Super League returns next weekend and, for the first time in a number of years, there is a bit of buzz around Rugby League in England and France. A serious programme of free-to-air coverage, combined with the agreement with Sky Sports to produce every game for live TV means the sport will be more visible than ever. The new IMG criteria, which are not universally popular among fans, have spurred the clubs into action and many are investing in growth. There is momentum in the sport again after years of stagnation.
It is a rarity that the game unites behind a strategy, and it may be necessity which has forced the clubs to do so. As a sport, rightly or not, there is a long association between rugby league and the word parochialism. More than any other sport, Rugby League seems locked between a desire to expand beyond its heartlands, whilst simultaneously sabotaging every opportunity to do so. Inspired by the positive steps taken in recent weeks, I wanted to reconsider rugby league’s association with parochialism and ask, has it left the tag behind for good, or will this brief moment of unity shatter when challenged.
Parochialism – A Long Association
Looking back through archive reports about the sport, you don’t have to look very hard to find references to parochialism and Rugby League. In 1922, as reported in the Hull Daily Mail, the governing body adopted a new name – “the Rugby Football League”, which was favourably reported by the paper, which stated that they hoped the new name would mean that the “deadening parochialism may become unknown in connection with our game”.
99 years later, when Australia and New Zealand pulled out of the 2021 Rugby League World Cup due to concerns around travelling during the COVID-19 pandemic, their decision was criticised as “selfish, cowardly and parochial” by Simon Johnson, then chairman of the RFL. Unfortunately, the Hull Daily Mail’s hopes of 1922 were not proven to be correct.
In the intervening years, the accusation of parochialism has been frequently leveled at Rugby League. In 1935, a column in the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, considering whether too much attention has been paid to the nascent game in France at the expense of promoting the Challenge Cup, that the “Northern Union, and to some extent the Rugby League, has been too parochially minded at times” and that this is “one reason why expansion in the United Kingdom has never developed”.
Jump forward to 1960, following a poorly attended match between Great Britain and Australia, the Widnes Weekly News writes that “international matches of this kind are unpopular in this country where parochialism is strong”. Discussing an ultimately ill-fated expansion into Italy in 1960, the Huddersfield Daily Examiner wrote that, to date, there had been “too much parochialism and not enough audacity and enterprise”.
In the 1980s and 90s, as the game stood on the verge of the Super League revolution, the accusations persisted, with the RFL, in particular, coming in for severe criticism. Even after the advent of Super League, parochialism was once again blamed for the low attendance at international games at the turn of the century, with England struggling under John Kear’s stewardship.
Can the game finally leave parochialism behind?
And so, once again, the game finds itself on the precipice of another bright new dawn. The return to prime time free-to-air TV offers the opportunity to engage new audiences which has not been possible since the mid-90s. London’s return to Super League means that the top level of Rugby League has a foothold in the south once more, although the IMG criteria has effectively doomed London to relegation before the season has started.
Catalans Dragons appearance in the Grand Final, coupled with an ambitious Toulouse Olympique and AS Carcassonne applying to join the English system shows there is an appetite for the game in France. This has been boosted by a deal to show the Catalans Dragons Super League fixtures on French and Spanish TV is another significant step for Rugby Leage in Europe. This opportunity has to be grasped.
The women’s game is growing, and the Challenge Cup final being played at Wembley and televised on the BBC was a seismic moment. Wheelchair Rugby League has received well deserved praise and a new audience. In many ways, the sport is growing, and new opportunities are springing up for growth.
There have been several moments in the history of Rugby League where parochialism has reigned, and the game has become too insular. It has also missed golden opportunities to capitalise on momentum, by pursuing hail Mary investments, rather than growing from a solid base. It is hard to see how the game bounces back again if this golden opportunity slips by.
In 10-, 20-, 50- or 100-years’ time, if the game is still associated as strongly with parochialism as it has been in the last 100 years, there may not be any media coverage of the game to look back on. After all, as was written back in 1907 in the Hull Daily Mail – “Parochialism is death to any sport” and now if the time to “pull together, so long and so strong that it may be many years before the good ship is becalmed in the doldrums”.