| Rugby: A ‘Respect’ Campaign In Action Written by TimS on Tuesday, 28th May 2013 09:28 Talk to certain rugby followers, and they regard football as a sub-normal game, played by GQ posing models full of hair gel and attitude, diving like graceful swans at the slight brushing of a leg or arm. The rugby fans dismiss the amount of column inches, phone-in rage and general angst that football fans place on their beloved team. Laughing at the football fans dressed up in their polyester replica shirts, they wonder why these people can’t just grow up and watch a ‘proper’ sport played by ‘proper men,’ with ‘proper manners’ and a ‘proper attitude.’ Having lived in three rugby towns and cities in my life (Leicester, Northampton and now Exeter), I have had the privilege of watching Premiership rugby at Welford Road (Leicester Tigers) and at Sandy Park (Exeter Chiefs) and to a certain extent, these rugby fans have a point about football. Some of the guff about the national game in the last 10 years has really seemed to be like road grit blistering my throat. About five years ago, I managed to catch a Leicester v Northampton match at Welford Road, around two weeks after a Foxes v Ipswich game at the Walkers (now King Power) stadium. It was all part of a weird deal between university mates. A rugby-supporting friend would watch Town, whilst I watched the Tigers but Town did not really get going on the day when I so wanted them to impress. My friend was bored out of his mind and the football match should have really finished about 3.03pm with a 0-0 so for the next 87 minutes of normal time, I was watching the August storm clouds form over the stadium, marvelling at Town’s misplaced passing, feeling the anger of the friend who, I knew, could have done so much more with his Saturday afternoon. The whole day was a disaster- a conciliatory pint did nothing to raise the mood. My trip to Welford Road was very different. When I had been told about the game against Northampton, which I would see, my mind thought of those East Anglian derby matches where legions of the local constabulary greet you on every street corner, there is a virtual pub lockdown in either Ipswich or Norwich, the games are played around 11.30am/12pm on a Sunday to avoid the chance of trouble (or atmosphere) and the sight of snarling police dogs at Norwich station and a designated route to take me to Carrow Road. At Welford Road for this local rugby derby on this sunny Saturday afternoon, Leicester and Northampton fans were mixing together whether inside or outside the stadium and there were hardly any police in the area. The atmosphere was jovial and friendly, and inside the ground, quiet was expected at any penalty kick or conversion whether it was for the Tigers or the Saints. This was not what I was used to! I felt uneasy but gradually warmed to the surroundings. There was a buzz at Welford Road, which was much more that the spluttering burb that had been belching at the Town game. My trip to Sandy Park was less exciting. Injury stoppages seemed to happen on a minute by minute basis. I began to lose a sense of who was winning, losing or drawing. Sandy Park seemed to lack any atmosphere and most people seemed to be more interested in their pint of Guinness and catching up with old friends in the stands. I did not know what was going on and the air began to get colder, the light began to fade and I left the ground at a loss to understand why I had bothered to visit the rugby in the first place. I was subsequently told by the Exeter faithful that I had just been unlucky with the game that I had seen, but the whole Exeter, Chiefs and Indians ‘thing’ had been totally lost on me. People often complain that a large amount of British football is rotten at this present time and many people think that rugby is the answer to every single ill that is currently affecting the national game. These people are wrong but when the news broke of the Northampton Saints’ Dylan Hartley being banned for eleven games for allegedly calling a referee a cheat, I did wonder whether such a ban would ever happen in the world of football, and whether these bans could be welcomed by football fans. Swift and certainly decisive for the Saints’ captain with a replacement already lined up, Hartley now has the prospect of enjoying The Voice or Celebrity Catchphrase rather than representing the British Lions in New Zealand during the forthcoming tour. The whole episode certainly gives out a powerful signal to rugby players whether young or old. Could such an action really happen in football? Imagine if Town in 2013/14 manage to get into the top two of the Championship or the play-offs. The league is as tight as it has been during this season, and a crunch game at Portman Road becomes critically heated during the last 10 minutes of action. The star Town striker suggests to the referee that the official is a cheat. The referee immediately shows a yellow, or even red, card to the striker meaning the he is banned for the final crucial games of the season. Where will the goals come from? Would we all meekly accept that the player needed to be punished for questioning the referee’s integrity, when the Town ship had been critically holed beneath the shoreline? Wayne Rooney had to miss the first games of last summer’s Euro 2012 for actions that he committed in England’s last group game in October 2011. Imagine if the English FA had banned Rooney from the whole of the European Championships. This is the crazy world of English Premiership football, remember the frustration of Liverpool fans when the ban on Suarez was announced after biting incident against Chelsea last month? I wondered whether for some football fans, biting a fellow footballing professional was just an unfortunate occupational hazard that you had to accept if you decide to play football at the highest level. The FA’s Respect Campaign has often been the subject of derision in the media, amongst players and amongst football fans, sometimes fairly and sometimes unfairly. The regular arguments from fans and players is that respect can only be given by the players, if the referees respect the players, which leads us to wonder who referees the game - the players, managers, media, fans, corporate boxholders, the staff at the club or the referee. There is also the argument that respect can only be given if the referees are consistent with their decisions. Of course, one man’s consistency is another man’s inconsistency. I can remember a Town match at Derby’s Pride Park when in an attempt to show off to friends, I embarrassingly berated the referee for what I deemed to have been the obvious freekick for Town, incompetently missed by the referee. I watched highlights of the game on TV when I got home, which showed that particular passage of play. The referee had been right and my rant about inconsistency had been embarrassingly irrelevant and wrong. For true respect to happen in football, maybe the national game could take a leaf out of rugby’s customs and traditions and be stronger about the behaviour of players on the pitch. Pie in the sky thinking perhaps in an era when the allusive dollar seems to mean more for some players and clubs and Champions League qualification means more to some fans than the future of the game itself. However, I am starting to wonder whether everything in the football garden is particularly rosy and whether lust of football is starting to wain amongst some key groups of the British public. Football will be too arrogant to its cost, if it does not take notice of the laws, regulations and practices of other team games. Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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