Tbf to the residents around there, they tolerate the Rugby crowds very well as they're no trouble. I've been there numerous times and never, ever seen any crowd problems. Football crowds, unfortunately, are a different matter.
That's akin to buying a house next to a railway line and then complaining when they put bigger trains on the tracks **** 'em
I used to live about a mile from Twickenham. It is not true that there is no trouble at all. It just called high spirits. It is not a good place be when matches are on. Drunks and abuse all day.
I've never, ever seen any. Noisy, yes. A few people who've had a good drink, yes. But I've never seen any trouble or violence of any sort. And I've been to Twickenham stadium over 100 times over the years.
And a brilliant one, at that. Kronke would have rubbed himself raw, had he thought of the idea. He'd probably have bought himself another ranch on the profits.
10-12 years ago I would have agreed with you NSIS but the demographic of rugby crowds has changed significantly since the game became professional about 20 years ago. There has been a slow but sure drift into the tribalism of professional football. The abuse to Nigel Owens is no different to that given to black footballers. New Zealand performed the Haka in the past is listened to and applauded by the whole Twickenham crowd. A couple of years ago if I remember correctly the crowd drowned it out. The very high price of tickets for football is probably partly responsible for the drift of the hooligan element into rugby, which combined with the availability of alcohol at rugby ground has caused an increase in violence
I've not been for the best part of 10 yrs, and there were certainly no problems inside or outside the stadium up to that time. From what I see on tv, I don't get the sense that much has changed. That ridiculous negro spiritual really pisses me off, how that nonsense ever started I'll never know!. The attempts to distract the kicker are ****ing childish too. As to prices, tickets for internationals are rarer than rocking horse ****, and bloody expensive too. As expensive, if not more so, than any top PL club. So quite how the football hooligan element are able to get them, I'm not so sure.
It is It's not just internationals at Twickenham though. They have days with double header league games there and so four sets of fans are descending on the area. I don't want to argue with you as I was only pointing out my experiences and observations from living very near the ground.
True I've never been there for a club game. I've no idea what the ticket prices for those are. If the game has been hijacked by idiots, then it's time to do something. No true Rugby man is going to stand by and just watch that nonsense ruining the game. I know from many years of experience that if any stupidity had started the participants would have been confronted by some very large gentlemen who would point out the error of their ways to them. Certainly on international days I've never seen any problem, either from England supporters or the opposition. There's never any segregation and fans mix together freely. Edit: I would add that if the kind of behaviour you describe is taking hold, I would advocate the main culprits being identified and banned from every first class ground in the country. I still have some contacts in the game, I'll find out more.
