Anyone follow a local rugby team? I have been to the odd international (including a World Cup final) and a couple of Wasps games at LR, but I don't really know much about lower leagues rugby. I've been invited to Ealing Trailfinders versus Richmond today and was surprised to find that Ealing are top of English League division one, which makes them equivalent to Swindon Town or Bristol City. Looking forward to a boozy afternoon.
Heading out to watch Wasps v Leinster now Strolls. They're my team but I suspect you're talking about smaller more regionalised Clubs. In that case mine is Clontarf. Go there the odd time for a boozy afternoon as you eloquently put it . (I watched England play Ireland there in the Cricket a couple of years back. The only game of Cricket I've ever been to. Good fun. Those Cricket lads are actually tough guys.)
Followed Wasps since their Loftus Road days but now they've buggered off to Coventry they can go hike. Have links to Streatham-Croydon RFC who are based just down the road from me in Thornton Heath, I trialled with them as a 15 year old fly-half and played a few games in their Under-16s but never went back after leaving school. In those days they were amongst London's top teams but they now play in Surrey Div 2 of the RFU pyramid which is a long way down...
Pop along to Sarries occasionally, so they are my closest team and who I look out for, my tickets for England V France in March arrived today, so did my Stoke QPR ticket, I must be mad
Club rugby, the lower down the pyramid the better, is a great bastion of what sport ought to be about. My lad played colts (U18) rugby last season, it was geat fun and these lads left everything on the pitch, only reward a beer. Clubs are friendly and welcoming, and you can usually watch from the bar. Of course, it entailed relatively frequent trips to A&E, and it has to be said the quality is variable. And that is almost all down to coaching - good coach and disciplined, fit team can go far. Professional rugby union is preferable to its shamateur predecessor, but its gone a bit stupid at the top of the game now - insane body shapes and sizes, permanent injuries, entrenched cheating in scrums. Plus the rules (and the danger to players) make the referee by far the most important player on the pitch. Get a bad one and you know it quickly, and start to worry about safety. Enjoy Strolls, its a good afternoon out. The wife is Welsh, which means the lad follows Wales at rugby (and Ospreys is his club), they are considering spending a fortune to see a Wales game at the Millenium in the World Cup. England - Wales games the tensest sporting occasions in my house, I am in a minority of one.
I see the very first fixture in this seasons 6 Nations is Wales v England on the Friday night, should be a cracker. The way the fixtures pan out the Irish must be favourites and the 3rd round of fixtures should be pivotal for all the teams...
Only club rugby I've been to is London Broncos in Super League - prefer League over Union, a much faster (and bit more violent) game
Strolls do they still play out Greenford way? When I played club rugby for what was then called Civil Service RFC, now called CS Rugby 1863, we always played Ealing, it was a god awful ground, always ankle deep in mud, no heating in the changing rooms and a crap bar.......for some reason we were always on the end of a tonking at their place...... We actually played Richmond once in a play off round for the John Player Cup, they were a First Class side, we were a Junior Club side, this was way before the current structure was in place, they had a nice ground which they shared with London Scottish. We did okay 1st half only trailed by a point or so, but they over ran us in the 2nd half after they got a bollocking from their coach......
It's in West Ealing, Tramore, and it's a lovely new facility. http://www.tfsc.co.uk/ They play on a synthetic pitch, which surprised me, but I gather it's becoming more common. The rugby was of a very good standard and it was a high-scoring game - Ealing won 63-36. A very pleasant afternoon (and evening) all-in-all.
Crikey Strolls, that's very smart looks a lovely facility. Rugby is big business these days even at the lower levels of the game, must cost a tidy sum to run a club even in the semi -professional level.
There's a lot of corporate sponsorship going into Rugby these days and with the World Cup on the horizon there'll be a lot more going into the game, it presents a far better image for the sponsors...
The attendance at yesterday's game was 849, which is pretty much a full house, so they're not making a fortune on gate receipts at £15 a go. There were probably 150 sat down for the pre-match meal and the large bar did very good business before and after the game - I left at about 8.30 and it was still full. I would guess that the bar and restaurant may have taken about £8-10k. Still not a massive amount though, considering some of the players are full-time professionals and the rest semi-pro, so they must rely a lot on corporate sponsors and hiring out the facility for functions. An impressive set-up, though, and a world away from the place you used to play at, Tramore.
Sounds like a decent set up they have although as you say hugely reliant on corporate sponsorship. During the summer I was playing golf with a lad who was training with one of the local rugby clubs here in Waterford and it was a conservative estimate that it costs the club €1m a year just to keep a side going in the Irish League set up, we're talking very low level, no where near Pro12 or anything like that, probably division 2 or 3. A huge amount of money for clubs that were previously amateur set ups and had players paying an annual sub plus match fees.
