By Rabble Rouser
July 16 2002

Controversial as ever, resident loudmouth Rabble Rouser is convinced that the warm weather is making some folks talk a load of hot air and warns that total cerebral evaporation beckons, unless we get some rugby soon! Floozies, Boozers, Fezboys and Loozers!

Is it me, or has the recent warm spell turned everyone’s brain to mush? It seems that every summer, some joker or other thinks it a spiffing wheeze to move Saracens back to Bramley Road. On the flip side, there are others who believe that the side belongs in north London and should ground share with Tottenham Hotspur whose ground would be less than a quarter full if the average crowd at Vicarage Road last year were put there. It’s madness! What happens after the mush stage? Liquification and then complete evaporation?

As I write this in my underpants with the windows open and sweating like a lawn sprinkler, it has occurred to me that some people just cannot let go of things past and others are optimistic to the point of delusion. If it isn’t some drunken Taff at Twickenham reminding everyone how a team featuring Gareth, Phil, Gerald and JPR would beat the 2002 vintage England team into a pulp, or someone that thinks that rugby should be a jolly game played between two sides of Corinthian amateurs on a dog toilet in north London, it’s someone that believes that our game of Rugby Union football will attract crowds of 35,000 for club games. It makes about as much sense to me as asking Jeremy Clarkson to road test a blender. And I’ll tell you why.

First, quaint as Bramley Road is, it’s not what you’d call bristling with facilities. Sure, we can all moan about the quality and price of the fare on offer at Vicarage Road, but the point is that there IS such fare on offer and plenty of it. There is a big screen at the Vicarage. Dead handy for those like me who usually forget to take the necessary eyewear to home games and a boon to double-check all those dubious decisions made by officials who have also left their specs at home. There are seats at Watford FC too. Now, before anyone says “but, RR, I prefer to stand” think about what I’m about to ask. Would you prefer to pay a tenner (less if you have a Rover South season ticket) to stand, uncovered, knee-deep in mud and canine excrement when you can sit comfortably (are your reading this London Wasps)in the dry? If you would, you're a bit weird methinks.

Second, some think that Saracens belong to the people of north London and that they should, out of common courtesy and loyalty to the community, play in Southgate. Now, correct me if I am wrong here, but was it not the very same north London community that vetoed every attempt to develop Bramley Road and Enfield which would have provided Saracens with a decent, not too big, not too small, ground which could have been something like the new Franklin’s Gardens? No way, no how, said the local councils after the residents objected. Funny, then, that Southbury Road is now a cinema and leisure complex and Enfield FC play their games elsewhere. Club of the people, my sweaty behind! The NIMBYs have kicked that one right out of the window – and the borough.

Third, one correspondent referred to the “glory days” at Bramley Road. What was glorious about the 50 or so years spent there other than a couple of second division championships and a good run in the Cup? (The Middlesex Cup, that is.). Looking down the fixture lists of days gone by and Saracens had really mixed it with some legendary teams before turning their back on their old home. Names like Streatham/Croydon, St Mary’s Hospital and Finchley to name but three. No disrespect to any of the aforementioned sides, but let’s face it, they’re hardly Toulouse, Leicester or Munster now, are they? I think someone may still think that pre-decimal currency was better and that a hundred new pence in one pound is complicated, that the Beatles are (not were) a bunch of noisy Scouse hoodlums and that Mr MacMillan is right when he says “you’ve never had it so good”.

Fourth, even with the huge increase in average gates since the 1997 move to Watford, Sarries (and none of the other clubs in the Zurich Premiership for that matter) are nowhere near filling a 20,000 capacity ground, never mind the 35,000 plus at White Hart Lane. Ambitious and positive the thoughts may be, but if anyone thinks that they could put 27,000 on the average gate, I for one would kick Peter Deakin out of his fourth floor window at Rigby House and get this “visionary” in. The great Deaks himself would admit he’ll have his work cut out to get 15,000 bums on the VR seats next year, even if Sarries are doing well in the table. Premiership soccer sized crowds are a pipe-dream.

Finally, there have been some sweeping statements made that if the RFU-imposed salary cap were removed, Sarries would pack them into the stands as they could buy who they want. True perhaps, but realistically, to take that away would not see any improvement in the game itself, only the living standards of those at the very top who will pocket obscene amounts of wedge for not much in return. Some harsh lessons were learned by the round ball game in the last two years about money and common sense: too much of the former and none at all of the latter meant that the professional game outside the FA Premiership nearly went into meltdown.

Rugby has certainly started its professional life on the right footing and the salary cap is something that will need to be kept in place if the game is to survive. If it doesn’t, we WILL end up back at Bramley Road as part of three-figure crowds watching a load of unpaid, unfit unskilful fat boys rolling in the mud. Still, it will make one or two people out there very happy indeed.

Yes, I agree that looking to the past is important in shaping the future. But going back to the past is both foolhardy and small-minded and bordering on the paranoid. The future of Saracens lies away from its roots. I can deal with that, some folks can't. It's sad, really.

As the old cliché goes: Nostalgia sure ain’t what it used to be.