Do Rugby Clubs Need A Club Bar?

FOLLOWING Saturday's blog post, and in particular the bit about the club bar which I posted, I got the following response from that well-nown man about West Region Rugby, Paul Justice.

Paul wrote:

“I'm going to take issue with two points you raise:

1. Match of the day will be in West Region, but it's going to be taking place at The Bearyards - Glens v Endrick is going to be a cracker
   
   
2. Why the fascination with rugby clubs and bars - there's a reason why so many pubs across the country are closing - they're bloody difficult to make a return on them. The professionals who do it for a living are squealling, yet you (and the folks at Murrayfield) expect volunteers to be able to make it work

Plenty of Clubs who run bars will probably invest more in time and finance keeping it going than they do on the playing side.

It's time for Clubs and the Union to ask themselves about the viability of their bar - the first question that should be posed to Clubs at the Unions Bar Best Practice workshops should be something like - why are you wanting to run a bar, and how much resource are you willing to burn through to make it happen (in a similar fashion to the questions that should be raised about pro rugby)?”

Paul also posted that response on my Facebook page, which brought forth this response from former Kilmarnock and Cumnock scrum-half wee Jock Munro, now more involved in curling down in Stranraer. Jock said:

“Paul, did you ever play rugby? Did you ever buy your opponents two 8 pint jugs of beer after the game and have it reciprocated? If you think club rugby doesn’t need a bar then you need to go and watch my level of rugby.

I can assure you everything I have ever done with rugby involves copious amounts of alcohol, whether it be formerly playing to the age of 38, or watching any of my former clubs, or watching my son play or going to Dublin and Paris, neither of which I have missed in 40 years.

Rugby is a wonderful sociable sport at every level. Bars are synonymous with the sport and if that were to change then it’s all over as far as I am concerned. Ok I totally understand the fitness and professional thing, where alcohol should not be an important factor.

But that is only a few years of your life. We took £18000 over the rugby club bar in one day recently with all volunteer staff. There is plenty of profit in this for the club finances for sure. Our club has functions on every Saturday night with busy bars providing much needed profit to run the club.”

To which Paul replied:

“No problem with us having access to copious amounts of alcohol after a game, but I'm querying why it should be supplied via a bar that is run by a rugby club.

In West League 1 & 2 this season, we've got 12 team leagues - that's 11 home games - copious amounts of alcohol for 11 home game, plus maybe a couple of friendlies.

I'm willing to bet, that if each rugby club supplied a true set of accounts about their bar operation, the majority would be shown to run at a loss (even before accounting for volunteers time), so my question is can Rugby Clubs justify underwriting the cost of running a bar for 52 weeks of the year and 7 days a week?

To come to the justification they have to believe they can turn a profit in excess of the amount of volunteer time it takes to make it happen - my personal experience of running a rugby club bar, and speaking to many other committee people who have, is that the majority of us shouldn't be trying to run a bar on a full time or significant part-time basis.

Not only do we have to worry about:

• paying for the stock-taker
  
  
• the sky subscription
  
  
• the BT sport subscription
  
  
• the Premier sports subscription
  
  
• the PPL license
  
  
• the mandatory training for all staff (including volunteers)
  
  
• the personal license holder training
  
  
• staff wages
  
  
• gas & electricity, rates, etc.

We also have to consider the other things like:

• do we set up an overdraft with the bank and whose signature goes on it
  
  
• who goes to the Council meeting when the license is up for renewal and puts themselves in the firing line when you get various questions about things like allowing kids on the premises
•  
• who meets the license standards officer and environmental health when they come do their inspections
  

•  who apologies to the private party who booked the function hall for 7pm, yet the drinking games are still going on

• or maybe you've got that private function that's been in the diary for a year, yet you now have a re-arranged game to also accommodate, so the players can't access to the bar, etc. etc.

• Oh and by the way, the majority of players don't drink after a game cause they don't drink & drive.

Rugby Clubs running a bar isn't going to get any easier, the Scottish Government sees alcohol as a major public health issue - so at some point there will be a discussion about squaring the relationship between a public health good (playing sport) with a public health bad (consuming loads of alcohol).”

Some potentially vexing questions to be answered there, undoubtedly, running a bar does not get easier, standards are being tightened-up across Scotland, as the war on our nation's strange relationship with the demon drink goes on.

Clearly, clubs need to be more pro-active and inventive in finding ways to maximise revenue and have their bars ticking over – without losing that unique rugby club environment.

I remember, more than 30-years ago, being amazed to find a rugby club in Canada where the clubhouse was a focal point in the life of that particular suburb of Edmonton – a ladies fitness class was something I could not, back then, ever see happening in a Scottish rugby club. Today, such classes happen, often.

But, this debate will, I am sure, continue for a while yet. And thanks again to Paul Justice for raising this issue. The floor is now open, gentlemen.