I would bet the intent of this diatribe was thought of well before the actual day itself. This is just another example of the dark side at work; the southern based old school ties network at the BBC also had a go on the day by giving the director’s job to a zombie, the same one who tells Robbie (Hunter) Paul to keep up the good work in promoting his beloved sport. The guy who wrote this load of sh*te will probably wax lyrical about the dark sides six nations come the autumn. I’m only surprised that they didn’t include a few pics of an old ex-miner rigged out in his beer stained vest, pit belt and flat cap dragging a whippet on a lead while chuffing on a Woodbine as he makes his annual pilgrimage up the Wembley way. It’s just a load of biased stereo typical southern upper class old school, know your place sh*te!

OK, rather than moaning to ourselves on here let him know what you think. Try to be constructive. Twitter https://twitter.com/CalvinBook

OK, rather than moaning to ourselves on here let him know what you think. Try to be constructive. Twitter https://twitter.com/CalvinBook

Quote ="Finfin"OK, rather than moaning to ourselves on here let him know what you think. Try to be constructive. Twitter https://twitter.com/CalvinBook'" Read it, it sure is enlightenment.

Quote ="Finfin"OK, rather than moaning to ourselves on here let him know what you think. Try to be constructive. Twitter https://twitter.com/CalvinBook'" Read it, it sure is enlightenment.

Of course that is criticism, it is one of the most obvious jibes in the whole piece, have you never heard the phrase damning with feint praise? It is basically taking the Michael out of the sponsors that Rugby league has and the fact that Rugby League cant get decent sponsors. It is certainly a valid criticism but it is criticism all the same and certainly isnt meant as a compliment to Rugby League.

I do get the impression that no matter what the game or general occasion was like that article, or a slight variation of the same theme, would have been printed anyway. I have seen many similar articles over the years, in various Newspapers, even after some cracking finals.

Quote ="Finfin"OK, rather than moaning to ourselves on here let him know what you think. Try to be constructive. Twitter https://twitter.com/CalvinBook'" Done...

Quote ="Finfin"OK, rather than moaning to ourselves on here let him know what you think. Try to be constructive. Twitter https://twitter.com/CalvinBook'" Done...

Just reading some of his responses to people show that he is proud to get exactly the reaction that he wanted. I have to say some RL fans dont help themselves though and simply make some of his points stronger and make it quite easy for him to appear to be the rational one.

Mine was very measured, I could see he was lapping it up.

I decided to tweet some sensible comments to see if I could encourage a grown up debate with him. However, he blocked me after just 5 tweets and further insults from him! He is a small time journalist seeking attention and clearly incapable of any reasoned debate.


Just in case he is only doing this to raise his profile and sell papers I will make sure that I never buy the Independent!

Indeed. Simply fodder for the "it's grim up north" brigade. Suprised the Indy publish this bilge, they

Kinda the issue with League in a nutshell though isn't it? On the one hand the strong community feel in the heartlands is a strength because of the close connection with the towns, but on the other hand, that deep relationship makes it difficult for other areas of the country to really feel the sport is for them.

This article was a mixed bag, as pointed out above he does highlight some of league's advantages over football and some of the points it makes are true.

However this is where you can tell the journalist is a smug arrogant toff wanting to patronise the sport of the working classes:



This is really quite pathetic. What he means is, rugby league observed the traditions of a major final, exactly the same as football does in the FA Cup, and has done for decades. It's a major final at Wembley. What he could have said, and there was an article on the BBC website about this last week, is that the Challenge Cup has retained its special place in the rugby league calendar in an era where the relative importance of the FA Cup has declined.

You can't say a sport is struggling because a game was dull. This happens in all sports. The big irony in football, is the turning point that made football in the UK and Europe skyrocket in terms of attractiveness to sponsors, was the 1990 World Cup, Pavarotti, Nessun Dorma, Gazza's tears and all that. That World Cup is generally regarded as the most dull and negative ever in terms of the football on show, but it was huge on a scale never seen before in World Cups, and from that you had the major TV companies jumping on board, a lot more opening of the markets between countries with players moving around the leagues and top players popping up in all the different world leagues. But you could easily have written articles after that West Germany v Argentina final where they won 1-0 with a penalty and said football is dying, look at what a dull spectacle we have.

disappointing from the indie that. is this a new crusade from the Russian owner to pander to the views of Se demographic as a way to drum up some more readership ?
does Dave Hadfield still do their regular coverage ?

His wife will probably endorse the comment that he doesn't know the definition of excitement.

Interesting to see some of the media reactions to the Ashes now that its over, you would have thought cricket was the ultimate sport of the Middle England media but they are generally being negative, saying apart from an exciting First Test it was a dull series played on lifeless pitches, with negative tactics and bad umpiring.

The broadsheets are running these lines today and it was all over the radio shows last night.

So I don't think we should be too paranoid about criticism, the media does lay in to other sports. After the 2011 RU World Cup the English media were particularly negative.

The big difference though, that comes in some of the RL articles, is a general nastiness about the sport and what it represents, ie flat cap northerners with no future. When the media lays in to cricket or RU it isn't laying in to the sport itself or its followers, it's just having a whinge about what's on show.

I was going to line the bottom of the budgies cage with it, but decided why should Joey have the privilege. Anyway joey can’t read….lucky old Joey I say.

The big difference is that other sports get large amounts of coverage all year round so a big negative article is well balanced with the good and the size or the article is in proportion to the the coverage that the sport would normally get. In Rugby league this is certainly not the case and in many of these Newspapers you cant even usually find a match report from a game the day before and if you did it would extend to a paragraph or two. However then out of the blue, usually well timed just before or after major occasions to undermine them, we then get a full page or double page spread that would equate to a full months of normal RL coverage for that paper.

These negative articles are usually written by people that have never written about the sport before, have no connection with the sport and are often written by Rugby Union journalists with an axe to grind who quite frankly have no credentials to write about Rugby League. I could deal with the large negative articles if they were part of a balanced reporting of the sport, as in the other sports you mention, but they certainly aren't.

Strange as he intimates he's got family in Cumbria and something of a RL background.

Probably not been accepted by his southern peers, which isn't really surprising as he does come across as being a tool.

Having said that, if you cut out the sarcasm, much of what he says is true and we should maybe just put two fingers up to all the none believers and keep the game up north.

I've sent an email to Brian Barwick at the RFL requesting that he puts his "little black book" to good use regarding this article.
I await his response.

He's a journo and a word smith, essentially taking him on in a battle of words, especially on a medium like twitter is playing to his strengths. The guy's tool, the best thing to do would be to just ignore him as thats what people like him fear most.

Quick glance at his wikipedia page and he's a southerner, born in Watford.

Poor bugger.

Well we never would have guest! Now my feeling of inferiority has just got even worse.

I got a nice reply from Mr Barwick who has raised this matter with senior executives at the RFL to the Independent's piece for their thoughts and interest.
Credit to Mr Barwick for his prompt reply.

Didn't he mention that his dad was from Cumbria?

Being born in Watford to a cockney is akin to being born in Workington.

Agreed it's a poorly written, lazy piece of journalism.

Did anyone else think of Anchorman when they say the image at the top of the article?