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#Post#: 92123--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ugo says stop drinking!
DIR By: Jedzi
Date: June 19, 2022, 8:29 am
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--- Quote from: A222Quin link ---
>
> I played rugby all the way through school to a pretty decent
standard and would’ve carried on playing at uni were it not for
the ludicrous initiations nonsense and the weird stuff involving
various challenges and forfeits that were just plain disgusting.
The you need to do this to be part of the team stuff is
certainly off putting in my opinion.
>
> I’m not anti having a drink by any means. I’ll have plenty of
days on the beers this year at the cricket and at the autumn
internationals but can see what Ugo means.
>
--- End Quote ---
University initiation rituals put me off as well. I didn't want
to get stripped naked and left on a roundabout and, call me
dull, but I'm not putting curry powder in any of my intimate
places and I definitely wasn't going to let anyone else do it.
Anecdotally, I knew a lot of people put off rugby by this kind
of behaviour.
This was all back in the 80's and surely things have moved on
hugely since then. However, from what I hear, they haven't.
Two relatives at Russell Group universities have both reported
fairly similar things in the last year or so. The difference
now is that it is carefully organised to avoid university regs.
Does this matter? Well, yes. Participation in the adult game
is falling rapidly. From 2016 to 2020, numbers playing
regularly fell by roughly 1/4 and then covid happened. That's a
huge drop-off. Obviously, that's not just because of drinking
behaviour at university, but it is a factor in a huge dip in
numbers after school rugby.
#Post#: 92132--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ugo says stop drinking!
DIR By: Monte
Date: June 19, 2022, 9:46 am
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I don’t drink very much but someone telling me not to drink and
preaching at me just sends me straight to the fridge. I am fast
falling out with this guy who on earth does he think he is? A
rugby commentator who used to play rugby..... preaching never
works.
#Post#: 92137--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ugo says stop drinking!
DIR By: Brown Bottle
Date: June 19, 2022, 10:02 am
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--- Quote from: Monte link ---
>
> I don’t drink very much but someone telling me not to drink
and preaching at me just sends me straight to the fridge. I am
fast falling out with this guy who on earth does he think he is?
A rugby commentator who used to play rugby..... preaching never
works.
>
--- End Quote ---
But do you put curry powder on your nethers when you have a
drink?
#Post#: 92138--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ugo says stop drinking!
DIR By: FatQuin
Date: June 19, 2022, 10:09 am
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Yes. Every time I have a coffee. Starbucks staff don’t like it
mind…
#Post#: 92154--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ugo says stop drinking!
DIR By: JammyGit
Date: June 19, 2022, 5:41 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: Monte link ---
>
> I don’t drink very much but someone telling me not to drink
and preaching at me just sends me straight to the fridge. I am
fast falling out with this guy who on earth does he think he is?
A rugby commentator who used to play rugby..... preaching never
works.
>
--- End Quote ---
He's not telling you not to drink.
#Post#: 92162--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ugo says stop drinking!
DIR By: mighty_quin
Date: June 20, 2022, 4:19 am
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--- Quote from: JammyGit link ---
>
> He's not telling you not to drink.
>
--- End Quote ---
Exactly this. I don't get why this is so hard to understand!
#Post#: 92174--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ugo says stop drinking!
DIR By: JammyGit
Date: June 20, 2022, 6:02 am
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Here's my thoughts on this - I've not read the full interview,
just the BBC quotes.
A 'drinking culture' is not about having beers vs not having
beers. It's about alcohol being a core component of almost every
social interaction for a rugby club (professional or otherwise).
In rugby's case, you can also apply it to the fans.
Firstly, boring personal stuff.
I don't drink beer. I can, but when I was younger I physically
wasn't able to as it made me pretty ill. So I drank wine
instead. Now, it's pretty hard to match the usual rounds of
pints when you're drinking wine, so that immediately made things
a little different for me when I would be out drinking after
watching Quins or when I was watching England with friends in
the pub. Just different, not better/worse. Except that there
were times where the fact that I drank wine not beer was used as
ammo against me. Friends would take the mickey and that's fine,
but people I didn't know so well would genuinely give me abuse
for it, and it wasn't an isolated thing. I'm sorry, fellow rugby
fan, am I drinking the wrong alcohol as we celebrate the same
event? So I've always had a slightly iffy relationship with
rugby fans and alcohol even at the same time as genuinely
enjoying the fact that we could go out in Twickenham after the
game and have really enjoyable social experiences while getting
drunk.
I also don't like drinking during a game I want to watch. I'm
there to watch it, not get drunk. People are entitled to do what
they want and I've never been against booze at games, but even
then there's a difference between the guys whose matchday
routine involves multiple pints during the game and being
pleasantly drunk at the end of it, and the guys who (for
example) plan their 7s day around getting absolutely smashed
well before the game starts, and drinking record amounts of
booze during and after the game. The sport is an afterthought
for guys like that. And rugby has a reputation for it.
Secondly - university rugby.
A lot of the anecdotal evidence about why people who would
otherwise play rugby stopped or didn't start is around
university rugby and the culture there. Ugo talks about the pro
game a lot, but in terms of people being turned off from the
game, it's the uni side of things that crops up time and again.
There are plenty of amateur clubs who behave a lot more sensibly
than the uni sides, which are frequently cited as having dumb
hazing rituals, "boys-will-be-boys" offensive nonsense,
humiliation, and various other things that are often centered
around booze. Additionally I've known plenty of women who would
want to leave pubs and bars if a local tanked-up uni rugby team
was heading in, because they simply felt unsafe around them. So
whatever problem rugby has with drink, it seems to me based on
the anecdotal evidence that uni rugby is the biggest problem.
How do you fix that? No idea.
Thirdly - Ugo's logic.
It's a bit of a muddle. He mentions Miall not coming out as gay,
and ties that into the drinking culture. Now, I don't know if
Miall was teetotal, but gay people drink a lot. A lot. There's a
reason why vodka is jokingly referred to as 'gay water' by parts
of the gay community! So basically Ugo is saying that he worries
that the drinking culture at Quins made Miall feel like he
couldn't be honest. I'm not sure that really tracks - if you're
confident that your teammates would react well sober and could
trust them with that personal info, I don't think it would make
any difference if there was a drinking culture on top of it. It
seems more like he's confusing "toxic masculinity" (this will
immediately make half this board roll their eyes) with a
drinking culture, and they're not the same thing at all, even if
the latter can exacerbate the former.
Ultimately, the idea of trying to change the image of rugby as
being one based heavily around boozing cannot be a bad thing.
Team bonding is one thing but when the elite end of the game AND
the low-end gateway to the game both have a reputation and the
reality of being massively boozy, it's reasonable to suggest
this should change and that it's limiting the sport to people
who are okay with that. Rugby is a great sport - there's so much
good it can do for people as individuals and as groups. It
promotes teamwork, sportsmanship, respect (sometimes...),
commitment, physical health, and can help create really strong
personal relationships. None of that needs booze to survive.
So while I appreciate that plenty of people will disagree that
the problem isn't that big - and we have no facts to go on, just
anecdotal evidence in the main - I simply don't understand why
anyone would read that article and think that Ugo is trying to
ban alcohol, or that he's being "click-baity" or virtue
signalling. It's very clear Ugo cares about this stuff deeply.
It matters to him, and he understands it matters to other people
as well. At least pay him the respect of listening to what he
says and trying to understand his perspective and why he's
saying it. Especially as it's an opinion that is uncontroversial
among a lot of people who have been turned off by rugby's
culture in the past.
#Post#: 92178--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ugo says stop drinking!
DIR By: Brown Bottle
Date: June 20, 2022, 6:36 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: JammyGit link ---
>
> ...
> Thirdly - Ugo's logic.
>
> It's a bit of a muddle. He mentions Miall not coming out as
gay, and ties that into the drinking culture. Now, I don't know
if Miall was teetotal, but gay people drink a lot. A lot.
There's a reason why vodka is jokingly referred to as 'gay
water' by parts of the gay community! So basically Ugo is saying
that he worries that the drinking culture at Quins made Miall
feel like he couldn't be honest. I'm not sure that really tracks
- if you're confident that your teammates would react well sober
and could trust them with that personal info, I don't think it
would make any difference if there was a drinking culture on top
of it. It seems more like he's confusing "toxic masculinity"
(this will immediately make half this board roll their eyes)
with a drinking culture, and they're not the same thing at all,
even if the latter can exacerbate the former.
>
> ...
>
--- End Quote ---
Yeah, I was unsure about that bit. Ugo doesn't explicitly link
the "laddish" club culture with drinking at all regarding the
effect on Miall. However, looking at the article again, he
apparently said "rugby union must tackle its "heavy drinking"
and "laddish" culture to become fully inclusive." - so, two
separate things.
Perhaps the problem is the person who wrote the headline and the
person who wrote the topic title.
#Post#: 116757--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ugo says stop drinking!
DIR By: Ignoramus
Date: December 12, 2023, 8:37 am
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Over-drinking of alcohol and over-eating are massive issues for
health and society. It's a fairly well-evidenced area of public
health too. So I believe drinking by rugby fans is a fine
subject for discussion. Inevitably the rugby culture as an
influencing factor will overlap with a large number of other
factors, so some policy interventions will likely move the
problem around rather than fully solve it. But I do object to
linking the issue with "inclusivity" and other current
socio-political issues such as those often associated with the
"woke" mentality.
I do not have to believe that if society divides itself up on
all of the often conflicting single-issue philosophies and
life-styles that advocates put forward, that the world will then
miraculously become a better place. I do not have to believe in
a deep democracy of that sort. I might prefer to be
evidence-based, or believe outcomes are more inportant than
democratic discussions on "rights". I might favour analytical
approaches over other ways of thinking. I might not agree that
the motives or social culture-mongering of those who support
woke agendas are as pure as they may wish to believe. So
although drinking really is associated with some serious issues
in society for many reasons, I currently believe I am justified
to view these problems mostly through a public health,
anti-social and criminal law lens. I don't want Ugo's
assumptions on what society should look like to be folded up
into the beliefs and facts that I consider important.
#Post#: 116778--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ugo says stop drinking!
DIR By: RodneyRegis
Date: December 12, 2023, 4:42 pm
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Nice necro...
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