The author talks about the game’s evolution since the 1980s, its relationship with TV and why it needs a stronger leader
Growing up in 1990s Wigan, Anthony Broxton became fascinated by the rugby league culture that spawned the Super League era. He needed to know how the code had not only survived the capitalist fervour of Thatcherism but thrived on a national stage when the odds seemed stacked against it. Now a London-based political historian and author, Broxton’s new book Hope & Glory – Rugby League in Thatcher’s Britain sold out its first print run after being long-listed for the 2023 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. The themes in his Dickensian epic are as salient now as they were three decades ago.
Hope & Glory views the late-80s as a golden era. Since then club attendances have doubled, there are four live games a week on four TV networks, so how has the game’s national profile shrivelled? “The landscape has changed. My book is about the vibe of rugby league, how people felt when they watched a team or a player, and what everyone involved was trying to do. In a naïve sense, they believed that rugby league was the best sport in the world and all we had to do was create the right conditions and there’s no end to what we can achieve. We are far beyond that now – and it wasn’t true. We’ve been on Sky for 30 years and we are arguably weaker than ever. There’s nothing written in the stars that rugby league can’t be a sporting embodiment of a thriving northern powerhouse, but we’re not even massive in the rugby league areas. St Helens haven’t really grown as you’d expect off the back of four titles. You don’t see Jack Welsby all over the national press. Why isn’t he being stopped in the streets of Liverpool? Sky reduced the TV deal. [They] were first interested in the game because they wanted Martin Offiah, Ellery Hanley, etc. Now Sky give the game the money but don’t promote it, and that’s the game’s problem.”