English clubs left trailing by their ruthless French rivals
Stuart Barnes
Friday August 26 2022, 12.01am, The Times
These are dark times and when professional rugby clubs primarily become businesses — taking over “the business” once quaintly decided on the pitch — it’s no surprise that headlines emanate from boardrooms. There were worrying whispers from Wasps this summer before the reported threat to Worcester Warriors, with both sides in talks with HM Revenue & Customs over unpaid tax bills.
Worcester’s story is deeply concerning in its own right, but perhaps the unspoken implications are greater. They are a club who have struggled to make an impact on the professional game. Cecil Duckworth, the former executive chairman of Worcester, saw his side promoted to the Premiership in 2004. It was an epic journey through the leagues, but there has since been little of the glory witnessed many junctions down the M5, where Exeter Chiefs turned sport into fairytale fare, conquering England and Europe.
For Worcester, survival has been the keynote. Had relegation not been abandoned in 2021 they would have been playing in the Championship last season, as they did in 2014-15 and 2010-11. Teams have their dips; Bath should be one league lower this campaign. So, too, Leicester Tigers in recent years. Northampton Saints and Harlequins have both been relegated and rebounded.
Worcester, though, have never “rebounded”. Their most successful Premiership period was from 2004 to 2006, during which they managed to finish ninth and then what is still an all-time high of eighth. Give Saracens back their docked points in 2019-2020 and Worcester have finished between tenth and 12th in the Premiership for the past 14 years. They have made no progress on the field.
While full of sympathy for their present predicament, one can also acknowledge their sporting failures. Premiership Rugby Ltd (PRL) makes much of the need for any promoted club to have a stadium that holds a bare minimum of 10,001 spectators. Worcester, with a capacity of about 12,000, meet that criterion. Yet last season their ground was typically only a shade over 60 per cent full for league matches.
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The inability to progress on the pitch has stalled the development of Worcester as an elite rugby club doing anything but hanging on as part of PRL. In stark contrast, Bath filled the Recreation Ground to 96 per cent of its capacity in their most recent and most dismal professional season. The loyalty of their fans tells the tale of a rugby club who have roots Worcester haven’t laid. The Warriors’ nearest rivals are Gloucester. Supporters at The Shed have seen some rubbish over the years, but they keep coming back. Gloucester have a tradition upon which they can fall back in hard times. Worcester do not.
Across the Channel, our friends in France have a history of club competitions going back into the last days of the 19th century. Here, business does not come before sport. If a team fail on the field, they face relegation, no matter how great the name. Biarritz, back after a spell in the second tier of the French club game, were relegated immediately last term.
Whereas PRL used Covid to push through a period of no relegation, the French fuelled the excitement of promotion and relegation even as funding was cut.
Here, the size of the stadium is perceived as a serious stumbling block for ambitious clubs such as Ealing Trailfinders and Doncaster Knights. Never mind that Newcastle Falcons, with an average attendance of 5,840, play to a half-empty Kingston Park.
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Divisions are being created between leagues, where aspirant clubs struggle to meet the various criteria — including that 10,001 capacity. Meanwhile French rugby maintains the closest possible link between the two elite tiers. Professionalism appears to be a carefully erected corporate barrier in the English game. It is hard not to see the actions of PRL as an attempt to raise the drawbridge and monopolise the game and any ensuing profits.
In France the game grows ever more competitive. France’s Guinness Six Nations grand slam-winning side, along with their Heineken and European Challenge Cup winners, are on a roll. English rivals will cite the more liberal French salary cap as the main reason, but there is much more to the growing gap between the two countries’ rugby success.
There is the justifiable excitement surrounding next year’s World Cup. Whereas, week in, week out, football stirs the sports fans’ emotions in England, football fanaticism reaches nothing like the same level in France. As a French coach told me: “Rugby is in the French culture. The population identify with rugby. If you are from Toulon, you want to play for Toulon.”
Rugby has always been a matter of passion in France, from its two sophisticated clubs in Paris down to partisan Pau. The revival of the national team and the World Cup could lead to France leaving England and its limited monopolist league trailing. While the game is spreading throughout France (with a determination to kick-start it in the formerly disinterested north), Leeds has long been left behind here, with Doncaster the last remaining Premiership dream in Yorkshire.
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While we worry about the future of a club still scrapping for their survival, Worcester are a warning of the many inherent failures besetting the English club game. These are difficult days for professionalism. It is time for the RFU and PRL to step up to the challenge of doing more than protecting their own positions and the status quo, or so it seems.
It’s time to work out the balance between rugby union as sport and/or business. It’s time for a vision and a lead, not protection.
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Topic: Stuart Barnes in The Times (Read 623 times)
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