Stop this hellish pre-match entertainment!

Monday February 23 2004
Sir Clive Woodward was not the only person to get annoyed by all the Murrayfield pre-match razzmatazz, Jules Parfitt was getting hot under the collar watching all that money go up in smoke. Here he has a go at the 'marketing gurus' behind it all ...

Marketing. It is a bit like war, what is it good for?

The answer is pretty much the same I fear but since my household is beholden to the aforementioned industry for half our montly income I shall not digress into a rants about the business necessity of such an area, or lack of.

However, when 'marketing', and its cohorts of 'events management', starts to invade my Saturday afternoon rugby it is too much of a red rag to a bull.

Now I have managed about eight years of being a Canute-like figure to the encroaching tide of spiel and money wastage in rugby, but Saturday's Calcutta Cup clash was just the last straw.

Actually, thinking about it, the Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) appointing "Fireworks Phil" Anderton as their new CEO was probaby the last straw.

It is tempting to believe that was all a top gag by the Scots to wind up dear Sir Clive who threw his dollies out the pram over the weekend at what he called 'gamesmanship' after his team's preparations were disrupted by pipers, kids, firework detritus and the kitchen sink.

Now, Clive has copped the usual sort of flak for moaning, being dull, being English (are those last two the same thing?) but surely there are few people (outside of marketing and events) who don't agree with him?

When will people understand that rugby internationals are about, surprise, surprise, rugby. Who comes up with the ideas for this 'razzmatazz', which is about as silly as it sounds?

There is no demand or need for pathetic fireworks, the likes of which were last seen when I tried to entertain my five-year-old nephew in my 10ft backgarden in London.

There is no demand or need for D-Day style airborne drops, or for bewildered nine-year-olds to run around aimlessly with flags whilst a women called Doreen, wearing her headset which is used as much as those used by GAP employees, shrieking instructions like a banshee to the slightly rotund Chardonnay who wants to be a dancer when she is older.

Why is there no demand or need for it?

Well, simply because it is crap.

It adds nothing to the value of the day, and even if you concede that it may entertain the odd, very odd, person in the crowd, the costs v benefits simply say it is a non-starter.

Whilst you have the Scotland team being beaten yet again by the auld enemy, the cash strapped SRU are happy to blow (quite literally) thousands of pounds on the largest gathering of pipers since the Crimea.

People will say that the 'entertainment' attracts more people to the match, an argument that is quite simply untrue.

When considering what to spend their Saturday afternoon doing, the Scots for example do not weigh up how many sparklers they are going to see as to whether they book the ticket to Murrayfield or not.

Now, if there was a chance they would give the English a good smacking, that would be a whole different matter.

And before I feel the full force of a marketing barrage, I am not someone who feels the game was better in the good-old days, there has been plenty of improvements for the rugby fan over the past few years.

However, the improvements that matter can be found in better rugby, TV coverage, grounds, improved infrastructure etc, they don't come in a £100 firework canister or by raiding the local primary school's drama class.

If you want to inspire the kids to get involved, move away from some sort of Stars in their Eyes special and get back to the rugby.

One of my few, very few, (in fact only) achievement in rugby was playing mini-rugby as a curtain-raiser to the 1983 Hong Kong Sevens.

Sadly I am the only one in my family who remembers that experience since the effect of jugs of San Miguel ruled my dad out of the entire experience early on, but it is an example of where the "match-day experience" should be going.

Cheap, interactive and a lot more fun for both those involved and those watching.

And yet the hellish dumbing down of rugby will no doubt continue, too many people make a good living out of it all to halt it, but let's hope a bit like one of those accursed fireworks, it will fizzle out as quickly as it arrived.