Northampton Saints
Role Models - Rugby vs Football
By Stu Whitefield
March 2 2011
Stu Whitefield (Former Hollywood Saint) talks about role models in British life, and why people choose football even though it is far more negative than it's oval-balled cousin. And, more importantly, what football should learn from rugby...
Role Models - Rugby vs Football
We live in an age at the moment where people are heavily influenced by what they see on television. They form role models. Women have a general role model in pop stars and actresses, which some argue give a bad impression on people. We are forever reading about celebrities falling out of clubs in the early hours of the morning with about six drinks too many. However, this doesn’t stop women idealising them. Men on the other hand, turn to sport. Football is by far and away the most popular sport in Britain right now and men tend take what they see on the pitch and transfer it to their own lives. We wonder why Britain is ‘broken’ at the moment and we blissfully blame the government. I should at this point tell you that I am not extracting them from blame, just taking some of it from them. The answer to why we such an anti-social nation right now, may point at Football. This is a great time in the year that football has to share the sporting stage in Britain with rugby. Rugby seems to come in as a breath of fresh air, with gentlemen who play the game like it should be. The comparisons are quite obvious when you study the two.
Firstly: the referees. In football, a few times per match the referee will give a decision that to anyone with a couple of brain cells looks like an obvious foul. Sixty thousand people see the player lunge in wildly at another man’s legs and a free kick is given. The next minute or so will be the former screaming at the referee that he hasn’t done anything and will go on to use various expletives to demonstrate his point. If his point is not heard, then more of his colleagues will join in and do the same. Rugby however, is conducted with a bit more decorum. A penalty is given; the player in question helps the opposing player up and silently walks back to his own side. Even when a player is yellow or red carded, they accept it and simply walk off without a remark to the referee.
Then we move onto the fans. Firstly, in football fans are penned in within human fences with stewards separating the two screaming fans. Also, hardly any drink is consumed on the premises and there are armies of stewards and police to stop any trouble. In rugby, fans sit and stand together and swap stories about what their relevant team is doing. Drinks flow, the stewards only help people get to their seats and the police (if any at all) are there to help traffic flow. At my local club Northampton Saints, in the European Cup there was an away trip to Biarritz in the south of France. The French fans got in touch with the supporters club at the Saints and told them that they would put up travelling fans in their own homes when they come down for the visit. The favour was returned when the Biarritz fans came up to Northampton.
Now answer me this: Would that happen in Football? Not without many deaths or casualties afterwards.
It is interesting to see the nation get behind the Home countries during the Six Nations at the moment as we see the young guns of England bring them in to a new era of actually winning consistently and as opposed to the football team: trying. The Welsh and Scots as well as the Irish always have a fearsome support too, and their player ball out the national anthems with tears in their eyes. But at the end of the day, all supporters will be in the bar together having a drink. The FA recently announced that they wouldn’t want to work with the other home nations for a GB Football team at the Olympics. Hardly a cry of togetherness is it?
Another situation I noted recently was the Wayne Rooney incident during last weekend against Wigan. He ran past someone twenty yards away from the ball and accidentally elbowed the player in the head. What happens? Nothing. Another one today is Ashley Cole shooting someone with his air rifle in Chelsea training ground. Again of course, this was only an accident. Of course it was, because everyone carries a rifle to football training. Again, would this happen in Rugby? No.
If the public were to realise that the nature of football is what is dragging some people down, then they can possibly do something about it. People should start to look at who they see as positive role models. Furthermore, they should see who the right role model is for them.
A lasting point was made by the FIFA a few months back when they said that they didn’t want video referees or access to replays as ‘it would be too much like Rugby’. If I was one of them, I would want to change to follow rugby’s example.
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Stumbleupon02/03/2011 16:35
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"Women have a general role model in pop stars and actresses, which some argue give a bad impression on people." Errrr no -my role models were neither and I am sure many of my friends would agree.
tedge - the two countries I could think of were France and Argentina. For example, the Boca Juniors vs River Plate match in Argentina is a very tasty affair known as the Super Classico - the fans really do dislike each other. What I don't know is what rugby supporters are like in Argentina.
As for rugby players and referees, there is more back chat than there used to be and I hope I stop seeing this trying to get the opposition carded nonsense.
Well done FHS on a thought provoking piece
ClaireJ
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Rugby the role models for football? Bloodgate? Bathgate? Golfcartgate etc
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Dryathlon
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011:03:02:19:53:56 by St.Rich Joe, Niamh and Sam's Dad.
I'll bite.
There are several points I disagree with, and I don't even particularly like football as a sport. Firstly, there's the piece that ClaireJ picked up about women having actresses and pop stars as role models. Not in my case either, thank you!
Then this:
Now answer me this: Would that happen in Football? Not without many deaths or casualties afterwards.
"Many deaths or casualties"? While there are still problems in football, there have been countless visits by English clubs to European clubs this season - have there been any mentions of deaths or casualties? If so, it can't be "many" as we we'd see clubs banned or games played behind closed doors.
There are several other points I can't agree with. While I agree that Wayne Rooney should have been punished for his elbow, things happen on a rugby field that would NEVER be tolerated on a football pitch. When there's a fight on a rugby field, which happens almost every week, we cheer them on. Punching, 'illegal contact with the eye', stamping, biting...they all happen on the rugby field and it's regarded as "part of the game."
Finally, there's this:
[tinyurl.com]
So apologies if people were offended, but hopefully the point of Rugby being IN GENERAL better behaved than football got across.
You know where I am if you still want to shout at me!
FHS.
Having come from a football(ish) background I initially found it very disquieting sitting next to a Tigers fan discussing the merits of play on both sides. But the fact I can take the kids to the majority of games without fear for them and the fact that they can interact with the players easily after games makes rugby the choice of sport for me.
However both sports are guilty of rotten eggs and heroes!
To Serve, To Strive and Not To Yield
I fell out of love with soccer as the physical aspects of the game itself became sanitised and the so called beautiful game became the plaything of millionaires and the game itself became characterised by thuggery cheating and a lot of very bad acting and a growing tribalisation and brutalisation of and amongst the fans.
But then at the same time i had a lot of reservations about rugby - its elitist public school image in England and to certain degree in Scotland was almost overwhelming in those days - moving to Northampton changed all that
So when i read this article i was somewhat puzzled at the need to write it - because as a counter to the wayne rooneys there is a Ryan Giggs ( although probably fewer of the latter nowadays.
In short I dont feel any better as a rugby fan - i do feel sorry for a lot of soccer fans whose game has been distorted and corrupted - but i dont feel the need to excerise my contentment by excoriating their misfortune .
As for role models its not the sports that create them or re inforce them for good or bad - its a voracious and fundementally amoral mass media who do this.
So long as we have mass circulation so called newspapers whose almost perpetual focus is on the pecadilloes and worse of soccer stars and similar our youngster will get the wrong messages.
1 The public gets the media it deserves. And consequently the role models it deserves.
2 Rugby is not better or worse than football, it is different. Some people who behave badly choose to do so at or around football matches - that doesn't necessarily make football the problem. Some people also behave badly near pubs - that doesn't make pubs the problem.
I think that'll do for now, before I write something I may regret.
"Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it."
-- Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor 161-180 A.D.
I have my own reasons for finding football odious now. But the comparison with rugby is probably odious too.
And don't ask me to absolve our current Goverment from blame for anything... I get a lot of relief from screaming at the referee to remove all Tories and Etonians from the playing fields...
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Claire - regards segregation. Some teams have a history and it's necessary (for the moment) to keep fans apart. For example, the Cobblers had 3,400 for their game on Tuesday against Burton Albion. Probably only 100 or so away fans. I'd hate to think how many stewards, police etc. they were required to have there - but if you took them away, would there have been any trouble? I doubt it.
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You do us rugby fans a disservice with this article.
R.
ps. and by the way it's tv soap operas that have ruined our society.
03/03/2011 13:14
1. It's ignorant
a) Society's ills drievn by football? The causal link is clearly the other way round. 1980's problems of working class male alienation focused on a tribal identity etc. 2000's obsesion with quickly won celebrity and money. they floww toward football not away from it.
b) Football fans can't integrate? Try walking up the hill and have a drink at TGI's prior to a Cobblers match. I've sat next to Millwall fans up in there - few of them neanderthal.
c) The relative purity of the sport? Bloodgate, Bathgate have been quoted. Cynical cheating is not even new - get out the DVD of the 1978 All Blacks win v Wales
2. It smacks of an inferiority complex. Let's not ask why football has captured the global imagination of billions when rugby of any code hasn't (I might lose some of you here I know). We're on a rugby forum so most of us probably prefer egg-chasing but there is the arguement that footy might be actually more exciting (psycholgists will tell you its about the relative value of a scarce goal).
3. It smacks of snobbishness (see prior posts) which is just unpleasant.
Clearly footy has its problems and the relative fan bases are in general more aggressive in their opposition to each other. But that's because rugby has not evoked the passion that football has over the last 140+ years. Let's not kid ourselves though. We're seeing niggle creep in amongst supporters (viz the Sarries chants). We're also seeing playboy life choices by young men earning £150k p.a. (what would they do if they earned that a week?). These a small problems compared to those facing football; a sport that because of its enormously greater popularity gets enormously greater attention.
My typing skills are so slow that this has consumed most of lunch. Lets just grow-up.
c)
A: Everyones 'right'
B: Everyone has to have the last word
c: It often makes the perceived differences between sports seem like very small spuds in comparison.
How did so many wars get fought and empires won on the playing fields of Eton by such sensitive souls?
As Smurf points out - and doubtless others feel - sport is very much part of society and society is political, with a small 'p', though, I concede.
Whenever social historians get stuck into the 'codes' of football, they find the political connections inescapable. Once you dig into the mire of social politics - gender, class, and so on - all hell breaks loose.
I shan't say another word for fear of being slapped down by an officious editor or somesuch...
*I could agree with you - but then we'd both be wrong...*
I do not hate everything football - I still avidly follow the results of Leeds United and Whitby Town. I do think there are a lot of issues in Football but that has more to do with the corrupting influence of money. Rugby is not innocent either - although it is still a better example of respect for the ref.
One thing that does stick in my mind clearly from football and a good example was from Leeds first game back in the championship this season. They played Derby (I think) and a ex Leeds Player - sold in the bad bad times we had scored a cracking goal. He did not celebrate at all. He just walked back to the start position out of respect to his old club and the fans he still admired. Now he is a role model for me.
“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
Benjamin Franklin
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Quote:St Dom
I shan't say another word for fear of being slapped down by an officious editor or somesuch...
Just get over yourself
Asterisk deliberately excluded
David L
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No alcohol for January. I'm a dryathlete in aid of cancer research.
Dryathlon
David L
What if there were no hypothetical questions?
- Live wrong and preposterously
I say in doing so it has contributed to what we do and what we are here for.
“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
Benjamin Franklin
Tetleys Block F E143
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