Fan prejudices are not always rational
Hate is a word to be avoided, as it’s best left to more heinous crimes than those that occur during a rugby match. However, a healthy dislike is perfectly acceptable in my view, and nothing brings that more to the fore than big European weekends.
A friend who supports Bath, and is therefore not a fan of Gloucester – that’s an understatement – supported the Cherry and Whites in the Challenge Cup quarters because they were playing Saracens, and he ‘detests them’ because of the salary cap breaches. Like him I was horrified at Sarries’ behaviour, but in my view they’ve served their time and we should move on – he can’t agree with that.
In the same conversation I mentioned that I wanted Toulon to beat London Irish because they signed a player who I’d rather wasn’t playing in the Premiership. He was astonished at that, and I understand why, because that player was acquitted at his trial, but I found some of the evidence presented in the case to be thoroughly unsavoury.
Being a fan isn’t always entirely rational, and he and I put a differing emphasis on different things!
By and large, Irish excepted, I want Premiership teams to win in Europe, although I struggle a bit when one of them plays Glasgow, the city of my birth. I’ve not lived there for many, many years, and I sound English when I speak – I did say this wasn’t entirely logical! There also is another Premiership team I struggle with because I saw some needlessly aggressive behaviour from some of their fans on a visit there! These likes and dislikes are deeply personal for fans.
I always want Irish provinces to lose, with the possible exception of the underdogs, Connacht. My dislike of Munster and Leinster is largely down to the love-in started by Sky commentators, and continued by BT Sport – there is something about a trip to Limerick or Dublin that seems to turn commentators’ and pundits’ minds! Incidentally, a Munster fan of my acquittance is adamant that his team would have beaten Toulouse if it hadn’t been for someone booking Ed Sheeran to play at Thomond Park on the day of the quarter-final, thereby forcing the match to be played in Dublin at the Aviva!
I also heartily disliked the days when the Celtic sides used to qualify for Europe by ‘right’ while English sides had to slog it out in a fiercely competitive league. I know, I know, your jaw has probably dropped by now but I’m not alone in these views. Add in the lack of a salary cap, and the ability to rest the first XV to prepare for Europe, and the Irish provinces offend my sense of fair play. I know that the big French clubs also have huge budgets, but they at least have a cap, albeit one much larger than there is in the Premiership.
These prejudices, however, are what being a fan is all about, and you’ll see it in football, baseball, basketball, and so on. I can’t imagine watching a match and being completely neutral: some dislike Leicester because of the ‘hand of Back’, Gloucester for all the ‘Eeyore’ stuff, Harlequins because they’re ‘posh boys’ or because of ‘Bloodgate’, others have a dislike of certain coaches irrespective of which team they’re at. Another friend loves The Stoop because he once had a great pork baguette there – such are the things that make a fan!
Iwish that commentators would ease up on their selective criticism of referees using the TMO. In the Racing 92 v Sale game, the referee decided to review his decision to award Sale a penalty. He called for the TMO to review it, and clearly uncomfortable with having no action, Nick Mullins commented that if every decision was checked by the TMO ‘we’ll be here until midnight’. Not his finest hour, as few decisions are checked, and the process rarely takes long – it took fractionally over two minutes. Sale scored three points from that penalty, and how many games are decided by that narrow margin?
Later on there were a couple of incidents where Brace decided a review wasn’t necessary, but where Mullins and Ugo Monye felt they should have been referred, irrespective of the fact that it would have delayed proceedings! Selective or what?
“I can’t imagine watching a match and being entirely neutral”