The Herald reports
SRU spoil the party (not that there was a party to spoil)

NEIL DRYSDALE May 01 2006

When Watsonians appeared in their first Scottish Cup final a decade ago, their aficionados and the massed ranks and bands of Hawick yielded a crowd of 22,000, which suggested that the competition was capable of impinging on the national consciousness.
Even in 2002, when Glasgow Hawks met the Teris at Murrayfield, amidst growing indications that the sport was shedding a significant section of its fan base, the attendance was 18,129, which ensured that the national stadium didn't resemble a morgue.
In the interim period, however, at least on the evidence of Saturday's complete non-event, it is perfectly understandable that BT are reviewing their sponsorship of the whole shebang.
As somebody who has never made any secret of my disdain for the artificially-created and unloved professional teams, it is difficult to feel much sympathy for those players who would lose their jobs should one of their number be axed. After all, these individuals have had the opportunity to shape their destiny by producing performances where it matters, on the pitch.
All the same, it was incredible that the SRU chief executive, Gordon McKie, should choose to announce a raft of gloomy tidings on the eve of Finals Day? As one Currie adherent asked me at the weekend: "What was he thinking? Was he thinking at all? But, there again, these union guys have done their best to shaft the clubs ever since the start of the professional era, and have ruthlessly devalued their contribution in the intervening years, so perhaps we should not be surprised they have ruined our party with all these negative stories."
Obviously, this doesn't wholly explain the paltry audience of 4726 which looked on as Watsonians, West of Scotland and Morgan Academy FP enjoyed their respective triumphs. But it does indicate the growing helplessness and inertia which is spreading through the domestic circuit, as cash-strapped clubs fight to cling on to their best assets, while the SRU engage in hanging on to centralised control like some demented relics of the old Politburo.
Hugh Barrow, the tireless secretary of Hawks, contacted me yesterday with a detailed breakdown of the attendances at Finals Day since their inception, and it is not merely the fact that there has been an 80% reduction in spectator numbers since the inaugural tournament which is disturbing, but also the perception that many clubs have either given up the ghost altogether or slumped into a permanent Cassandra mode.
Some people would have you believe that Saturday's turn-out was blighted by the absence of a Borders team in the mix. But, hang on a minute, that was equally true when Hawks locked horns with Boroughmuir and Dundee HSFP in 2000 and 2004 and attracted gates of 13,139 and 10,621 respectively.
The sad reality is that thousands of rugby followers, whether volunteers, officials or players, have fallen out of the habit of paying money into the SRU coffers and, given the union's stewardship en route to a £23m overdraft, they can't be faulted for keeping their wallets shut.
"I turned up today, but that was terrible, the atmosphere was flat, the quality of rugby was dreadful and the whole thing smacked of having cost about tuppence," said Keith McNulty, an Englishman on holiday in Edinburgh with his wife, Linda.
"I had heard that the Scots were supposed to be getting their act together again, but no wonder nobody watches the clubs and the professional sides if they keep serving up that standard of fare."
It would have been nice to be able to contradict him, but he was right. And the situation can only deteriorate if McKie and his apparatchiks press ahead with their plans for the creation of an apprentice system, which will remove another 40 personnel (on £6000-a-year contracts) from a Premiership which has already been denuded of its leading lights, and reduced to a second-rate league, with average attendances of 500.
As the veteran Barrow told me: "We are approaching the endgame, because if the clubs don't stand together now, I think that many of us have no future."
The gloom is all-pervasive, less than three months after Scotland's rugby community was celebrating a famous Calcutta Cup triumph. Yet, on Saturday, that felt like an eternity ago.

This article was posted on 1-May-2006, 07:07 by Hugh Barrow.