Rugby League in Popular Culture?

Dozen Wicked Words

By that I mean, Music, Films, Art, theatre, literature. Anything that shows the game or has links to the game really.

Couple to get the ball rolling (and possibly also the end of this thread, not sure it has legs to be an epic!!!).

Up n Under - A film from the late 90's 1998 based around a Pub team, including Samantha Janus as the kicker. :cool: Not great, but killed an hour and a half.

IMDB Link

Suffer Never - Finn. A great song by former Split Enz/Crowded House brothers Neil and Tim Finn, what made it even more memorable for me was the video, featuring very arty B and W shots of Rugby League. St Helens v (?) Castleford. Not a great copy on Youtube, but better than nothing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4_tAQKsfjk

Anything else anyone can think of?

Risteard

There was a scene in Little Britain where Andy runs onto the pitch and scores a try.

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As per Risteard!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMtFt4VAbTk

toomevara

Probably the most famous of them all; This Sporting Life, starring Munster mad Richard Harris; Probably the best rugby based film, either code ever made....

Stev_o

Crazy Aussies,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdXXI3qDW64

Stev_o

How the Aussies manage to make songs about footy is quiet strange or beautiful im not too sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipXV9VReB9E

toomevara

Peter O Toole (he of Lawrence of Arabia fame) grew up in Hunslet, Leeds (may have been born in Ireland depending on who you believe) and played full back at the age of twelve for a team known as the Raggedy Arse Rovers (Irish working classes being a major force in the game at that time). He recounted the experience as such;

Two or three matches between teams from various clusters of streets were played simultaneously. One sometimes found oneself straying into others' matches. Goalposts were a premium. If the pair had already been snatched, often a players younger brother 'our kid', would find himself elected as post. Kit was irrelevant. A familiar figure with the ball, you supported him; an unfamiliar, you downed the bastard.

Anyone interested in the history of the game should check out Tony Collins' excellent "Rugby League in Twentieth Century Britain", form which the above quote is taken.

WakeyTyke

Back in the 1970's BBC produced a six-part TV series 'Trinity Tales', a modern-day take on Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales, where a group of rugby fans each tell a tale on the way down to Wembley to watch the Challenge Cup Final.

Dozen Wicked Words

WakeyTyke wrote: »

Back in the 1970's BBC produced a six-part TV series 'Trinity Tales', a modern-day take on Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales, where a group of rugby fans each tell a tale on the way down to Wembley to watch the Challenge Cup Final.

Never heard of that, Trinity as in Wakefield Trinity by any chance?

IMDB Link

dom17

Stev_o wrote: »

How the Aussies manage to make songs about footy is quiet strange or beautiful im not too sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipXV9VReB9E

that song(whats my scene, original title) is by the hoodoo gurus an aussie band, im pretty sure the lyrics were adapted when they appeared live on the footy show,looks like a leeds supporter has loaded it onto that clip

WakeyTyke

toomevara wrote: »

Probably the most famous of them all; This Sporting Life, starring Munster mad Richard Harris; Probably the best rugby based film, either code ever made....

The 'fans' in the distance are actually cardboard cut-outs!

Much of the live action was filmed around the 1962 Wakefield-Wigan cup quarter-final, which drew a crowd of over 28,000, but some of the match scenes were filmed at an empty Belle Vue ground except for a few extras and a lot of cardboard!

Richard Harris became a big RL fan and watched many of Trinity's games in the 1961/62 season. Trinity won the CC Cup that year and Neil Fox recalled that Harris swapped his sheepskin coat for Keith Holliday's jersey, jumped in the bath with the players and drank champagne with them. Harris and Trinity coach Ken Traill struck up a friendship together and he continued to keep in touch with Trinity's progress.