England v Scotland @ Ricoh (2 Viewers)

chiefdave said:

Saw a couple of posts on my twitter timeline about a game tonight at the Ricoh. Turns out it England v Scotland in a rugby international.

Surprisingly judging from the pictures on twitter its far from full and lot of people asking why the game is being played in Coventry and not a rugby city. If over 30K turn up for U21s football but they can't sell out England v Scotland it can't be a good sign for the 'city of rugby'.

And they managed to mess up the Scotland anthem

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Not a rugby city? This IS the city of rugby!

Though I do believe the tag came about as a result of a clerical error.

During a visit to the city someone asked for some facts about Coventry and a councillor stated it was 'a city near rugby' and the clerk making notes was simply a bit hard of hearing.

It's that silly northern rugby though. Can't understand why it's being played down here.

Record crowd for rugby league international at the Ricoh arena will be the Telegraphs headline.

Hope they made a huge loss they are starting to find how hard it is to part the Coventry public from their cash.

chiefdave said:

Saw a couple of posts on my twitter timeline about a game tonight at the Ricoh. Turns out it England v Scotland in a rugby international.

Surprisingly judging from the pictures on twitter its far from full and lot of people asking why the game is being played in Coventry and not a rugby city. If over 30K turn up for U21s football but they can't sell out England v Scotland it can't be a good sign for the 'city of rugby'.

And they managed to mess up the Scotland anthem

Click to expand...

A few inaccuracies here. Firstly it is a Rugby LEAGUE international and League fans are wondering why the game is not being played in the Rugby League Heartlands (Lancs/Yorks/Cumbria).

England v Scotland is not a big game in League (nothing like it's Union equivalent). Scotland are merely a developing League nation and the game was about how many England would win by (20 was not that great actually). The 2nd game of the night however was between the best 2 teams in the World (Aus v NZ) and would draw a full-house if played in 'League territory'.

Finally the Scottish anthem wasn't messed-up. In both Rugby-codes the music to 'Flower of Scotland' is stopped half-way through to allow players and fans to sing the words unaccompanied.

I quite like rugby league, it is a faster moving game than union and doesn't allow the game to become bogged down by the forwards. If I hadn't been otherwise engaged i would have gone, oh and my niece was singing i the choir and that was how the Scottish anthem was planned.

I went yesterday. I'm a big fan of rugby league. The decision was made to have the games in non rugby league cities as a way to get more people interested in the game in this country. Not sure it worked as a huge amount of people were wearing team shirts. So fans of the sport already. Over 21,000 there yesterday but it was dead.