmbran to share the grim experience endured by he and Mrs Steve, examples of anti-social behaviour had been piling up: one drunk falling on a husband and wife sitting two rows in front of him, another drunk vomiting over little Joey Delaney, leaving the six-year-old from Chepstow in tears.
More recent additions to the increasing number of those who left the stadium vowing never to go back included one of the revered players from the 1970’s, John Taylor.
Such was his disgust at the antics of those around him in the best seats at the Australia game that he left at half-time.
As if that wasn’t enough, there was the ridiculous sight of a drunken Welsh supporter staggering onto the pitch and almost interfering with Liam Williams as Wales went within a whisker of a corner try against the Springboks.
Seven days earlier a fan had been able to stroll onto the playing area and attach himself to the All Blacks lining up for the anthems. Security? What security?
Having not said a peep in public for more than two months, the WRU
“Close the bars five minutes before kick-off and reopen them once the ref blows for no-side”
belatedly responded. They announced that with effect from Saturday’s game against Scotland, all bars will be closed ‘after half-time’ which presumably allows those who really can’t watch Wales without a drink the chance to stock up for the second half.
That will do little in a practical sense to address the biggest complaint from real fans, about the constant disruption of their view by those carrying cardboard trays of beer or going back to the bar for more. And when they’re not doing that, they are shuffling off past the same spectators to give their bladders a break.
Had the WRU been serious about tackling the problem, they would have done what has long been blindingly obvious; close the bars five minutes before kick-off and reopen them once the referee blows for no-side.
That, of course, would mean making less money which in turn would leave member clubs the length and breadth of the country feeling the pinch. Is that sufficient reason to keep flogging booze to those who have probably had their fill and, as a consequence, risk a serious accident?
Given their refusal to close the bars, why did the WRU not impose an immediate ban on customers carrying drink to their seats?
Football doesn’t allow it and some rugby followers now concede they feel in a safer environment watching the Wales football team at the Cardiff City stadium than the national rugby team at the Principality.
Instead the WRU has bent over backwards so far as to be almost as horizontal as some of their more blootered ticket holders.
They have come up with the idea of selling weaker beer although quite how a reduction in strength from 5 per cent to 4.1 will mean less disruption for those who actually want to see the match is beyond my ken.
It’s almost as if they are more concerned about meeting the needs of those who apparently can’t go 80 minutes without a drink as opposed to those who can because they are absorbed in the game, to the exclusion of all else.
The Union claim that ‘a safe and positive experience for all fans is of primary importance.’ Selling more booze ad nauseum, particularly to those who arrive for the early evening kick-offs fairly well tanked up, is a strange way of going about it.