The "Nigels" Are Rocking Rugby's Boat - Again

THE RUGBY FOOTBALL UNION – RFU – is often referred-to as: “The Conservative Party with dirty knees”. At their worst, the men in the corporate suits at Twickenham, so-memorably dubbed; “57 Old Farts” by Will Carling – a man who clearly knew a shite when he saw one – carry that Middle England sense of entitlement: God is an Englishmen and we must be obeyed. Corporate England, as personified in the Barbour-jacketed hordes in Twickenham's West Car Park, make the Borg look like a divided nation. (Is that enough cliché for one paragraph?)

Will Carling - got the RFU committee in three words

Whenever there is a fall-out in the upper echelons of the world of Rugby Union, you can just about bet, the RFU are involved. For years, the old Five Nations came around at the same time every year – in fact, the order of matches was unchanging. Scotland began against France, then played Wales, followed by Ireland, before ending the campaign with the Calcutta Cup match. You, the fan, knew where you stood; on checking-out of your hotel in Paris, Cardiff, Dublin or London, you could make a provisional booking for the same weekend, two years forward, and confirm it closer to the time.

Then, they mucked-about with the fixture order, before, the RFU came-up with the real game-changer and cause of bother. The Five Nations had been a BBC staple, the rugby authorities never, ever, thought of going elsewhere. However, in running the first Rugby World Cup in Australia and New Zealand in 1987, the local organising committee attempted to strong-arm Auntie Beeb into paying more than the suits at Broadcasting House thought it was worth; no deal was struck for UK coverage, until ITV stepped-in, and to be fair, did a fair job.

Suddenly, the BBC had competition. Indeed, ITV has managed to hang-on to coverage through each subsequent tournament. The Five Nations, then when Italy joined, the Six Nations, has, however, remained the cash cow. Except, perhaps emboldened by how ITV had paid-up for the RWC, the RFU decided, they could perhaps extract some more cash from the BBC for annual coverage.

Things came to a head in the summer of 1996, when the RFU decided, unilaterally, to sell the rights to their Twickenham games to Sky TV, and were on the verge of being kicked-out of the Five Nations. Allan Hosie, the Five Nations committee's Scottish Rugby Union representative, said: "We hope England, even at this late hour, realise they cannot sell what is not theirs to sell, and return to the Five Nations table."

Allan Hosie - architect of the Drum & Monkey Accord 

Common sense prevailed, memorably, Bill Beaumont, on behalf of Twickenham, travelled up to Glasgow for a meeting in Hosie's city centre office, and the “peace treaty” was signed over a round of drinks in the Drum & Monkey pub in St Vincent Street. Surely one of the few disputes to be amicably settled in a Glasgow pub.

Sky eventually did get a toe-hold in Rugby Union – maybe had wee Hosie pushed harder, we could have been spared Stuart Barnes's commentaries, but, that's another issue.

Any way, where there is discord, you usually find Maggie's disciples in the RFU, and, I don't think things will ever change. It doesn't help that English club rugby is dominated by a cabal of club owners, who have turned some of the most-celebrated names in English rugby into rich men's play-things. In France, the same problem has surfaced in the Top 14 – millionaires and billionaires, unused to having their wishes thwarted, are trying to run the game, their way.

And now, they are at it again. The English Premiership's umbrella body, and their French counterparts, want to have the final say in how the Six Nations is organised. They object to losing their big-name stars for seven weeks each year and want, at the very least, the competition's traditional rest week abolished, so they lose their players for a shorter time period.

Of course, the three Celtic countries plus Italy, in each of which the national governing body has more control over the clubs and players, are pledged to fight this latest - “Our way or the highway” bit of muscle-flexing from Twickenham, Toulon and points South-West. This time round,however, there are fifth columns at work inside England and France – the respective players' Unions – who, while enjoying the greater financial rewards available in England and France, are conscious of the effects of playing such an abrasive game on their members' welfare.

This one will run and run, but, hopefully, common sense will prevail and changes to the Northern Hemisphere's jewel in the rugby crown, will be no more than cosmetic and small.

But, why does the RFU, albeit at the behest of a few clubs with their own axes to grind, keep rocking the boat?

England, as we all know, doesn't have its own national anthem, preferring to usurp the relatively-unloved United Kingdom anthem, God Save the Queen for its use. Might I suggest an appropriate successor tune, which better reflects what England expects.

How about: 'My Way?'