Rugby league crowds for many years have had unpleasant elements.

I think crowd behaviour has moved along with shifts of the type of people who go to the games.

When I started watching in the late 80s and early 90s, rugby league crowds could be quite intimidating. The crowds were mostly male and there were a lot of young lads who were up for a fight. It was a bit like football with semi-organised hooliganism, and when we were playing teams like Widnes, Saints or Hull there was usually something kicking off at the train station or outside certain pubs.

Then in the early 2000s there was a big marketing push to make rugby league a family sport, which worked to a certain extent. You had a lot more families and a lot more female fans which diluted the tanked up guys. There were still often stories of crowd trouble on forums like this but one feature of the 2000s from my memory was I would often come back from a game and read 13 page threads of people arguing about crowd trouble when I'd never actually seen any trouble myself. It was probably isolated incidents.

From the 2010s onwards I think the demographics shifted again. I don't have any statistics to back this up but just from what I observed, RL hasn't had quite the same happy family feel. You do find some "hangers on" who turn up especially at the big games who don't appear to be very clued up about the team but who see it as an excuse for a booze up and to behave like a total idiot. It's different from the angry hardcore which I remember from the 80s and 90s.

One thing I would say though for people who are worried about going to Wembley is Wembley doesn't seem to be nearly as bad as the Grand Final at Old Trafford. London is a long way to travel for a casual fan and the kick off is in the afternoon. Very different from Manchester with an evening kick off where anybody who supports a RL team other than Catalans can hop on a train in the morning, be in Manchester before lunchtime and spend 5-6 hours getting hammered.

Sallys post reminded me of the time at the HJ when we played Hull fc.probably 2010 ish my memory isnt that great for dates. After the game outside around the Rodney was like a battle ground with it kicking off big time. I’ve never seen anything like it since. Wigan used to have a rowdy bunch called the big aunties or something but the most aggro they caused was sticking stickers in the toilets..

I remember complaining about the chants and language at matches decades ago and was met with a hail of 'disagreement' from 'fans'.
The common response was 'you hear worse in the street' - or words to that effect.
But I still find it extremely unsavory, and the world has moved on and many others - I would argue a higher proportion - find it increasingly unsavory and outdated in the 21st century.
It won't stop me going to the matches but I can imagine it putting off some families.
And if we want higher attendances and to grow our sport it's hardly a recipe for that.
I cringe when I hear the 'swearing' chants on TV - as others have said it paints the sport in a bad light.
And it's all so unnecessary.
I feel the wits who come up with these chants are more than capable of coming up with some without expletives.

I'm afraid the loud renditions of TFATW may not be tolerated much longer in these times of enlightenment

I remember the same point being made 25 years ago on WolfWeb. Still here.

Did the old fella ejected for the smoke bomb incident incident actually ignite it or was he merely holding it up for the stewards to take over?

Yeah perhaps the development of elite female sport and cultural attitudes have changed in the last 25 years though? I can see sponsors nowadays getting a little nervous about being associated with chants espousing the relative abundance of ladies genitalia.

Plenty of chants I remember from the 80's have long gone.

I remember a chant from that era of "all we want is a decent referee". I think it eventually got superseded by more sweary and offensive equivalents!

Other tuneful ditties such as

"The referee's a *****"
"Warr--ing---ton" repeated
"We hate Wigan"
"A-G-AGR-A-G-R-O AGRO..."
"Gimme a W ..."
"Your going home in a St Johns ambulance.."
"You must have come in a taxi(tractor)"
"She wore ..."

etc

Problem is, if you chant about what is in abundance it'll be something like "vape shops, council debt and pot holes"

I remember this.

Did it not turn out that all the trouble was caused by Hull City football fans who decided to turn up at Warrington because they had no game that day.

Also...
"Hello, hello, Wires agro, Wires agro."
"You're gonna get your ****ing heads kicked in."

And one still sometimes heard in the Yorkshire backwaters...
"Gerrinto 'um! Gerrinto 'um!"

Stewards are not there to enforce security or deal with people breaking the law, they are there for safety and crowd control. They are specifically not supposed to get involved in incidents: they are not trained to do it and its unreasonable to ask them to put themselves in harms way. That's what stadium security and the Police are there for.

Trying to in any way shift blame from the individuals involved onto people working at the stadium is just wrong.

I wasn`t trying to shift any blame from the idiot who was holding a lit flare, but I consider that dealing with this fool was part of the stewards role as part of crowd control that you mentioned.

If they can`t deal with an incident like that, I can`t see the point of wasting money employing them.

I hope that the guy who was evicted by the police is prosecuted and banned from attending future RL games.

They are cheaper than police. The fact they are completely ineffective is neither here nor there. I speak with some experience as I was a steward at a premier league club when I was a student.

I get the occasional exasperated sweary. But chanting the same abuse over and over comes across as just pathetic.
Another old favourite “ You’ll never walk again…” (to the obvious tune).

Not seen anything from the RFL about any investigation.

To be fair that wasn't quite what happened. I was in the seating bit adjacent said 'fool' with my missus and our four girls. I kept an eye on things and the initial steward looked like he was asking the fool to leave but he point blank refused, thats when he got the police involved. My youngest was asking what was going on and i had to explain the mentality of some idiots - especially the Nazi salute he gave to the crowd as he was escorted from the ground.

I'm not sure what disappointed me more - his behaviour to start with or a large section of the crowd cheering at his salute.

Nazi salute???

Yes, I saw the fool do a Nazi salute too.

Also put his finger on his other hand under his nose to imitate a moustache.

He should be banned from all future RL games.

Like this?

That would have been worth a giggle but alas no......just some lagered up rotund chappy who cant handle ale thinking he looked awesome but actually didnt, and proving his mental age hasn't reached double figures as yet!