DO you ever yearn for the good old days when the game you love to watch contained all the simple things in life?
You know, like front rowers couldn’t run 100m, players had a full head of hair unless he was genetically bald, the game was a lot less predictable and players were not walking billboards, to mention a few more obvious ones.
A friend of mine asked the same question in an article in an Australian newspaper some time ago.
He had asked what was wrong with rugby league because the question kept popping up as crowds dwindled and there was general indifference to what was happening.
Many, he said, blamed the violence in the game for all the problems and he reckons that’s the straw that broke the camel’s back.
He went on the say the game changed more through the last decade or so because the marketeers got hold of the game and decided it needed to be cleaned up, sped up, made more open ...
“What in fact they did was sanitise all the character out of the game,” he reckons.
“Players are told how to act, how to dress and what to say. It’s reached the point where we have clones running around in different coloured football jumpers.
“The first mistake the administrators made was when they started to look at rugby league as a business and adopted the American-styled hype.
“I don’t know of too many people who go to games just because a rock group is going to belt out a couple of favourites before the match and at half-time.”
Then we come to the multi-million dollar contracts. How can you justify footballers earning more than K500,000 a season when the Prime Minister earns less than half that amount?”
Which brings us to the subject of a famous British football star who set the national tabloids ablaze with a hallmark million pound transfer fee and contract arrangement.
Reporters kept hounding him for all sorts of things and one question which popped up was how could he justify the enormous amount of money he was attracting when the Prime Minister was getting peanuts.
He savoured the answer for a couple of moments and then quipped: “I’m a better performer than he is ...”
My friend went on: “Footballers say they don’t last forever and should be paid accordingly to set themselves up for life. Set themselves up for life by their early 30s that is ... the average retirement age is 60.”
By the way, did you hear about the Kiwi who wanted to play rugby league and was told to go and see Wally Lewis?
Well, Wally asked: Can you play and he said he could.
“Okay,” Wally said, “we’ll slot you in the first half and pull you off in the second half.”
The Kiwi looked perplexed. Wally noted that and asked what was the matter.
“Oh nothing really,” the Kiwi said. “Back home they give us oranges at half time.”
Anyway, my friend observes some things many league fans with a craving for yesterday would like to see:
l Players train a couple of nights a week and hold down full-time jobs. Forget about mega bucks, bring back the K100 a win, K25 a loss payment scheme. If the phone bill was due, it certainly made the players try that much harder;
l Players with a full head of hair. Not so long ago it was only the Hare Krishnas who had shaved heads, now its as common in rugby league as black BMWs;
l Front rowers who weigh more than 100kg and can’t run 100m without having a coronary;
l Players make an appearance on television and in photoshoots without being dressed up like walking billboards; and
l Play with the classic leather footballs which were as slippery as a cake of soap and weighed a ton, but at least it made things a bit less predicable.
You know, after you reminisce about the old days and heave a long sigh, you think of the saying: The simple things in life are often the best, and you believe that the people who coined the phrase certainly knew what they were talking about.
And that reminds us of the Wise Counsellor’s words: “A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew …”

 

Previous | Back to Top | Next