Rugby: Fans? Yobbos, more like

By CHRIS LAIDLAW

We think we have the odd problem with crowd behaviour in this country?

Think again. By international standards our big-match crowds are a bunch of unimaginative goody-goodies.

Our rugby crowds, in particular, are paragons of politeness compared with those of most other codes in most other countries.

International soccer is, of course, the standard by which the behaviour of supporters is universally judged. Internationals and European Cup matches have become regular, and spectacular, exhibitions of hand-to-hand combat among warring armies of so-called supporters.

There are numerous contenders for the top prize. The much-feared Tartan Army of Scotland, tanked up with single malt, tramp the boulevards of Europe.

Whenever England are playing abroad, a great expeditionary force of yobbos can be expected to comprehensively disturb the peace at every venue.

The events in Turkey recently were evidence enough that it isn't getting any better. Marauding English invaders fought it out in the streets of Istanbul with Turkish zealots in a commendable effort to recapture the spirit of Gallipoli.

Soccer has become a complete hostage to this kind of conflict.

A couple of years ago, the whole world watched events unfolding in France, not so much enthralled by the soccer as aghast at the antics of those it brought out of the woodwork.

Every other night we were treated to the unedifying spectacle of battalions of drunks, lunatics and skinheads using the World Cup as a vehicle for all-out war on whoever got in the way.

The same pattern emerged in Turkey. One English enthusiast, having just comprehensively trashed a cafe in Istanbul, was asked if he knew if his team had won or lost. He didn't know and he didn't much care. He just moved on to redecorate the next cafe.

He, like lots of others, had settled into his chosen role and when it was all over he doubtless returned in triumph to a respectable but no doubt mind-numbingly boring job back in Blighty.

This was his idea of recreation. A little Englander abroad sticking it to the continentals.

Much more sinister are the German neo-Nazis whose first love is definitely not football, but who have realised that football provides them with a global podium from which they can serve notice to anybody unfortunate enough to be nearby that they want to stop the world.

Some of the Dutch are not much better.

This is much more than small-minded recreational violence. It has little to do with good old flag-waving national fervour gone a bit over the top. It is nothing like so innocent. This is straight-out anarchy and it is something that makes the blood run cold.

If this kind of mayhem can follow soccer around for convenience, is there any reason it won't latch on to rugby if the game gets big enough and popular enough, particularly in Europe?

Happily, there are no signs that this is likely. For the time being the international rugby community basks in the warm glow of respectability.

Perhaps the fact that rugby is an essentially middle-class game watched mainly by rational, middle-classed people has something to do with that.

Whatever the reason, it's reassuring to know that a healthy sense of restraint still prevails here.

We're Kiwis after all. We keep things in proportion.