Farce! Joke! Disgraceful!

Moan, moan, chuffing moan

Being a Rugby League fan can be challenging sometimes. Not because it's particularly difficult watching highly skilled athletes playing a highly exciting game played at a blistering pace but because of the attitude of some of the fans. For those of us like myself who like to talk about Rugby League through on-line forums and elsewhere it can be a depressing experience.

At any given point there are a number of talking points in the game, many that have come from difficult decisions. We are at the stage where almost any decision made in our game is faced with calls of farce and ridicule from certain quarters. Famously, League Express once had to create a section in its Mailbag purely for positive letters because the editor was fed up with the sheet number of negative letters. This has never been more evident than at the start of this season where there has been a number of controversial talking points.

Whenever this is discussed a number of theories are put forward. For instance some think it is linked to the culture that created the split in 1895 and some think it is do with the innate northernness of the game and the associated stereotypes of moaning northerners.

Why are Rugby League fans so negative?

Some examples

It's important to state that we are not talking about criticism when we say RL fans are negative. There is of course a crucial place for criticism within any organisation or sport. I'm also not talking about in game reactions to referees for instance, which are part and parcel of any sport. The difference is the over-reaction and the outrage that we often see professed about off-field matters. To illustrate my point I'm not going to focus on the obvious examples from the past few weeks like the Stobart deal (called the "saddest day for a medium sized sport" by one) or the I-pitch. Some fans can overreact about the most trivial of things:

Widnes vs Wakefield on Sky - As would normally be the case, Sky chose a promoted club's first game in Super League for an opening weekend game. This didn't go down well amongst some fans who would rather have had a more high profile game start the season. 

"the first half of the season fixtures that Sky have chosen are garbage, my subscription is getting cancelled tonight.
as for Widnes and Salford starting the season, a total joke." (Standee RLfans)

This is a classic example of an overreaction. One made all the more silly the the record opening TV figures we saw at the weekend. 

The Sky advert - An advert made by Sky TV for the new season of RL. They came at it from a different angle for a change. Instead of plenty of action, they went for the funny side. You either like it or you don't. Maybe not...

"It is just about the naffest, least exciting piece of nonsense you could possibly dream up for advertising a fast collision sport. It says nothing at all about the game and in many ways reinforces many stereotypes that non-RL fans have about the game......." (Derwent TotalRL)

He couldn't just not think the advert was funny could he?

The Margin Meter - Now I'm not for one minute going to defend the margin meter as a credible analytical tool and there was plenty of scope for mickey taking. I wanted to show it as an example of just how RL fans can overreact,

"What a load of Sh** this all sounds and even more so what a load of nonsense too. I tune in to watch R/L not some set of infantile idiots playing out their fantasies over playthings that children might even shun. I cannot think that I have heard of anything dafter connected with a serious sporting event." (Petero TotalRL).

We are talking about something that means very little, yet here we have a classic exaggeration. This is while he was talking about cancelling his Sky subscription. The game of RL is apparently damaged by an in-game analysis tool. 

I have just touched on three examples here from the last couple of weeks but I could easily have chosen a multitude of others, not to mention the numerous examples that come up year on year like expansion, licensing, crowd fudging and apparent wrong venue choice. Controversial issues never seem to be far away for people to overreact too. 

Is it a myth?

It's not just my opinion, RL is well known for having fans that are negative. It's worth pointing out that impression can in itself give a false impression and mean we focus too much on the few examples. A quick look at the threads on TotalRL and RLfans shows that in all of these discussions there are a sizeable portion, almost certainly the majority, who are talking reasonably and are actually positive about the decisions or issues. Also, if you were to check out other forums of other sports, say for instance the Liverpool Football forum, they often contain some laughably ridiculous overreactions. 

I would probably have subscribed to this opinion until fairly recently. As some of you are aware, I was involved with the campaign to get fans to use specific game hashtags. During initial attempts to get it off the ground I e-mailed journalists and received positive replies. I also received one reply from a journalist where he stated that whilst he was sceptical about the idea he would still give them a try and wished it the best. However, this is in clear contrast to how a significant number of people reacted. Whilst I anticipated a degree of indifference and disinterest, I did not anticipate how many would actively dislike them to the extent that they were starting their own versions or actively tweeting others telling them not to use them. 

What is important with this example is that we are talking about something that contained no risk. If it was a bad idea then absolutely nothing was lost and all would go back to normal. Yet this didn't stop the vehemence that still continues from some quarters today. Even Liverpool FC fans are usually coming from a position of worry about their team which makes their negativity more understandable, it is an issue they care strongly about. Twitter hashtags or the Margin Meter aren't. Since then I have kept more of an eye on opinion on Twitter and I think that the over-reactive element in RL is still very significant there. They do still crop up on the forums but the difference is that it very quickly becomes difficult to justify that position when it is challenged from many quarters. On a platform such as Twitter they can make their comments knowing they are unlikely to be challenged. 

Here comes the Science bit!

Well not exactly, I'm not a scientist or a psychologist but here is my theory as to why RL has such a strong negative aspect. I think it comes from the apparent fragility of the game. 

Whether we like to admit it or not, Rugby League isn't the most secure of sports. That is to say we don't enjoy a great deal of support or favour and are almost constantly under different pressures to survive. We often pride ourselves on being the sport with the greatest amount of obituary notices written about it. The game continues to have a lot of issues and the RFL are constantly making tough decisions about the future of the game. This is where I think much of it comes from. It's more comforting to imagine that there are a bunch of inept clowns in Red Hall than to think that the game has some serious problems that can not be easily solved. Therefore, I think it is a defence mechanism that certain fans use whenever a decision has been made. Rather than wait and see if the decision is the correct one, they quickly jump and proclaim that it is a pathetic decision. In this way they are protecting themselves from a potential fall if it does go belly up, whilst at the same time making themselves look like they are wiser than perhaps they are. If they are wrong it is relatively quickly forgotten and often it is difficult for them to be proven wrong as it is based on a decision where the opposite decision can not be analysed. There is a large element of game playing going on. 

This has created a culture of sorts around Rugby League where it is OK and almost the norm to ridicule those in charge. This has spilled over from just the authorities to almost anybody involved with Rugby League. People are protective of the game and have become over sensitive to how it will be viewed by others. They have made RL into the Hyacinth Bucket of sports, so worried about how we will be perceived by the outside world and other sports that they don't want us to try anything that could potentially bring embarrassment. So for instance when Sky choose Widnes-Wakefield as the opening game, some instantly worry that it will not give a good impression of RL. The defence mechanism then kicks in and the decision rather than being one they disagree with becomes a farcical one. 

Of course some individuals are just moaners and that will always be the case but I think they have been accepted for too long and it has become cultural. There is also a large aspect of attention seeking amongst these people. Rather than disagree with a decision, if you call it a disgrace you draw more attention to yourself, especially if you are then later proven correct.

So what do you think, is RL as negative as it is made out to be or is it just a myth? Are there other reasons behind the negativity? One thing is for sure, most of those people should try living somewhere where there is almost no Rugby league. We'd see how negative about the game they are then.