I find all this hard to come to terms with still. Waiting and hoping the legends would be able to resurrect the club has been torturous for many I think. It's a sad day when such a great club in English sport, its fans, players and staff and reputation are victims of a raft of ill conceived plans and dreadful mis-management on all fronts.
What galls me even more is that I'm sure CCFC fans will see this as a fantastic week - reaching the play off final and Wasps finally going out of existence as a pro club. All I wanted was to support my local pro rugby club and was lucky enough to enjoy some amazing success on top of the bad times.
From "mission accomplished' in Dubai/UAE or wherever it was, to the Booker Airfield and then on to Coventry, we've been lead a merry dance by whoever had a fantasy plan for success. We'll probably never know the full story, the machinations on the various boards, but as things stand right now moving the club to the Midlands failed and was a ridiculous idea (I still believe the club was used to get the stadium), making too many enemies in the process. It never felt right to me although I stuck with it, and I think in the absence of more information, Derek has to take the blame for this. If he really loved the club he would have helped the Legends (maybe he did?) and not veto'd the rescue package that the board were in favour of. It feels like the club and fans were picked up, kicked around for a bit and then booted into touch.
That's blame that has to be apportioned to the club itself. All this happened in an environment of cheating, with Saracens running riot for years with their undermining of the pro game and scamming their fellow professionals, and their toxicity has been allowed to damage the English pro game beyond repair. It's been allowed by an incompetent RFU and PRL boards, where if there was any dignity the CEO's would have resigned following the outcome of the DCMS enquiry. Covid clearly had an impact to a degree but has been casually waved away by these fools and their mignons, and quite who is calling the shots no know really knows, but it's a good bet it's not the people paid to ensure the health of the game. On top of that, Gob Baxter and his club who most benefitted from a competitive Prem and promotion/relegation, now wants to close that opportunity and pathway to anyone else, and seems to have an overt influence over the powers that run the game.
This lot put their own interests over everything and it's resulted in English rugby becoming a basket case - all about exclusivity rather than inclusivity. The pro game is rotten.
RIP Wasps and thanks for the memories.
Always a Wasp
