The Rugby Football Union has issued a response to Sir Clive Woodward’s call for a ‘alcohol free’ zone at Twickenham.
Woodward, former World Cup-winning England coach and Mail Onlinel columnist, has expressed his worries about the drinking culture at Twickenham and the fact that a significant number of fans spend a considerable amount of time during the matches getting up from their seats to go to the bar or bathroom.
He referred to Twickenham as “the world’s biggest pub and called on the RFU to take action, stating that watching England’s home games has transformed into a “rather unpleasant experience.”
The RFU has responded with the following statement: “We know the full match day experience is very important to fans, which is why we continue to evolve the wider Twickenham event day experiences including music and entertainment before, during and after the game.
“All revenues generated by international fixtures get re-invested to support community and professional rugby which is why we work hard to ensure we maintain such high demand for tickets.
“Given the size of Twickenham and limited time between breaks in play, it would not be practical or safe to operate a no-entry/exit from seats policy during a game.
“We carefully monitor the sale of alcohol in other venues and the impact of zoning and bar closures.
“This insight demonstrates bar closures can lead to other behaviours such as extensive pre-drinking prior to kick-off and at half time and late arrivals causing disruption to the start of a game as well as crowding on departure and dissatisfaction from those in alcohol-free zones they weren’t expecting.
“To understand the views of fans we conduct surveys after each game about their experience and this insight is used to inform all future stadium developments and experiences.”
Sir Clive Woodward named ‘worst’ 2023 Six Nations pundit
We’ve gorged ourselves on every Six Nations match over the weekend and have seen more of Gabby Logan and Mark Pougatch than our own families in the process – but which pundits have impressed us the most?
RUCK’s 2023 Six Nations content powered by ISUZU.
With every match live on terrestrial television, via BBC or ITV, a core set of pundits will make themselves familiar figures over the next month and half.
One Twitter user has taken it upon themselves to rank them from worst to best, and the results are certainly interesting. He’s also ranked the commentators.
