Pitchside fans give thumbs-up to new Murrayfield experience

IT WASN’T so much a pitch invasion, more a controlled exodus from the flip-down seats of the stands to previously forbidden territory that takes fans almost to the edge of the touchline.

“I’m on the bench,” Edinburgh supporter Kevin Bird was tweeting excitedly before kick off. “Well, I’m standing pitchside next to the bench. Gonna b good.”

And so he was, and so were a few hundred others spread around three sides of the pitch. Beer tumblers in one hand, chip pokes in the other, they preferred to put pressure on the soles of their feet rather than the breadth of their backsides and get closer to the action than anyone without stud marks down their back has been allowed before.

It’s the latest Edinburgh Rugby initiative to kittle up the matchday experience and reconnect with their fans after disappointment on the pitch last season and lack of empathy off it spawned some of the lowest crowds of any team in the league – last night was only a meagre but enthusiastic 2,352.

The powers-that-be at Edinburgh hadn’t failed to notice that their home crowds tended to amount to barely 6 per cent of Murrayfield’s 67,000 capacity and, rather than just tut and shake their heads the Edinburgh backroom team decided to do something about it because no matter how loud the die-hards shouted, a yawning lack of atmosphere inside the vast bowl was discouraging potential fans and creating a situation that was going nowhere like some mad dog chasing its tail.

Since the national stadium won’t shrink to fit the average pro crowd, the proposal was to shift the main crowd from west to east stands and invite fans over the wall to get close up and personal by taking advantage of a marketing promise that they would ‘feel the heat’ and ‘feel the power’ – complete with picture of snarling player tackling a tartan shirt clad supporter with a pantomime ferocity that cuts him in half and spills his beer.

The outcome was as if Brad Pitt had brought his army of zombies east for the invasion though, to be fair, the onlookers were a little more animated than that when the blood was up and Greg Laidlaw was soothing the hurt of missing out on the World Cup by scoring one try in the first half, making another in the second, and kicking the winning penalty five minutes from time.

The scale of Murrayfield means those who prefer to stand aren’t actually on top of the play and are a good few feet back from the line, but it is the thought that counts, and it’s about as intimate as you are going to get and it’s a definite improvement.

It is easy to see where the idea comes from. Every rugby club below professional level is well used to lines of regular spectators strung out along touchlines where the most sophisticated crowd control technique is a drooping rope that is no barrier to the supply of wisdom on team tactics and individual ability directly into the ears of the players. Makes everybody feel part of the team.

But it is new and radical for Murrayfield; a positive gesture to the fans that at least seems to be born out of imagination rather than, at this early stage of the season, desperation and a sign that it is not only the players who have to up their game when required.

On the evidence of last night’s game, touchline tap dancing has a pretty good chance of catching on and bringing a few more bodies through the turnstiles on the average Friday night, though it will never fill the stadium and it goes without saying that it will always be easier to attract a crowd if the home team can keep on winning.