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Super League kick-off[/font]
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The decade that saved a sport[/font][font=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]
Future is brighter than ever 10 years after switch
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Andy Wilson
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Friday February 11, 2005
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Guardian
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It would be all too easy to mock the Super League on the eve of its 10th season. A competition that kicked off with Paris St-Germain versus Sheffield Eagles in front of almost 18,000 intrigued spectators at the Charlety Stadium on March 29, 1996 - encouraging rugby league evangelists to talk of expansion into Wales, the midlands, and even to Barcelona and Milan - will tonight feature matches in Hull, St Helens and Wigan.
Then tomorrow it is the big one, Leigh against Huddersfield at Hilton Park, a fixture and a location that carries all the exotic glamour of Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights.
But without the £87m that British rugby league received from Sky for agreeing to switch to a summer season in the crazy spring of 1995 - when players queued up for huge "loyalty" payments and an effigy of Maurice Lindsay was burned on the streets of Featherstone for daring to suggest that they merge with Wakefield and Castleford - it is questionable whether matches between Leigh and Huddersfield, at least at professional level, would even exist.
"There was nobody more critical of various people in rugby league, like Maurice, than me," admits David Hinchliffe, the Labour MP for Wakefield who spoke passionately against the original Super League proposals in a House of Commons debate. "But on reflection, if they hadn't taken the Murdoch money, then rugby league would have been wiped out.
"I'm not sure even Maurice could have been aware of what was about to happen when rugby union went openly professional at last. But without the Super League money, league would have lost so many more players, and we wouldn't have the game we have now - which, in my opinion, is better than ever."
"I had been aware for a while that rugby union was about to turn professional," recalled Lindsay, who after years of vilification as the Rugby Football League's chief executive returned to Wigan as chairman in 1999.
"I had a number of meetings with Vernon Pugh [the late chairman of union's International Rugby Board] at the East India Club, of all places - I'm surprised they let me through the doors.
"He and Clive Rowlands, the secretary, were openly talking about professionalism, and the possible merger between league and union. And if we hadn't effected the Super League, there's absolutely no doubt that the likes of Jason Robinson would have multiplied by hundreds."
Now British rugby league's elite club competition is undeniably stronger than it was in the winter of 1994-95, when Wigan were completing their sixth consecutive league and cup double, and Leeds were the only other full-time professional club.
The average attendance in that Stones Bitter Championship season was 5,543; in 2004, the average Super League gate was 8,833. "We wanted a full-time league of 12 clubs, whereas before we had 16, most of whom were part-time, so we could condense the talent and put on a real showcase," added Lindsay.
"We wanted a league of excellence, and I think we're well on the way to that with four or five clubs challenging regularly, others such as Warrington and Wakefield making great improvements to add strength in depth to the competition - and I don't think it's finished yet."
It is misleading to talk of summer rugby, when the season starts in February and ends in mid-October with the grand final at Old Trafford - the culmination of a play-off series to determine the champions that has been the most successful of Super League's innovations, along with the trailblazing introduction of video referees.
But after initial fears that harder pitches might lead to more injuries, the players are relieved to have escaped the darkest days of winter, not surprisingly as for them Super League has also meant full-time professionalism.
"I'd much rather play in the summer," says Terry O'Connor, the former Great Britain prop who joined Widnes from Wigan this winter and at 32 is one of a diminishing number who still remember the pre-Super League days.
"I went to watch Widnes Under-21s the other day - freezing, mate. How the speccies used to love it in the winter, I don't know. All that steam coming off players in the scrum. It's rubbish.
"Now the ground's better, the game's faster, there's less dropped balls and scrums, all the clubs seem to have gone more professional, and there's more young talent around. I don't really see how anyone can knock it."
Not many do, although there have inevitably been victims of the Super League era. The most unfortunate were Keighley Cougars, who had just won promotion to the Stones Bitter Championship under the coaching of Phil Larder when the drawbridge was pulled up in 1996.
"It was heartbreaking, because we'd invested so much in creating a dream for the town of Keighley, and then we had it dashed," reflects Mike Smith, who was one of the driving forces behind "Cougarmania".
"I think Super League is the most fantastic concept. They've switched the season to make it more conducive to attracting families, and putting on the sort of razzmatazz that helps do that. and they've all invested in community schemes, just like we did at Keighley. I still watch the game a lot, and enjoy it. It's just tarnished a bit because of what happened."
"Of course, we had to go through lots of pain," Lindsay admits, with major embarrassments including the demise of Paris after two seasons and Gateshead Thunder after one, as well as the damage done to the game's standing both nationally and in its northern strongholds by the initial controversy over the proposed mergers, which were quickly written off as a bad idea.
International rugby league, too, is still struggling to recover from Britain's willingness to sign up with Rupert Murdoch in his bid to seize television rights for the Australian game from Kerry Packer - with the summer season ensuring that Lions tours are now the high-profile preserve of the other code.
That is a huge loss but, as Lindsay says, there is plenty in the profit column to compensate, even if it is in Leigh and Leeds, rather than London and Lyon, where rugby league has benefited most from the first decade of the Super League.
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http://sport.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5124574-108568,00.html
