Inside your Rugby Journal Weekly #13
Championship Farce
Grassroots Special: Blackheath, Ebbw Vale & Liverpool St Helens
Trevor Leota
Rugby Photographer of the Year with Keith Prowse
‘Don’t tell us not to be angry’
The Championship rugby farce
It’s the crushing of rugby and sporting spirit that has done it. For those that have been following the Championship season from the start and not just the start of this week, we’ve seen how Cornish Pirates and Doncaster Knights have been upsetting the odds and not allowing Ealing Trailfinders the cakewalk of a campaign everyone had been predicting.
Just last weekend, many of us couldn’t believe how tabletoppers Doncaster Knights had almost unlapped themselves – they were top but Ealing had games in hand – by defeating Ealing 17-25 away.
Cornish Pirates, who had beaten Ealing at home, were also proving consistent challengers. One of the best title races in recent times was on. And then it wasn’t.
Ealing and Doncaster being denied provisional entry to the Premiership – a month before this title race reaches a conclusion – has ended the season.
Firstly, we know the rules. We know the 10,001 stadium capacity blah blah blah. Which, as has been repeated so many times recently citing the attendances of the likes of Newcastle [5,470], makes no sense. We know it’s safe for both sides to have 5,000 capacities and if they sell out that every week, then build incrementally, then surely that’s a better business model than asking them to build a 10,000-seater in the hope they make it to the Premiership and in the hope the Premiership let them in. Field of Dreams was not a documentary.
This Championship season already had the excitement of there being a new face in the Premiership next season – and somebody else to beat Bath – and even if that was Ealing, great, at least they’ll invest in their side and maybe shake things up. The owner is determined and has put his money where his mouth is.
That we then had the added excitement of a Yorkshire club – our biggest untapped market in terms of audience potential – in the mix, only made it the stuff Championship fan dreams are made of.
Smug ringfencers may tell us that the rules were in place, but it’s been so long since we had reason to consider them, that we’d all forgotten how pointless they are.
And, to bring this full circle, surely every sport’s fan must feel the sense of injustice from this ruling. Even if you have long since pinned your flag to the mast of ringfencing, you surely can’t think the destruction of a title campaign should happen off the field two months from the end?
And what exactly are these rules protecting? Will a ringfenced Premiership become the Super Bowl? Nope, even the most optimistic of ringfencers must see that.
Will it become more viable or, more to the point, will it be less viable if Doncaster are in there rather than, say, any of the other two northern clubs? No.
It’s just all about timing. The people at the table when the shares were divvied out – and didn’t sell them – they’re the winners, that’s it.
Let’s please stop pretending we’re going to be treated to a new world of rugby, a new rugby utopia where every game is pure, unadulterated joy and non-stop entertainment if they stop other teams joining it.
If a club has the finances in place, a stadium that is safe – for whatever capacity they choose to set – and players that can safely compete, then let them play. If not, stop pretending you want them to. Stop placing unnecessary and unrealistic barriers in the way of ambitious and successful teams who want to progress.
Just say, ‘listen, we don’t care what new audiences or interest you bring to our game, we’re happy not filling the stadiums we’ve got, thanks’.
But whatever you do, stop telling genuine fans of the Championship, that they shouldn’t be angry because the rules were in place before. That doesn’t mean the rules are right. And that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t change.
If you want to hear more on the Championship farce, check out our friends at Championship Clubs Podcast.
