By Glen Leat
November 25 2003

What is all this rubbish "Will rugby be the new football?" that is dominating the news channels. Of course it won't and the clubs and the RFU shouldn't market it in such a way otherwise they are just heading for disappointment.

Instead rugby should be marketed as a sport to be enjoyed through playing and watching: no more, no less!

A ludicrous Sky News viewers poll currently shows 57% saying yes to the above question but I wonder if this question was to be asked in a months time what the result would be, back down to the 17% it normally shows I would expect.

Most of the country is, quite rightly, on a real high after the fantastic result in Sydney on Saturday and rugby will probably pick up a small percentage of new fans as a result. But let's not forget there are a lot of people out there who support England in a variety of sports and the majority would only consider going to a match if it was England at Twickenham. Rugby cannot afford to get carried away on the notion that it's base of support is going to massively increase because it is not.

Rugby has always been considered a game for the players, though I would suggest it is also a game for the loyal 50,000 or so who turn up to Zurich Premiership games most weeks. TV coverage is sparse and try finding any sort of match report outside of the broadsheets and local papers on a Sunday and Monday: rugby is not a game for the masses and never will be.

Most non-rugby people claim the laws are too complex, but that is only because they have not been properly explained. Newcomers to the game also can't understand the tactics and why, for example, it is considered right to kick the ball out of play in certain circumstances. In football, they are used to trying to keep the ball on the field rather than hoofing it in to the stands.  ITV and the RFU had an ideal opportunity to explain what rugby is about to increase the viewing enjoyment for new supporters but I don't remember a great deal happening in this area and so we shouldn't be too surprised about the reaction from non-rugby sports followers across the land. Remember it's an England victory many are supporting not England rugby!

There is also some comment about class distinction between the two forms of football with rugby being a "rich man's sport". In Bath we know this not to be true but we don't help ourselves. I have read countless comments on our messageboard over the past three years about not wanting the football mentality to creep in to rugby: all this does is immediately alienate football fans. If we continuously take this moral high ground in terms of our ability to support rugby the divide will grow ever more wide. 

Those of you who regularly follow your rugby team are bound to have been embarrassed by someone sitting around you, whether it be for constantly moaning at the referee, screaming for off-sides which don't exist, booing the opposing goal-kicker or spending more time drinking beer (and then passing it in to a urinal) than actually watching the game. Let's not kid ourselves that rugby supporters are too different from their football counterparts.

Rugby is no better than football and football is no better than rugby, they are two sports with a common name. Football has a world profile and money (or at least had until it decided to spend, spend, spend through to bankruptcy) to be envied by rugby but rugby has a junior league structure, player discipline and a certain naivety to be envied by football. Football became a professional game around 1960 with the introduction of the minimum wage but it took years before the players were screaming down the throats of the referees. Rugby did not gain professional status until 1996 and so has not had the time and opportunity to spoil its reputation: don't kid yourselves this couldn't happen, we are all standing at the top of a slippery slope of some kind.

In my opinion rugby supporters are (In the main) no better or worse than football supporters brought up in an era when money means everything. At Bath Rugby we may enjoy being part of 9000plus at the Rec but that's on the back of 20 years of almost constant success. I think of the commitment required of the 500-plus who trek along to Bath City every other week knowing their club is likely to lose, will never win anything and has no financial benefactor to give them hope deserves our admiration and recognition and certainly not the ridicule some rugby supporters like to bestow on their round ball brethren.

Well done England, well done rugby but let's keep our feet as firmly on the ground as the likes of Martin Johnson and Jonny Wilkinson have shown in their recent press conference displays and not kid ourselves that rugby will replace football as the number one sport.