Quote ="Ruddy Duck"The problem with local derbies and the big games is that they attract a element including some from football who do not normally go to a rugby league game.
Over the years, I have seen very little racism in rugby league at both professional and amateur games compared to what I have witnessed at both professional and amateur matches in football where it is rife both on and off the pitch.
The token gesture of players in football getting down on the knee will never stop it as the FA and EFL seemed to think it will!'"
I always struggle with this idea that whenever there are incidents at RL matches, it's because football hooligans have had nothing else to do that afternoon.
If that's true, football hooligans must have had nothing else to do nearly every time Wigan have played Leigh.
I agree that the derby brings out idiots, but RL can supply plenty of its own on those occasions, and Leigh can supply more than most.
To date they remain the only fans I have ever seen who once refused to throw the ball back, chanting 'we've got the ba-all, we've got the ba-all!"' More seriously, they are also the only fans I know who, more than once, have thrown bottles at the visiting team, and even plastic bottles can be dangerous when they are filled with beer, or pee, whatever it is..
I knew several Leigh fans in my first job. They were all in their early 20s, and their mindset was very different from most RL fans in that scrapping and causing trouble was a key part of their matchday experience, and they would openly brag about it on the shop floor. That was back in the 1970s, but on yesterday's form, time seems to run slower in Leigh than anywhere else.
When the day finally comes, we really will be well rid of them.
