A noisy fan base is a huge boost, but...

Sir Winston Churchill is alleged to have come up with the phrase describing the game of rugby as “A hooligans’ game played by gentlemen”.

A Cambridge University don, (possibly even earlier, during the late 1890’s, which is the first time the use of the word “hooligan” is actually recorded as being used) supposedly offered an insightful comparison.
“Football is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans”.

There is sometimes some truth in both, sometimes not.
I have never been in any doubt about the positive effect on the morale of a team of a vocal group of fans in the crowd.

We’ve seen up to 7000 in our relatively modest rugby stadia here in Kampala, all howling for their team.

It’s an integral part of sport and sport is not just all the better for it, it wouldn’t be what it is financially or indeed as compelling a spectator event without its supporters. Ugandan rugby needs more folk to turn up, to club events, schools and women’s and of course to the internationals.

Fan trouble is a rare occurrence at any rugby event, and almost unheard of in environments where rugby is a mature and regular feature.

I went to the 2003 World Cup when 1.8 million people went through the turnstiles over the three weeks. They made a lot of noise and collectively drank truckloads of beer.
There were, I believe, a total of just 11 arrests made during the whole event. Globally we don’t have a cultural, crowd-behavior problem in rugby and of that we should all be very proud.

In fact, behavior is usually self-regulated – both crowd and players have been known to “intervene” to stop the occasional disturbance by the odd overly-excited spectator, before trouble escalates. Strangely, the police are often found to be looking the other way while this “self-regulation” unfolds.

Uganda’s passionate rugby fans are as well-behaved as any, other than for one small, innocuous and unnecessary trait that is creeping in, namely the booing and whistling at opposition kickers during penalties, which didn’t used to be the case here.

The exercising of that “tuneful” musical invention from the SA football World Cup during opposition penalty kicks, we also don’t need.

Let’s keep all that noisy humour for open play and sportingly respect the kickers from both sides.

*Burley is a Ugandan-British dual national who has lived in Uganda for 30 years. He has worked in the tea, motoring, electrical power and mineral exploration industries and helped coach the Uganda Cranes when they first became African rugby champions. This column runs every Monday.