You are here: Home»SUPER 14
Not in my name Print E-mail
Monday, 13 June 2005 21:25 | Written by Bern - gwlad
I can just about live with Lord Bald’s selection of 24 of a side that finished fourth in the six nations, and only selecting 10 that won the grand slam. I can live with Lord Bald running two tours in one - the Lions and an England development squad, I can live with the law that Jonny Wilkinson’s name must be mentioned in every article on the Lions.

What I cannot live with is the association of all Lions fans with the Barmy Army.

To talk about the Barmy Armies relationship with the lions it is only fair to use the full names. The English Barmy Army can never represent true rugby followers of the British and Irish Lions.
The Barmy Army is a solely and wholly English owned concept. It emanates from English cricket where a group of - usually St Georges flag festooned - buffoons, a gormless combination of Hooray Henrys and Plodding plonkers, lay further waste to their useless lives with endless lager or gin-induced moronic chants.

They have no connection with rugby- historic or otherwise - save for a few who have jumped on the bandwagon following England's world cup success. They consequently have little or no in-depth understanding of the game, positively no connection with the Irish and Scots (who with no affinity to England or cricket, must wonder what the hell is going on) nor the Welsh whose scorn for their lack of knowledge and traditions of the game is exceeded only by our annoyance that we should be in any way, shape or form associated with them.

What annoys us most is that New Zealanders appear to be glorifying them when the rest of us -including a few genuine English rugby lads- place no value in them. They are a press-invented nonentity. (Tarw – gwlad)

Englands Barmy Army started in Australia in 1994 on another ill fated cricket tour. The term was coined by the Australian press It is important to realize it is a limited company, the merchandising arm of the barmy army ltd is huge with over 5,000 on their database but they've recently moved into organising sporting tours. Hence their presence in NZ. Their xenophobic, racist chanting attracts to the lowest common denominator of humankind. True rugby fans avoid them like the plague

The Media is basically lazy - they want Lions stories and the "Barmy Army" are easy to find to get a story. I followed the Lions tour of Australia in 1989, the barmy army did not exist then but what I witnessed in Sydney made me cringe. With the series tied – at the third test the pondlife came from under their stones, suddenly the ground was full of Union jacks with football slogans on them West Ham, Chelsea, Leeds etc. The press was full of “10,000 lions fans traveling 12,000 miles” etc. Lazy Lazy journalism – these “supporters” were backpackers who were in Sydney and rather than go down to Kings Cross that night the put on their nylon England football jerseys and went to probably their first and last game of rugby. From this group of people the Barmy Army developed.


“You can't go to a test match (cricket) these days without those moronic pricks getting pissed in the first 4 minutes and then spending the whole day chanting the same mindless rubbish over and over until they piss themselves or start a fight. They are barely human”. (badger – gwlad).

It is a business – full stop. I do not want to be associated with them.
< Prev   Next >
 

Buy NPC Kit

Buy Super 14 Kit

Buy All Black Kit

INMATES

We have 119 guests online

Most read articles