Farewell to The Stoop: Harlequins 22 Exeter Chiefs 14
Yesterday I made what in advance I had billed as “possibly my last-ever visit to The Stoop” as a member of a five-person contingent for the Harlequins home Premiership match against the Exeter Chiefs, eventually won by the hosts by the margin of 22-14.
I don’t regard myself as generally a “down in the mouth” sort, but – against the background of this organ’s perennial sports issue “Which is better – being there in person or watching on TV?” – the experience simply served to confirm my already long-held view that watching sporting events from the security of one’s home sofa is the infinitely superior.
Despite the significant changes the Quins hierarchy has made to its home ground, its fundamental problem as a sporting entity – possibly also that of the game of rugby union worldwide – is that it remains a long (and possibly unbridgeable) distance from becoming a truly global sport.
In my heyday of Quins devotion – in one form or another, broadly 1993 to 2016 – I always felt part of a homely, friendly, inclusive “gang” culture in which – on the pitch – annual Premiership mid-table survival was a minimum ambition and our occasional unexpected but glittering successes, especially in European knock-out competitions, were highlights, inevitably counter-balanced, of course, by our endless litany of mediocre (or worse) performances against teams that we might otherwise have expected to thrash with confidence.
I have to report that in 2023 The Stoop is a disappointing stadium at which to watch a Premiership rugby game. It’s not saying much in a field in which most of them match that description.
The merchandising shop is packed with this season’s crop of “home & away replica shirts, plus various sorts of other tat”, all featuring minor changes in design from last season because, of course, making your fans buy new stuff every year is an easy was to make money.
At The Stoop in recent years there has been a huge proliferation of “fast food” and similar stall and units and as a result – when the ground is nearly at full capacity (as it was yesterday) – your average Joe like myself, to reach his seat and/or visit the toilet, is required to “swim” his way through crushes of standing people, either chatting and enjoying the “craic” or, alternatively, waiting in long queues to buy their beverages and foods of choice.
Not long before kick-off my “other half” set off to buy herself a takeaway hot chocolate. She was gone for more than twenty minutes (returning to her seat some eight after the game had begun, empty-handed). After a long, frustrating, wait in the queue at the coffee stall, when she was finally able to place her order and proffer her cash she was advised that The Stoop was now a “no cash” ground … and so that was that!
Sadly, I was taken aback to see that the burgeoning number of “fast food” outlets had brought about a significant change in the ground’s culture.
Firstly, to be seen everywhere were endless spectators making their way up the gangways to their seats clutching plastic dishes of fare such as sausages or burgers & chips (with all the trimmings), cardboard boxes full of pizza and sundry other culinary delights (not).
This was for a match with a kick-off time of 3.00pm. You’d think that by then everyone would have already “fed and watered” to their satisfaction before arriving at the ground – not be arriving (as they seemed to be) in order to take part in a crowded “fast food convention” after which – as a potential source of diverting entertainment before they departed homewards? – someone had been kind enough to lay on some sort of rugby kick-around on a nearby area of waste ground.
Secondly, the stench of fast-food – not least onions – in the DHL stand that we were occupying was simply over-powering. This was particularly the case for those who, like me, found themselves sitting beside a hulking great gentleman in a heavy-anorak, who occupied not only his own plastic seat but very nearly a third of mine as well, consumed his sausage & chips meal noisily and with gusto (ditto his plastic glass of beer) and then regularly belched his way through the entire first half. A most unpleasant experience.
To return briefly to the plastic “bucket” seats. For the most part they have been part of the furniture at the Stoop for thirty years or more – albeit I grant some of the originals may have been replaced with similar successors – and the punters are hemmed into them like battery hens.
The contrast with how spectators/customers are treated at great sporting grounds in North America is as wide as the Atlantic Ocean. Our seats – including the admin fee – were effectively £70 a pop. Value for money they were not.
To cap it all, though the PA announcer, the staff manning the “fire machines” operating as the players came onto the pitch – and indeed the teams themselves – all went through the motions, sadly the atmosphere in the ground rarely rose above “involved, but not enthralled”.
For all the energy and effort involved – some of the hits and collisions might have brought tears to the eyes – the game unfolded without a great deal of magic or inventiveness. To be fair, the two teams were pretty-well evenly matched.
I’m afraid that to your author’s ears, even the occasional renditions in the stands of Quins’ version of Bob Dylan’s ditty Mighty Quinn sounded distinctly half-hearted. Maybe it is time for a change of song?
In any event, it’s the TV for me from now on ..
