By IAN BOLDSWORTH
WITH all the dramatics Stateside of the Atlantic, one would be forgiven for taking an eye off the ball as to the comings and goings in RL, as the presidential election takes on unprecedented accusations of deceit and top-of-the-head nonsense being spouted.
Of course, in the UK we are incredibly lucky there’s no chance of our political leaders lying to us. We can look across the pond with a smug sneer, knowing we are being told the truth at all times.
And for readers of this fine magazine, how fortunate that we find ourselves championing a sport of the people. A sport in which the players are often on personal acquaintance with fans, none of your footballers-locked-away-in-mansions shower for our game. From top to bottom, our clubs are our clubs, and the folk that line the terraces, keep club shops in business, buy the programmes and travel Europe are rightly referred to as the eighteenth man. We matter. We are integral. We are part of it.
Which is perhaps why it is so jarring and concerning to me as an ‘eighteenth man’ at St Helens to find deceit creeping into the dialogue between the club and its supporters (and by association the supporters of the other club involved as well, although I’m conditioned to be less bothered about their feelings in truth).
I should point out, this is not a direct criticism of the club or any individual involved, more a statement of frustrated bafflement. I’m not party to the intricacy or indeed etiquette of player transfers, but it’s odd to see a club make a statement of intent (or lack thereof) before doing the exact opposite without any reference to their previous claim to the contrary.
When the return of Matty Smith was merely a rumour (an entirely true one), I had contradictory texts flying into my phone from people “in the know”, which assured me he definitely was going to sign, definitely wasn’t going to sign, definitely had signed, definitely hadn’t signed, definitely had signed for someone else, etc, etc … every conceivable outcome declared as absolute fact, which of course makes any inkling of fact impossible as it isn’t heavily weighted either way.
Thankfully, my club eventually put me right with the official statement that Matty Smith was not on their radar. So there we had it. It had all been hearsay. Until, days after the Grand Final, St Helens unveiled their new signing – Matty Smith – only a few moments after Wigan announced it.
You can see why trust may end up being an issue in the future?
In his defence, during his first interview since returning to St Helens, Smith said the rumours were actually the first he’d heard of it, and so his own dismissal of the story was a little more plausible. It perhaps wasn’t the best move to state in that interview though that he hadn’t wanted to leave the Warriors, especially given that many of the Saints fans had shown little patience with existing players in 2016, let alone someone being pushed back from over the Billinge Lump.
It would seem the prospect and reality of his signing isn’t the popular event that Saints had hoped for, always a rather unfortunate and unfair situation. I support whoever pulls on that jersey with no grey area, but the divide in the Langtree Park faithful appears to be mainly concerned with some fictional badge kissing that they have misremembered him doing in a derby during his lost years. Naturally, and hopefully, that will fade to memory oblivion should Smith deliver a couple of back-to-back game-turners.
That official statement from Saints though remains a far more confusing affair.
A flat denial when we now know an approach had already been made.(continued below)
Of course, with any mid-season signing diplomacy comes into play, ensuring the player (and the player they are replacing) is not disrupted nor unfairly treated by present or future support. But an outright denial, which could have also been interpreted as a declaration that the scrum-half wasn’t up to scratch for Saints, is doing nobody any favours. It may have been that contractually the signing had to be refuted until the end of the season, but that’s easily done by stating a refusal to discuss players presently contracted elsewhere.
The club knew at that point that they would one day be shown to have been lying. Was there really no plan of explanatory action for when the supporters replied “But … you said..?”
We perhaps should have learned when this happened a year earlier with the arrival of Theo Fages from Salford. Flat denial … signed … no mention of the denial again.
That’s the real issue.
Surely once the illusion is shattered, it would be the decent thing to do to explain why a statement of denial was made?
One would assume there was good reason, and letting the members of the supporting public know is nothing short of essential lest we fall into the slippery divide of the terraces feeling amputated from the powers that be.
It’s short-sighted, naïve and perhaps a little arrogant when all clubs should surely be striving for the utopia of a support base that supports no matter what, that trusts in the coaching staff, players and whole behind-the-scenes organisation.
Being intentionally misled makes unquestioning support a bigger ask if tough times follow.
