Wasps will leave downbeat image behind with Ricoh Arena debut

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2014/dec/13/wasps-ricoh-arena-coventry-rugby-union

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The Wasps Football Club have always come at rugby with a certain attitude. According to legend, they failed to become a founder member of the Rugby Football Union, formed by 21 interested clubs at the Pall Mall restaurant on Regent Street in late January 1871, because their representative went to the wrong eatery. By the time this 22nd delegate discovered his mistake, he was too wasted to relocate himself.

Their old home in Sudbury was always a low-key destination, a bit squat and windswept, and here they played without pretension. Wasps have always been frank of style and forthright of view. And very successful: winners of the Heineken Cup in 2004 and 2007, and four-times champions of the Premiership in the past 12 years.

When the time came to relocate, they opted first for Loftus Road in west London, then Adams Park in High Wycombe. A trip to a home game here was never a journey down Romance Avenue; rather a slow trudge down Hillbottom Road to the end of the Sands Industrial Estate. The club’s website offered prosaic directions: “To get to Adams Park please follow the brown tourist information road signs showing a soccer ball.”

Being obstinately humble – almost obtusely low-key – has served them well but there comes a time when the business side of the game demands a more visible statement of ambition. A rugby club has to have workspace of its own, where money can be made.

And so, after Sunday’s match against Castres, Wasps are on the move again, casting off the London prefix that they dared take outside the M25 to Buckinghamshire and going lock, stock and barrel to the Ricoh Arena on Phoenix Way in Rowleys Green, Coventry. In this new home they will play London Irish on 21 December in the Aviva Premiership.

The Ricoh has hosted rugby before. The Heineken Cup semi-final of 2008 attracted 30,325 spectators, only 1,300 below full capacity, but the inflationary index that goes with Munster on the road has to be applied. When Wasps beat Northampton in the same place at the same stage in the same competition a year earlier, they played in front of 16,186.

For the London Irish opener, well over 20,000 tickets have been sold, against an average home gate this season of 6,384 at Adams Park. Can the inaugural figure be sustained? Can a London club grow in the Midlands?

Rugby relocates with a mixture of fortunes. The Blues, the regional team representing the capital city of Wales and the valleys to its north, went from Cardiff Arms Park, tucked against the Millennium Stadium, to the Cardiff City Stadium less than a mile away but a light year removed from the rugby tradition left behind. The Blues soon ran back home. Crowds are not exactly packing the Arms Park but the average gate of 6,500 represents a recapture of the support that bled away with the move.

The trouble in Wales seems to be that the only local side that can pull in crowds counted by the tens of thousand is the national team. Wales play so often, to raise the money needed to fund all the levels below, that a day or night out in Cardiff for a big match is a familiar routine. It was noted, however, that even for the game against the All Blacks in November there were empty seats. The pursuit of the full house and maximum revenue is a delicate business.

Glasgow Warriors in the professional age have been around their city a few times, going from Hughenden (home of Hillhead Jordanhill RFC) to Firhill (home of Partick Thistle) and now to Scotstoun, first built by the Glasgow Agricultural Society in 1915 and renovated and expanded since 2008 as an athletics and rugby stadium. The Warriors play in front of 5,900 on average, not exactly on a par with Leicester’s 22,000 at Welford Road, but a major increase for one of the two professional sides in Scotland. And big enough for the team to cite their support as a factor in their success this season.

Glasgow have not been outside their home city’s limits. London Welsh have tried to stretch beyond London but the crowd figures at the Kassam Stadium in Oxford are as bleak as the Exiles’ tally of points in the Premiership. And yet Exiles on the move can work. London Irish have made the Madejski Stadium in Reading their home and the experience of watching rugby there is award-winningly comfortable. But that may include the freedom to stretch out and lean back. The Irish play in front of 6,900, down on the early years of their transfer. The Madejski Stadium can hold 24,161. Swathes of empty seats preoccupy the minds of those who dream of growth and prosperity.

Nothing moved to yet beats the something left behind. Parc y Scarlets in Llanelli is easily reached and well-equipped but somehow lacks the intimidating intimacy of the old Stradey Park. Even in its decaying, leaking final seasons, there was a haunting loveliness to the old dump.

So, can the Ricoh switch, the most ambitious and far-reaching of the home moves, work? Well, Wasps have the advantage of not leaving much loveliness behind. They are saying farewell to a cul-de-sac on an industrial estate and saying hello to a purpose-built sports and leisure facility, complete with casino. It is a roll of the dice but they are masters of their future. The unexpressive, deliberately downbeat Wasps may just be right at home in their shiny new nest.