The Nick and Dick Show

D J Cameron reflects on the troubled origins of the Rugby World Cup.

South of the equator it was known as the "Nick and Dick Show." Northward, especially in Scotland and Ireland, it was something new suggested by those irritating colonials, and therefore not to be tolerated.

The Rugby World Cup was launched on schedule in 1987, but in the preceding four years the south-north split several times threatened to wreck the whole plan, to set international rugby further back toward the dark ages.

In 1999 we should look back in gratitude that "Nick" (Sir Nicholas Shehadie of the Australian Rugby Union) and "Dick" (Dick Littlejohn of the Bay of Plenty and New Zealand unions) saw the World Cup as a dream, as the centrepiece of future international rugby, and had enough guile and gumption to turn back the opposition and turn the dream into reality.

The World Cup story started in 1982 when an English entrepreneur, Neil Durden-Smith, offered many millions of US dollars ($1.5 million to both New Zealand and Australia) to the International Rugby Board for the rights to stage a World Cup.

About the time the IRB was dismissing the Durden-Smith plan out of hand some promoters, led by David Lord of Sydney, were announcing plans to set up professional rugby tournaments.

Both Australia and New Zealand, independently, reacted to these spurs by making plans to stage a World Cup. New Zealand had seen the popularity of the 1982 soccer World Cup, and wanted to tap into that market, and to establish rugby more firmly as a global sport. Run by rugby.

Australia applied to the IRB in 1982 to stage a World Cup in 1988. New Zealand followed with a bid for 1987. With refreshing good sense Australia and New Zealand decided to combine in staging the World Cup in 1987.

So the Nick-and-Dick show was on the road.

They were pleasantly surprised to find England willing to support the idea. Wales followed when, after a long meeting, Ken Harris, a most powerful man, announced he was totally in favour of the World Cup project - and few Welshmen would like to be seen opposing a Harris plan.

Scotland were difficult, so were Ireland. France could be swayed, and the Nick-and-Dick Show were charmed to find that Albert Ferrasse, the dictatorial president of the French rugby federation, was in favour. What Ferrasse wanted, Ferrasse got.

Eventually, the IRB itself gave permission for the event to be staged in Australia and New Zealand in 1987.

The IRB were not to know that if they had not granted permission New Zealand and Australia would have gone ahead, and damned the torpedoes.

When the cup organising committee, now headed by John Kendall-Carpenter, a member of the IRB and the rugby establishment but soon falling under the magical charm of the Nick-and-Dick Show, drew up the list of competitors South Africa seemed an insuperable problem. It could hardly be a World Cup without South Africa, an IRB member. If South Africa entered many countries would withdraw, and the Australian and New Zealand governments would have reacted badly.

Kendall-Carpenter went to South Africa, found they realised the problems their entry might make. Kendall-Carpenter formally invited South Africa to compete. South Africa graciously declined the invitation.

The IRB was still a sticking point. The IRB wanted its four-man cup sub-committee to be members of the overall organising body, the Rugby World Cup Proprietary Ltd. This could have taken control from the Nick and Dick Show. Kendall-Carpenter suggested, ever so politely, that the IRB should take its sticky fingers out of the World Cup pie.

So for the last 18 months or so the Nick and Dick Show had nothing to worry about but making arrangements for the 1987 event.

They were flying blind, for no one had any experience with such an event, there were no guidelines. Mistakes were made, wrong turnings sometimes taken, but the basic strength of the structure, 16 nations playing in the first world tournament, grew with each passing day.

In the end there was a small profit of $US2.5 million. That is the money profit. The profit to the game has been pouring in ever since.