I am not sure whether I was amused or saddened to read of Ugo Monye’s “pride” in the selection of an ethnically diverse England rugby union squad (Britain sees rugby as a white, middle-class sport. This squad can change that for good, 15 August), but it very much reinforced my pride in being firmly of the other code.
Growing up watching rugby league from the late 1950s, seeing black and mixed-race players in both domestic and international matches was genuinely nothing unusual. Cec Thompson, whose father came from Trinidad, played for Great Britain as far back as 1951, and over the years I have had the privilege of seeing the likes of Billy Boston, Johnny Freeman, Colin Dixon, Henderson Gill, Des Drummond and many more representing the country, including, of course, Ellery Hanley.
It is encouraging to see union slowly catching up with league in this respect, but the fundamentally different values traditionally underpinning league, with inclusivity at the sport’s core from the very start, means that, as with professionalism, it could take a century before there is any real change.
David Hinchliffe
Holmfirth, West Yorkshire
• The heading “Britain sees rugby as a white, middle-class sport” should include the word “union”. Rugby league, which as a spectator sport at least is far more popular in the north of England than rugby union, has never been a middle-class sport. Even international rugby league players used to have other jobs. Ernest Ward, captain of both Bradford Northern and England rugby league teams in the years after the war, had to work as a bricklayer’s labourer. Rugby union, on the other hand, was seen then, as now, as middle class and was defined disparagingly by the league supporters on the terraces as “where they say sorry when they kick you”.
Bill Tordoff
Bedford
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