Club rugby is declining in England but amateur ethos is alive and well in America

Grass-roots rugby in England is in decline but, on the other side of the pond, I found that, much to my surprise, the amateur game is in rude health.

As Telegraph Sport recently revealed, clubs in England have folded in their dozens, walkovers are increasingly common and, sadly, the sport feels like it is losing the battle to stay relevant.

In September, I moved to Washington DC for four months and, in search of creature comforts, I decided to do something I have been doing since I was five – play for a rugby club.

I landed Wednesday, trained Thursday and made my debut for Washington Rugby Football Club on the Saturday.

Perhaps naively, I assumed the majority of my new team-mates would be expats and I’d also braced myself for poor skills, a lack of game knowledge and, frankly, dumbed-down coaching.

I could not have been more wrong. Americans get rugby and what it is really about.

My first run-out

That first training session, there were 62 players, which is quite the step up from the 20 or so regulars at my club in England, Portsmouth RFC.

As I tied up my laces, I glanced over at a game of touch and hastily picked a side to join. I spotted a young fly-half running the show like an old pro and barking calls at his team-mates. Surely he was a foreigner like myself?

As I took my place, his accent became clearer and there was no doubt this was a true all-American athlete.

As I later learnt, Leo Fangmeyer had been playing rugby since he was 15 and it soon became his primary sport despite a handful of appearances as Notre Dame’s American football kicker.

“I knew football wasn’t really going to be it for me anymore, and I was just mostly excited to play rugby with my brother and his friends,” Fangmeyer explains.

“And honestly, it’s one of the better choices I made in my life. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed playing a sport as much as I’ve enjoyed playing rugby, man.

“I played soccer, basketball, baseball, lacrosse, and ice hockey for a little bit too. I’ve done tennis, golf, football and nothing’s been as fun as rugby.”

And Leo is not alone. A huge proportion of the team in Washington played league rugby in high school and college before turning to senior rugby.

Coaches coach, players play

Washington has a D1 and a D3 side, which in effect is tier two and tier four of the pyramid. Although the D1 standard I was playing is the equivalent of Championship rugby in England, the standard is nearer ‘Nat 3’ in old money.

But the main difference in America is that coaches coach and players play. In England, the concept of coaching has shifted so far that it is barely recognisable as a concept any more.

From top to bottom, there are leadership groups formed of experienced players who tend to set the agenda of playing style and club rules.

The coaches are merely enablers and facilitators. But what happens when things go pear-shaped? Who takes responsibility?

It was so refreshing to be told: ‘This is what we’re doing, this is why we’re doing it, this is how we’re going to do it.’

Former Scottish Sevens international Simon Cross, who is now head coach of the city’s pro team Old Glory DC, takes the first hour of our Thursday sessions at Washington which entails an hour on defence. And he is brilliant.

The atmosphere is different to England, too. There is an intensity and an enthusiasm about the place that is reminiscent of what I have seen in American football films and documentaries.

Hollering, high fives, bum slaps, loud celebrations, and even louder ribbing.

‘Big Wash on me, Big Wash on three! WASHINGTON!’ rings out countless times during the session, and the buy-in from everyone – including myself – makes it far from cringeworthy.

“The players bring a lot more energy and noise and emotion,” Cross says. “There’s a lot more of that in America whereas in the UK it’s more reserved. But I’ve really enjoyed that emotional side of it. The huddles and breaking it down and all that stuff.”

The nature of the beast is that you have seasoned pros and people turning up for their first taste of rugby sharing the same drills.

But they are explained well, not dumbing down for those with experience and not too confusing for those who don’t know their knock-ons from their dropouts.

The driving force behind that is Thretton Palamo, the club’s head coach and former USA centre.

Palamo represented the Eagles in three World Cups, and at one stage was the youngest player to play in the tournament.

Everything is done with purpose. The whiteboard comes out when it’s needed, as does video, and the two-hour block we have at a high school American football field is relentless.

After two hours training, 50 to 60 blokes all crawl off exhausted afterwards.

Post-training socials

The buy-in to the off-field activities from the boys at Washington RFC is a sight to behold, too.

After my first session, Leo drives me to our ‘clubhouse’, which is a pub a mile away from our training ground.

“It’s something the guys do every Thursday – post-training social,” he explained.

Getting the boys at Portsmouth (myself included) to commit to one beer in the bar after a home game is hard enough. And the clubhouse is literally above the changing rooms!

Yet when I wander into The Queen Vic for the first time and there are between 20 and 30 Washington RFC players sitting around, sharing a beer, ordering copious amounts of chicken wings. It is like something I have never seen in rugby before. And this was not a one-off, either.

Every Thursday, without fail, the facetiously-named One Beer Thursday turned into eight or nine while throughout the autumn internationals there would be messages flying around about meeting at The Vic at 8am to watch the matches.

The social scene has been the personal project of captain and president, Harry Higginbottom, and his hard work has paid off handsomely.

The Americans pile into their makeshift clubhouse to watch an international game they have no vested interest in other than the love of the game.

‘Shamateurism’ of English game

Old Glory DC’s head coach, Cross, fears rugby in the UK is on a precipice with the amateur ethos disappearing.

“The biggest problem with English rugby is someone at level five expecting to get £100 a game,” he explains. “And if they don’t get it there, they’ll go somewhere else and it’s created this thing where some of these clubs have got to earn £2,000 to £3,000 to put a side out.

“Everyone expects something out of the game instead of giving themselves to the game.”

It is a far cry from the scene in the United States, Cross says.

“It’s almost like the amateur game, but with the pro mindset. And I think the US is 30 years behind the UK in terms of that, and I hope it never gets to that. It can never be the shamateurism of the English game.”

Palamo agrees. “I think that’s one of the pros of the era that we’re in here in terms of growth of rugby in America,” he says

“It’s a new toy, so everyone is enjoying it and everyone is willing to learn it. We’re in that cool spot where it’s just genuine people loving playing the game.

“I think money can dilute it at some point and then the culture disappears.

“When I think of my time at Utah when I was playing football and rugby, there was a pressure on the football players to have a certain image, a swagger with the jersey.

“But the rugby guys just didn’t give a f— because there was no pressure.”

And with the World Cup America is hosting in 2031 fast approaching, rugby’s popularity should only be heading one way.

Cross concedes that rugby will probably never compete with the NBA, NHL, MLB or NFL, but believes what it can do is look to overtake soccer as America’s fifth sport.

Lessons to learn

Despite great promise and potential for growth, there are still parts of US rugby that remain incredibly amateur.

Washington RFC would give anything in the world for the facilities almost every British rugby club has.

There are no changing rooms, no showers, no toilets, no car park, no storage for post-protectors and flags, and crucially no clubhouse. You turn up in your kit and you leave in your kit.

The pitch is shared with American football teams so, on matchday, a gang of us have to turn up at 7am to paint the pitch (badly).

If you need the toilet, you have to check yourself into the National Holocaust Museum opposite and clear security, which quite clearly is not the best pre-match prep as I found out in my first home game.

On the plus side, Wallenberg Field is a sight to behold with the Washington Monument providing a famous backdrop even if the half-height posts are totally horrible.

The club is also at the mercy of the council’s booking timetable, which often means the club does not have the pitch until kick-off time making warm-ups impossible.

In England, the RFU has tried to cut down travel time for players by restructuring the leagues but this isn’t feasible for the US with a four-hour drive to a game far from extraordinary. There is no bus provision, so everyone drives.

After the game, there is no jug of beer waiting in the changing rooms, or free pints and food put on by a combination of the club and old boys.

Instead a Miller High Life, ‘the champagne of beers’, from an ice cooler filled at the players’ expense suffices.

And, once we cleared it all up and the boys with bigger cars took the kit away, the team head back to The Queen Vic.

Despite all the obvious flaws, it has been the most enjoyable three months of rugby I can remember playing. I have loved every second of it.

It is clear to me Americans understand the ethos of rugby that many in England have forgotten. Perhaps we could even learn a thing or two.

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