Okay, so what is strange about that? Well...
- One tournament will be played at a series of club rugby grounds across a region, all with permanent stands and ground capacities of 2,000 or more (in some cases much more by the looks of it), and will climax in a final at one of the area's largest sports stadium with seating for 29,000.
- The other tournament will be played at a university sports field with no permanent seating - though a temporary stand seating 650 (mainly for "VIPs" by the sound of things) will be constructed - and will climax in a final at a stadium that seats around 14,000.
Odd, isn't it? The European Trophy is an important event - it is vital to the development of the women's game in Europe - but its not a World Cup! So how come FIRA and the FFR (French RFU) are using stadia at least twice the size as those being used by the IRB and RFUW for the World Cup? Does South East England lack for rugby grounds? Does the IRB have less money to invest in women's rugby than FIRA? Or do some people somewhere lack... ambition? Belief? A sense of occasion? Or something?
John - you have missed a major point - having a capacity for 29000 when 29 people will turn up is ridiculous. A full house at the Stoop will be an amazing atmosphere. Stop being so negative.. look at the number of responses to your posts - mainly nil. We are starting to create a great interest in the game and you do a good job promoting it - stop looking for the dark side........
ReplyDeleteThanks to Facebook et al the responses do get a bit scattered these days...
ReplyDeleteI could also have pointed out that all previous World Cup Finals have been in major stadia - Barcelona's Olympic Stadium, Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium, etc. I wasn't aware that these suffered from a lack of atmosphere. And if atmosphere is an issue, why are FIRA an the FFR using such large grounds for their tournament?
But the main issue is really not the final - at least that will be at a rugby ground. Its the group games. All indications are that the Surrey Sports Park will only take 2,000 spectators - at most. That is absurd.
Is there a way of ensuring all comments made on any of the formats get duplicated to all of them? That way very relevant comments which do get made might not get missed by those taking an interest?
ReplyDeleteI wish there was - certainly there is no automatic way. I could repost them here, but then I'd also have to repost comments on here elsewhere, etc. - which would get very complicated!
ReplyDelete