In times of trouble for any group you care to name, self-definition becomes a cornerstone of the rhetoric.
The vagueness of "Make America Great Again" was what made it so effective. Voters in the United States could slot whatever favourable vision/smell/taste they liked into their craniums when they heard the phrase.
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Grant confident he won't be voted out
John Grant insists his position hasn't become untenable and is confident he will remain the ARLC Chairman into 2017.
These are times of strife for rugby league in Australia, make no mistake. The 16 NRL clubs seem to have raised the requisite support to have ARLC chairman John Grant deposed, and from there they seem to want to wreak varying degrees of additional destruction on the way the sport is structured.
Only a few weeks ago this column warned that not even sport would be immune from the tsunami of fear and resulting ultra-conservatism sweeping almost all areas of life globally right now.
Whether the clubs represent populism, because they are the brands with which the masses identify, is an interesting issue best addressed at another time.
What I want to discuss in this column is the use of the phrase "the game".
Your correspondent always objected to the ARL and the NRL referring to themselves as "the game".
"The game" taking back the Immortals concept, for instance, argued on behalf of a group of suited men at Phillip Street or Moore Park. It always seemed the absolute height of presumptive self-importance.
![Just what is the game? Joel Thompson of the Dragons runs out with a local junior footballer during a match last season.](/web/20161205183132im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/4/4/r/s/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gt3ssj.png/1480936230027.jpg)
Likewise, the idea that just 16 clubs – out of the million-plus people who play versions of the game worldwide – are "the game" seems completely outrageous.
I went to a suburban ground in Leeds on Saturday to see Queens play Sharlston Rovers in a Pennine League match. I didn't see any sign of the NRL. I didn't see any sign of any NRL clubs.
Now, there were also no touch judges. One team had no reserves. The crossbar was shaped like a banana and one of the uprights at my end was rusted-through at the top. The observance of the shoulder charge ban also seemed somewhat lackadaisical.
But I could have sworn it was "the game". I could have sworn they were playing 13-a-side. I assumed it was four points a try, although the ref was just about the only one there keeping track of the score.
If this wasn't "the game", then what was that woman at the canteen talking about when she told a little kid – and this did happen – "it doesn't matter how fat or skinny you are if you want to play, it's in there", as she put her hand over her heart?
![The fans are as big a part of 'the game' as anyone from the NRL or the clubs.](http://web.archive.org./web/20161205183132im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/3/y/9/0/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x349.png/1480894470262.png)
The fans are as big a part of "the game"Â as anyone from the NRL or the clubs. Photo: Mark Metcalfe
And what was that bloke on the gate – I think it was Ryan Bailey's father – giving up his time for, collecting a pound from every spectator in return for a ticket in a raffle for a bottle of plonk? The ref, the canteen lady, what were they there for if not "the game"? You might say that's another country but this scene is repeated in Australia hundreds of times each weekend over the winter months.
It is entirely possible the NRL has been irresponsible financially. It's entirely possible John Grant deserves to lose his job.
But NRL clubs sit at the top of a pyramid that rests on volunteers, juniors, live spectators, television fans, magazine and newspaper readers, people doing websites and podcasts for nada.
For any of them to suggest they are the entire sport is unspeakable arrogance. The NRL is not just there to sell the games in which they are involved for 30 weekends every southern hemisphere winter.
The NRL is charged with maximising the number of people who watch and play an entire sport. And no other organisation in the world has the resources to provide that service for rugby league aside from the NRL.
By all means take a side in the current imbroglio. But don't let either side tell you they are "the game". They are just people, companies, employees, logos and intellectual property holders.
You are the game.
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