THE HERALD REPORTS TODAY

Recent events may have strengthened Glasgow's image as a great sporting centre but they have also reinforced how strange it seems that the one professional team that carries the city's name into elite international competition is so badly supported.

Unbeaten at home this season, Glasgow Warriors have continued to fail to capture the imagination of their community, attracting average gates of less than 2000. Since Friday's visit of Cardiff Blues marks what is already the halfway point in the season in terms of home matches, Ian Riddoch, their chief executive, might be deeply disappointed at what he has achieved so far.

Yet he could hardly be more upbeat and a combination of the euphoria inspired by the successful Commonwealth Games bid as well as the scale of the despair felt at Hampden last Saturday has only bolstered that optimism.

"Whether it is growing or because it has always been there, Glasgow is famed for its passion and it is famed as a sporting city," he said.

"Glasgow people are passionate about where they are from and who they are and they can display that passion for our team under the banner of Glasgow. We are not competing with anyone - we are Glasgow's elite rugby team."

That is in stark contrast to the internecine rivalries between Celtic and Rangers, or even the likes of Partick Thistle, the Warriors' landlords.

"Ask any Glaswegian who they would want to win when Glasgow Warriors play Edinburgh and they will say Glasgow, even if they don't know what sport it is," grinned Riddoch.

Then again he acknowledged that at promotional events so far he has identified resistance to the sport.

"When we went to the St Enoch Centre recently we had people saying, Rugby's crap, I'm not going to rugby.' These were guys from council estates like I grew up in. When I was growing up listening to people like Bill McLaren I thought rugby was all posh public schoolboys and rich farmers, that it wasn't all encompassing and maybe it wasn't then," he acknowledged.

"We need to smash that image because Glasgow is not like that and there are so many people we want to see coming along who probably hold that belief that we need to change that mind-set."

Understanding that is key to what makes Glasgow Warriors a very different proposition from the failed Border Reivers.

Inevitably, some of those embittered by the Reivers' closure have looked at those aforementioned crowd figures and offered simplistic, or maybe just simple-minded, analysis based on attendances as a portion of population. What they see as a relative failure is actually the opportunity.

Everyone with the vaguest interest in sport in the Borders knew about the Reivers, what they were and when they played, but chose not to go. In Glasgow, umpteen cultural factors mean many citizens either do not know who the Warriors are or the level at which they operate, with world-class performers visiting most weeks.

Riddoch, whose 12-year career in marketing has involved him at a high level in football, rugby league and now rugby union, either side of the Border, recognises that, but sees the key consideration as being the experience people have when he does get them to Firhill.

"The Scottish media is obsessed with marketing and attendances, but just to put it in perspective our 2600 gate when Ulster visited a couple of weeks ago was the ninth biggest in Scottish sport on a weekend which saw only 1100 watch Inverness Caledonian Thistle play Gretna in a Premier League football match," he said.

"I know, though, having been around Super League clubs as well as Scottish football, that if you have the facilities you have something to build on and what we have here gives us that. It was one of the main reasons I was so keen to get this job.

"If we do the basics right and do them well it will succeed. There are no ifs, buts or maybes about it."

Dealt a difficult hand when appointed in June - initially on a caretaker basis - then told that more than half his team's home matches would be played in an eight-week spell beginning during the World Cup and ending next week, he has focused on getting the match night experience right. With a full, albeit small, four-person team of marketing and communications professionals working under him, the next task is getting to those in the city who are already rugby-minded.

"There's a lot of people told me that the West End is where our support is from and if we moved out of the West End we will never get a support along," Riddoch observed. "It's funny but the actual season ticket demographic doesn't bear that out. I know that traditionally the rugby grounds were in the West End, but it's not necessarily that the supporters are from the West End."

With the vast population of Greater Glasgow and beyond to draw upon, then, Scottish rugby administrators have finally, belatedly given the Warriors a chance to succeed in offering considerable autonomy and a base in the city, as well as a strong and attractive playing squad. The second half of this first season based properly at Firhill may offer the first real indication of what is achievable.

12:39am today



By KEVIN FERRIE, Chief Rugby Writer

This article was posted on 21-Nov-2007, 08:31 by Hugh Barrow.