RIP Tom Walkinshaw

Rugby lost a big figure when Tom Walkinshaw died last weekend at the too-early age of 64.  It’s for others to write about his motor sport career, but his impact on English professional rugby was immense.

He bought Gloucester RFC in 1997 when the club was teetering on a knife edge: would it step up to the demands of professionalism, or go the way of equally illustrious names like Richmond, London Welsh and Coventry?  Those who were closest to Gloucester at that time have little doubt that without Tom the latter route was the more likely one.   The best way to assess his significance to Gloucester is to have a look around the modern Kingsholm and compare it with what he inherited.

There are new stands on two sides of the ground, including the huge South Stand which, if there’s any justice, will surely become the Tom Walkinshaw Stand, and capacity up to 16,500.  No move out of town, no sharing with a football club, and the famous / infamous Shed still firmly in place.  No tacky and unpleasant mascot, no dancing girls, not too much music (they tried it once but the natives revolted and the idea was rapidly dropped), and an announcer who doesn’t make a plonker of himself every time he opens his mouth.  In other words, tradition and standards still being maintained, but in a thoroughly modern context.. 

That’s not to say that it happened without incident along the way.  Some of the dyed-in-the-wool Glaws fans fought every change that was made, and Tom must have found the supporters’ websites making uncomfortable reading from time to time.  The South Stand displeased some because it wasn’t a cantilever construction and had pillars, and some of the diehards still refuse to use the new name of Gloucester Rugby.  Some of the abuse dished out by ‘fans’ on the websites was deeply personal and simply unacceptable – reading it made one wonder why owners  give their time and invest their money in the game.  However, the players who have been at Kingsholm the longest, and knew Tom best, have, to a man, come out and praised his loyalty, passion and commitment to the club.

Tom’s impact on the wider English game was huge too.  One of the new breed of businessmen who came into rugby when professionalism arrived, he was Chairman of  Premier Rugby between 1998 and 2002.  During that period the salary cap came in, and attendances grew rapidly.  He locked horns many times with the RFU over the issue of player release, and the current agreement is in no small part down to his influence.

I last saw Tom a few weeks ago at Kingsholm, when it was clear to everyone that he was desperately ill, and his response to a question about his well being was typical of the man: “Still here, still fighting!”.  He’ll be sorely missed.

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On the subject of owners, you have to wonder what those at Sarries thought of Brendan Venter’s performance last weekend.  The bizarre interview with Sky after the defeat to Racing Metro didn’t really divide opinion.  Bar a few on the radical wing of Sarries fans who thought it was great to see someone sticking up two fingers to the ERC, the rest of the world seemed to shrug it off as a typically daft bit of calculated Sarries’ nonsense.  Being shocking only works for a short while: after that it just becomes plain boring.

Someone somewhere in the Sarries ranks needs to be thinking carefully about their club’s responsibility to the game and to supporters.  At one time it was simple: keep your own fans happy because they pay for their tickets and that’s where the money comes from to keep the club going.  Well, it doesn’t work like that any more.  Rugby fans pay their subscriptions to Sky and ESPN so that they can watch live matches, and part of that money makes its way back into rugby through the satellite broadcasters’ sponsorship of the game. 

By my reckoning that makes thousands of us Sarries’ customers to a greater or lesser extent, and we deserve a bit of respect for our contribution to their finances.  After a game, part of the deal is that someone from the club goes on air to comment on what has happened, and we deserve that to be done with a modicum of professionalism, irrespective of whether the club has won or lost.  If ‘Fortress Saracens’ doesn’t like that then they should simply pack it in and let one of the Championship sides take their place – in their current frame of mind they wouldn’t be missed.

Dr Venter heads off back to South Africa in the New Year, and time will tell what the real meaning of his new role of ‘Technical Director’ actually is.  The sad thing about last week’s shambles was that all it achieved was to add me, and probably quite a few others,  to the ranks of those whose attitude to his departure will be ‘Good riddance”.

First published in The Rugby Paper on 19 December 2010 and reproduced here with the permission of the editor.

Judge Judge and Lamb Bhuna

Imagine if you can: you're sitting in court, minding your own business, thankful that you actually did learn your shorthand, when the craving for a Lamb Bhuna comes over you.  You can't leave the enthralling case that has, seemingly, been going on for an eternity, because your editor wants every snippet of fair, accurate and contemporaneous news that he can get, but your craving for a 'Ruby' is getting stronger.  Now it's easy, tweeting 'Lamb bhuna, pulao rice, a chapati and a tarka dhal: I'll collect it at 8pm', won't get you into trouble, because tweeting in court is alright for now.



Journalists following the Julian Assange bail hearing asked whether they could tweet, and the advice given was at first contradictory.  In the Westminster magistrates' court it was OK, but at the High Court it wasn't.  Now, however, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Justice Judge (I kind you not, Major Major eat your heart out), has given the green light.  His ruling is:

"A consultation relating to the use of live, text-based communications will be conducted shortly. Those who will be consulted include the Judiciary, the Secretary of State for Justice, the Attorney General, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Bar Council and the Law Society, the Press Complaints Commission, the Society of Editors in addition to interested members of the public via the Judiciary website.
Pending the outcome of the consultation, this interim guidance should be considered by courts, litigants, their legal representatives and the media if and when any application is made to the court to permit the use of live, text-based communications. If any difficulties arise in respect of the use of such communications, or the outcome of the consultation becomes known, it may become necessary to issue a formal Practice Direction.."

In other words, it's OK for now and we'll let you know if that changes.  In court Judge Judge said, "The use of an unobtrusive, hand-held, virtually silent piece of modern equipment for the purposes of simultaneous reporting of proceedings to the outside world as they unfold in court is unlikely to interfere with the proper administration of justice."

Result! Now, where's that Lamb Bhuna?

Rugby Test Matches used to be something special, but now they’re ten-a-penny, or so it seems.  The first games of the autumn series of internationals should serve as a warning that the paying punters are a bit more savvy than the home Unions seemingly thought.

Starting with Ireland, it’s hard to imagine a bigger PR disaster than the shots of the newly-redeveloped  Lansdowne Road – now the Aviva Stadium – with row upon row of empty seats.  It can’t have been what the powers-that-be or the sponsors wanted, but why did it happen?  First of all let’s state the obvious: the Irish economy is down the pan with a vengeance – more a tired old moggy than a Celtic Tiger nowadays.   In those circumstances whose bright idea was it to construct a ticketing policy that obliged punters to buy tickets for all four autumn internationals rather than on a game by game basis?  The economy’s shot to hell, but supporters are asked to fork out €340 for their seat – oh and by the way, those prices concealed a roughly 25% hike over the previous year’s matches at Croke Park! 

Not surprisingly, the fans told the IRFU what to do, and kept their credit cards firmly in their pockets.  At the eleventh hour the Union had a change of heart, ate a sizeable helping of humble pie, and announced ‘a comprehensive review of its entire ticket sales strategy, which includes price tiering, bundling and distribution channels’.  Too little too late, and attendances for the first two matches were embarrassingly low – 35,000 for a Test against the World Champions was a humiliation for the IRFU.  Incidentally, at the Ireland v Samoa game it was announced that 31,000 was a record for a clash between the two nations – talk about making the best of a bad job!

Wales’ first game, against Australia saw more than 20,000 empty seats in the Millennium Stadium, and there were still huge gaps for the clash with South Africa.  The WRU Chief Executive, Roger Lewis, lays the blame fairly and squarely at the door of Wales’ economic troubles, saying that his customers are being very cautious about where they spend their money.

Scotland too had their woes: failing by about 10.000 to sell out a game against the All Blacks is shocking, and those that did turn up will surely think twice about going again!  The result was so dire that almost a week after the event the SRU had ‘forgotten’ to update the results section of their website – I’m not surprised.

England did sell out their first two games, and so they should.  With a population of over 50M compared to Ireland’s 6M, Scotland’s 5M, and Wales at 3M, it would be a major surprise if it didn’t happen.   That said, tickets for the clash with the All Blacks were still available late in the day, and that must be a slight cause for concern.

The IRB’s Chief Exec says that all of this is just a ‘blip’, but I bet that was said more in hope than expectation.  Yes, the economy plays its part, but it is foolish to think that’s all that’s behind the problem.

The fact is that there is now too much Test rugby being played, and most of the games don’t actually matter much.  When games mean something – the Six Nations and the World Cup – the fans will come out in force, but they see the autumn Tests for what they are: predominantly a revenue generating scheme.

And there’s the rub.  The RFU announced its results this week and, recession or not, they were pretty impressive.  The £112M revenue was £7M down on the previous year, but that was because there were only three autumn internationals rather than four, and it was one of the years when England were away three times in the Six Nations.  The message that comes out loud and clear is that internationals at Twickenham are what keeps English rugby afloat.  Never mind that they’re not games that really matter, other than as a preamble for the real business of the Six Nations and the World Cup – the money they generate is vital.

So, square this circle: I’m convinced that fans are becoming disillusioned with too many Test matches, but rugby’s finances depend hugely on those games.  England will get away with this – their potential audience in Greater London alone is more than the population of any of the other home nations – but what of Ireland, Wales and Scotland?  Can they fill their huge stadia three or four times every November?  If they can’t then they’re potentially in real trouble.

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On the back of England’s great win over the Aussies, some awkward questions need to be asked.  They won’t matter to those in the corporate hospitality enjoying a good day out, but the dyed-in-the-wool England fans will have it in the back of their minds.  Has the sudden and wonderful improvement in England’s style of play been because of the coaches’ careful planning over the past couple of years, or has it been achieved in spite of them?  It’s wonderful to see the fresh blood – Ashton, Foden, Laws and so on – doing so well, but what took us so long to blood them? 

First published in The Rugby Paper on 21 November 2010, and reproduced here with the editor's permission

Film stars, a tabloid and skullduggery - this has it all

It's taking its time but it looks as though the News of the World (NoW) phone hacking scandal might just be coming to a head.  The Guardian, which has been relentless in reporting the developing story, now claims that a document has been lodged with the high court that suggests that the phone hacking was more than just the work of one or two 'rogue' reporters - it refers to this as 'explosive new evidence'. 



What is most worrying about this is that the document, produced by lawyers for actors Sienna Miller and Jude Law, cites extracts from paperwork that the Metropolitian Police seized from the NoW's private investigator Glenn Mulcaire back in 2006.  This is potentially a huge media story, but the most disquieting aspect seems to be that Scotland Yard simply sat on its hands rather than do something about a huge cache of potential evidence.  The Yard had previously agreed with the CPS that it would tell all of the 'potential victims' that they were targets of phone hacking.  They don't appear to have done this and at best this seems to be incompetence.



There are now around 20 public figures who have said that they are considering suing the NoW for breach of privacy, including the former deputy prime minister, John Prescott.  As Private Eye would say, this one will run and run!  This could just be heading to become one of the biggest media stories for many, many years.  

Mr Justice Tugendhat again

The definition of 'defamatory' is a crucial one for journalists and back in June Mr Justice Tugendhat tweaked the long-standing one.

The case was between Dr Sarah Thornton and the Telegraph Media Group, and involved her book, "Seven Days in the Art World".  A review in the Telegraph alleged that Dr Thornton had engaged in what is known as 'copy approval', giving her interviewees the chance to read what she proposed to write in advance of publication.  This is a practice that is generally frowned upon in a journalistic context (I do that in my Racing Post Guides but only for reasons of accuracy).  In addition, Thornton claimed that the review, by Lynn Barber, suggested that she had dishonestly claimed to have interviewed Barber as part of the research for the book.

  Dr Sarah Thornton        


After a lot of to'ing and fro'ing, on 26 September 2009 the Telegraph issued the following apology:

In her review of 'Seven Days in the Art World' by Sarah Thornton (Nov 1, 2008) Lynn Barber took issue with Dr Thornton’s assertion that she (Ms Barber) was among the 250 people who had been interviewed for the book, either face to face or by telephone. 

In fact, Ms Barber did have a pre-arranged telephone interview with Dr Thornton two years earlier which lasted over 30 minutes.

We and Ms Barber therefore now accept that it would be wrong to suggest that Dr Thornton made a false or dishonest claim to have interviewed Ms Barber and apologise to Dr Thornton for any distress caused by any contrary impression the review may have given.

In addition, the review commented on Dr Thornton’s use of a practice known as “reflexive ethnography” which Ms Barber equated to “copy approval”.

Dr Thornton points out that she did not give interviewees the right to alter any material she had written about them and that she always maintained complete editorial control of the final product and used the feedback provided by her subjects entirely as she saw fit. 

However, that was far from the end of the matter.  There were appeals, and finally, in June of this year Mr Justice Tugendhat dismissed Dr Thornton's libel claim.  The crux of the matter is that defamation claims must meet a seriousness threshold before they are actionable, and that they must affect the 'actions' of right-thinking people, not just their thoughts or opinions of the claimant.  Furthermore, he distinguished between personal defamation, and business defamation.  The judge found that the claim of 'copy approval' didn't meet the standard of seriousness required to be a personal libel. 

As far as business defamation was concerned, the Telegraph argued that, while copy approval was wrong in journalism, it was acceptable in the context of books.  Mr Justice Tugendhat ruled that if a writer can use different standards for different readers and markets, then it's not defamatory to say that a writer is writing to one standard rather than another.

The result is a revised definition of 'defamtory': 'the publication of which [the claimant] complains may be defamatory to him because it substantially affects in an adverse manner the attitude of other people towards him, or has a tendency to do so'.  The key word is 'attitude' which replaces 'estimation', because he said that makes it clear that it's the actions of people rather than their opinions that matter. 

That might not be the end of this matter as his ruling will quite possibly be challenged somewhere along the road.  On one level this is akin to angels dancing on a pinhead, but on another it's a victory for the press in that it raises the bar for those who might want to sue for libel.

More from OPPD....

Back in November I blogged about the case of the unnamed Premiership footballer, referred to in the High Court only as JIH, but known to us as OPPD (over-paid prima donna). 
http://colinboagsblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/not-so-super-injunctions.html

  Mr Justice Tugendhat

Mr Justice Tugendhat ruled that we could be told the identity of OPPD, but we couldn't be told what he had done that made the tabloids so interested in him.  The rationale was that although OPPD had a right to his privacy, there was already so much speculation about his identity that his prospects of achieving 'the attainment of justice' would not be damaged if his name was revealed.  The judge gave OPPD 14 days to appeal against his ruling.

OPPD through his lawyers did appeal, on the grounds that the comprehensive media reporting of the hearings was such that, if his name was revealed, people would guess the nature of his allegations against him.  However, the good judge simply booted that ball out of the park, dismissing the nature of the reporting as 'lacking all detail'.  This time he gave OPPD 24 hours in which to consider appealing, and after 22 of them, he did.  That means there will be a delay of up to eight weeks before the latest appeal is heard - I have no idea who OPPD is, but he's clearly good at putting his foot on the ball and slowing the game down!

More to follow no doubt in Janaury!

Football doesn't much interest me.  I've long held the view that the game is institutionally corrupt, to the point where a decent case can be made for asserting that it's a malign influence on society.  That view was based upon the cheating that's now at the core of the game, and on the antics of some of the obscenely overpaid Premier League players.  However, recent months, and in particular last week's vote in Zurich have put a new spin on this, and as a result serious questions need to be asked about the role the media plays in aspects of our national life.





I watched the much trailed and hugely hyped Panorama special on alleged corruption in FIFA's ranks, expecting wondrous revelations, but what did I see?  Certainly not the knock-out punch that was predicted.  In fact, the organisation coming under greatest fire after the broadcast was the BBC which is accused of headline-chasing and worse.  It is reported that Sepp Blatter referred to 'the evils of the media' in a speech to FIFA delegates just minutes before the vote was taken, and it would be naive in the extreme to imagine that this didn't play a part in the humiliation that followed. 


Was the BBC right to broadcast this programme?  It's the wrong question, I'm afraid.  The right one is 'Was the BBC right to broadcast it when it did?'  Mark Thompson, the Beeb's Director General put up a typically staunch defence of the decision - staunch defences are what Thompson does, and goodness knows he's had enough practice at it!  However, in this case his words had a hollow ring to them.  He said that the BBC had been "right" to screen the Panorama programme, which contained "significant information about matters of very serious public interest and public concern".  One, it's questionable whether that was the case, but Two, any public concern about FIFA paled into insignificance compared to the concern the public had about the country not winning the 2018 bid!





The BBC's timing was just plain lousy and it should be asking itself some serious questions.  Top of the list must be, 'Would the programme have had less or more impact had it gone out the day after the vote was taken?'  The Sunday Times report that kicked this whole business off was a superior effort on two grounds: it had better content and FIFA had to act, and it was not published so close to D-Day.  Thompson says that he believes the British public is behind the decision to broadcast the programme, but an online poll (admittedly with just a couple of thousand respondents) shows 60% of those voting to disagree with the Director General's view.


The key message coming out of this is that not only does a media organisation have to check its facts, but it has to think carefully about the effect that its publication date will have on its target audience.  The BBC might think it has the moral high ground on this one, but it has also managed to hack off a sizeable chunk of its audience.  If I was one of the corporation's critics I think I'd be storing this example away for future use.

Wikileaks: sensation or damp squib?

My paper of choice, The Guardian, is giving Wikileaks' latest revelations the sort of blanket coverage that the Telegraph gave to the MP's expenses scandal, and it looks as though it has become Wikileaks' UK paper of choice too.  The Guardian is getting first crack in the UK at some of the juicier bits of Wikileaks content and it's making a meal of it: today 12 of the first 13 pages of the paper are dominated by the story.



The fact is that most of what has been leaked is boring in the extreme, punctuated by a few bits that interest.  How much of what is in the leaks really surprises?  I guess that depends on how cynical a view of the world you take: was anyone surprised that Prince Andrew maintained the reputation for clumsy frankness that characterises the male members of the Royal Family?  Did it surprise that US Embassy cables alleged that Russia is a corrupt autocratic kleptocracy, or that the UK government found a loophole that allowed the US to keep cluster bombs on UK soil?  I'm firmly of the 'nothing that governments and politicians do surprises me any more' school of thought so I was hardly shocked by these revelations. 

What also came as no shock was some US politicians over-reacting in typical fashion.  Having worked for a US corporation for more than 20 years, and having seen its machinations at first hand, I know only too well the barely concealed contempt that the US has for the rest of the world.  Unless it was invented in the likes of Des Moines, Idaho your average American execs have no time for it, and their misguided sense of their own superiority can be breathtaking.  The likes of Mike Huckabee, potential Republican presidential candidate and as right-wing as American politicians come, are about their business, calling for Wikileaks' founder, Julian Assange, to be tried under the 1917 Espionage Act, with Huckabee saying 'I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty'!  Sarah Palin predictably wants Assange hunted down, and some of the right-wing blogs make more interesting reading that the leaks themselves:  Red State says Assange is a spy and, 'Under the traditional rules of engagement he is thus subject to summary execution, and my preferred course of action would be for him to find a small caliber [sic] round in the back of his head'!  In an ever-changing world it's good to know that the US remains the same - if you asked most of these people to point on a map to some of the nations mentioned in the leaks, I very much doubt that they'd have a scooby about it.

The White House is, however, taking a more balanced view of the leaks, going through the motions of expressing outrage while also playing down their significance. Hilary Clinton, on whose watch the leaks happened, is under some pressure but it's hard to see her being irreparably damaged, and President Obama might not be sorry to see his Secretary of State taken down a peg or two.  At the same time, however, there appears to be a concerted attempt at cyber war against Wikileaks' sites, with attacks from unknown hackers (I wonder who they could be working for?), and yesterday Amazon.com pulling the plug on hosting them after coming under pressure from politicians such as the chair of the Homeland Security Committee, Joe Lieberman..

It's all good knockabout stuff but it's hard to visualise governments and politicians across the globe being too deeply shocked about it: their diplomats are almost certainly expressing themselves in equally blunt terms in their missives home.  US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, probably got it right when he said 'Is this embarrassing?  Yes.  Is it awkward?  Yes.  Consequences for US foreign policy?  I think fairly modest'.