Q: Going back to talking about Toulouse and Stade Francais, can you ever envisage an English club team doing what they have done recently?

ME: Yes, why not, if you price it right. I think the Munster game last year showed that – 33,000 for a game that frankly was a dead game. ‘Do I ever think you could et 60, 70, 80,000 for a club game in England – yes I do, definitely. Not now, but soon.

Stade Francais seven or eight years ago were in division four when they were taken ove, and they spent an awful lot of money, a hell of a lot of money. I remember only three or four years ago when Stade Francais were not selling out the Jean Boin and that’s only 12,000. It was only last year when they started to sell out reasonably regularly but not every week. Then they took the Heineken Cup quarter-final to the Parc des Princes against Newcastle and got 45,000 by pricing it very, very keenly. But something’s happened in Paris which has never happened before – they always said ‘you can’t sell sport in Paris’ and suddenly a ticket for Stade Francais in Paris is a hot ticket, I say suddenly but it has taken seven, eight, nine years and a huge amount of money, but he’s a very energetic guy and he’s very wealthy, he got 3,000,000 people on the streets to protest against some kind of change in the radio station that he owns, and he’s taken the Stade Francais/Toulouse rivalry, marketed the hell out of it, they got 50,000 last year and they are going to get 80,000 this year. They weren’t given the Parc des Princes this year, they said the grass couldn’t take it so they said they would go to the Stade de France instead. They were told they were mad but they sold it out, there will be 80,000 people there next weekend.

I think we could do it, you can do if for cup finals, so why couldn’t you do it for a really, really big club game in the fullness of time? I think rugby union in England could be absolutely enormous, but I think the way we structure it actually makes it more difficult.

[DR: laughs]

ME: I do think that the audience is there, I think a lot of people if you expose them to it would enjoy it who, at the moment have not had that experience.

Q: But you look at the double header at Twickenham and the gate was down this season

ME: Us not being there knocked about 10,000 off the gate. It’s about creating events, cup finals are like weddings – everybody wants to go whether they’re invited or not.

Q: We seem to be taking record numbers to away games, and around where I sit all I can hear are other Quins supporters, but what is it like on the field, can you hear the opposition supporters, are we out shouting them? Are we really giving the team a lift? 

DR: You ask any of the players and they will say the support they are getting away from home is unbelievable. I hope that you see that they are coming over to thank you afterwards, because that’s not prompted at all, the players do that of their own volition. They really do want to show their appreciation. We are going to go to a lot of places that will be difficult to play at – Otley was difficult, Pertemps Bees was difficult but the support that we got was tremendous – the players do appreciate it. As I say they have not been told to go and thank the fans, it’s just that the support is so great that they just want to say thank you very much.

ME: I think it’s a knock out. I’m amazed! What’s it all about? [laughs] It’s just been spontaneous, last season we took about 250-300 to most Premiership games for the last few seasons but this season we have taken 1,500 to Birmingham, 750 to Otley and Nottingham, it’s just sensational, brilliant, it does make such a difference.

Q: Do you think some of it is because, like Dean said earlier, Premiership grounds are becoming more hostile?

DR: I don’t mean hostile to the spectators, I mean when you get on the field it is hostile. What I would say is that when you go to places where people haven’t been to, or haven’t been to for a long, long time and you go down to Truro to play Cornish Pirates it will be a great weekend away. Even my wife’s said she wants to come down, I’ve tried to dissuade her [laughs].

ME: I know what you mean, perhaps the grounds we are visiting are more convivial. But also it’s easier to get a ticket, they are more convivial, as Dean said they are places that we haven’t been to for a long time and there is a curiosity, and I think partly, which is the most encouraging thing from the club’s point of view, it’s about people thinking that we’ve had a right kick in the teeth, it’s been hard and we’re going to go that extra mile. And that’s just fantastic – it’s a combination of all those things. And if and when we go back to the Premiership (I don’t want to tempt fate) but when we do I wonder how many people will still go, will we still get 750 or 1,500 people going. We’re not alone in this, away support in the Premiership is very, very low, the only team that really travelled here last year was Worcester, they brought about 1200. I remember the days when Leicester used to take 2 or 3000, but they don’t today anyone who says they still do is wrong. They take 300, 400 500 tops, it’s a shame really.

In rugby league it’s different, obviously they are much closer together (apart from us), but they travel in big numbers, if you go to a Leeds Rhinos Bradford Bulls game, they are only about 10 miles apart though, but we’re not that much further away from Reading, Watford or High Wycombe, but they take 5, 6, 7000.

It’s a feature of the Premiership in rugby union that not a lot of away fans travel. 

Q: Isn’t that an argument against ring fencing – playing the same teams year in, year out?

ME: It’s an argument, it’s not an overwhelming argument [laughs]. There are always arguments for and against it’s the weight of argument that matters [laughs].

DR: Don’t start him off, I’m going to have this for three weeks now [laughs]

ME: It’s only because you know I’m right [laughs]

The next part will see the management duo discussing sharing of the gate and South Seas rugby.

View a Printer Friendly version of this Story.

Bookmark or share this story with:

• Digg
• Delicious
• Facebook
• Reddit
• Stumbleupon