Grass ROOTS OF THE PROBLEM
This extract from a new book, Unholy Union, assesses the myriad issues…
THERE ARE a lot of developments feeding into the fall in rugby’s playing numbers, which is more or less established as fact around the world, despite the bold figures World Rugby massages into existence, alongside hopeful hashtags and exclamation marks.
More or less established, as opposed to actually established, only because there are no reliable figures from the amateur era and the tales of desolate fields where once thousands ran free are anecdotal and can never be properly tested. No doubt they are exaggerated as much as the official line is, but the refrain seems consistent that the number of adults playing rugby for love has plummeted since professionalism.
NUMBERS GAME
It is impossible to take the pulse of the community game around the world, or to reach conclusions about the community game anywhere that are not generalisations. We shall focus on the community game in England and hope the issues faced are broadly those faced everywhere. Unholy Union has conducted a survey among more than 350 English clubs, taken evenly across the country and the levels of its pyramid of leagues.
When asked how many men’s teams they fielded in the mid-1990s who would hope to play on a weekly basis, 48% of clubs said four or more; when asked how many now, the figure was 15%. Conversely, 16% said they fielded only one or two back then, compared to the 50% who do now. Judging by the content of more than 200 supplementary comments from the survey, it appears many clubs count a team as playing weekly if it is regularly available to play, but the cancellation of fixtures for second and third teams is a continual refrain. So the reality is likely worse than these figures suggest.
Clubs up and down the league system now take their rugby more seriously than ever. How can it be criticised?
No one, not even the RFU, tries to deny that playing numbers in the men’s game in England have declined significantly since rugby turned professional. There are any number of reasons put forward
