On the simple grounds that I wasn’t interested and had no dog in the fight, I chose not to watch yesterday’s televised rugby union match between Saracens and Gloucester. I have been to Gloucester’s famous Kingsholm ground on a number of occasions and enjoyed the often raucous atmosphere in ‘The Shed’, the old covered terracing area, feared by opponents and referees alike. Having said that, the largely one-eyed fans do not create the kind of atmosphere of hatred one often finds at football grounds. The Shed can be brutal at times, but mostly it’s fun and always it’s safe. But in a break with tradition, Saracens – and I cannot find Saracens on the map not matter how hard I try – have introduced segregated seating in order to create more of an atmosphere. From what I read today, it certainly did that.
A section of Gloucester fans ripped into the Saracens fly half Fergus Burke by chanting: “You’re just a shit Owen Farrell!” Then, showing great versatility, they launched into: “What do we think of Saracens? Shit!” Throughout the game, the fans baited the referee with: “You don’t know what you’re doing!” which is a familiar line from football fans whose team are losing and they need someone else to blame other than their own crap players. I can only imagine how the more conservative supporters feel about making a rugby union crowd behave more like a football – or soccer, as some call it – crowd
My experience of Gloucester – or ‘Glawster’ as the fans call the team – is that the atmosphere doesn’t need changing at all. At the games I have been to, the atmosphere created by the fans is excellent and really doesn’t require crowd segregation. I am more likely to be found at the superior League version of rugby and there too the atmosphere comes from the fans themselves, always sitting alongside each other, ripping into each other with gay abandon but crucially never wanting to fight each other. Clearly, some clubs, including Saracens, don’t think the atmosphere at top flight professional union games is good enough so they are trialling segregation.
I doubt very much whether there was a hooligan element to the travelling band of Glawster ultras, terrorising old ladies and pissing down alleyways on the way to the game, because at least to date that’s not the rugger way. And somehow I doubt that the crowd troubles that have occasionally blighted ‘soccer’ will be in evidence at ‘Twickers’ anytime soon, not least because of the price of tickets and, under Steve Bore Thick, the anaemic product on the pitch.
While most of me doesn’t care whether fans are segregated or not, part of me finds it a bit sad. I’m old enough to remember when people went to cricket matches, especially Test matches, to watch the sport in a relatively gentle manner, quite unlike today’s loud chanting and singing, a product of the so-called UKIP styled Barmy Army, crowds being nearer to PDC darts fans than admirers of Our Summer Game. The last thing rugger chaps are going to want is being visited by balaclava clad yobs chucking smoke bombs around at Lords, singing: “You’re gonna get your fuckin’ heads kicked in!” Christ, it’s bad enough when opposing crowds make noise when a player is trying to land a penalty.
Experience with other sports suggests that the segregation experiment will soon become the norm and gradually the atmosphere will change. Whether you are comfortable with that change is neither here nor there. The genie may be out of the bottle and stadia, even the shambolic Wreck at Bath, will have stewards pointing visiting fans towards the away end. Even someone like me, who prefers the old ways of watching rugby league or union, would enjoy the sound of the visitors ripping into Bath’s ramshackle and largely uncovered ground and that’s likely the chip on the shoulder working class football fan in me. “Shit ground no fans” might not be entirely accurate because Barf – sorry, Bath – do have quite a lot of fans, but I’m sure the more imaginative rugger fans could come up something?
