Quote Spookisback="Spookisback"I have a huge anti union agenda.... can I join in ??? Is this a general issue or are we being specific???'"
I no longer have an anti Union bias, in fact these days I admire them. Not on the pitch so much but certainly off it. Union in the last 30 years has got almost everything right in a way that RL has got almost everything wrong.
Forget about the 5 nations myth, when RU went pro international RL was still on a high, we blew it not them.
I love RL to my core but when I see those running the game I can’t help but lament the limited gene pool our game pulls from. Being a working class sport is both Leagues greatest strength and it’s greatest weakness. Like it or not the cooler heads, those with long term visions and the abilities to match don’t generally come from or live in the working class North of England. That includes me, I have ideas, some of them good but I’m not educated enough or worldly wise enough to ever know how to put them in action. I typify the northern working man, well meaning but a man who thinks he knows the answers but does very little about it, mainly because I don’t know how or have the self confidence to try. In the end I defer far to often to the big lad who shouts a lot.
I really like both MC and JM but not because they are visionary or brilliant but purely because they are competent, something that should be a given but isn’t They may well, given the chance, one day to prove themselves as such but the tragedy is that by being nothing more than sensible they are head and shoulders above those running most clubs and certainly those allegedly running the game.
Sad but true, RU draws its leaders from the professional and monied classes and it shows. There are people running some well known RL clubs who I wouldn’t trust with running a circus ride.
Of course not everyone in RU is fit to do there job nor is everyone in RL a clown and that applies to the top and bottom of both sports. Where sadly it differs is in ratio and in that RL is the loser.
It’s worst at amateur level, lots of petty small minded people building their own little empires based mainly on who as already stated can shout the loadest.
My lad played both League and Union for nearly 20 years. We both loved League far more but time and time again we were better treated and better looked after by the Union clubs. Far more friendly and far more open and above all well run.
Why any kid who wasn’t steeped in RL would chose it over Union is beyond me and thus the limited gene pool continues.
I confess it’s got better and the input of people like MC and JM is helping but they remain marginalised. You only have to look at the way the real ale drinking intelligencia on Total RL vilify MC for stating the obvious that the game is held back by these tribal nobodies. They call him moaning Mike, so grown up.
The demise of RL has been predicted for decades but if those running the game don’t get a grip in the next few years it will be a self fulfilling prophecy.
So no I don’t have an issue with Union any more I have it with RL (off the pitch).
