1997 British Lions Tour to South Africa
British and Irish Lions Beat Rugby World Champion Springboks
Mar 31, 2009
When Ian McGeechan takes the British Lions to play the World Champion Springboks in May, it is easy to draw parallels to his successful tour to the Cape in 1997, but the rugby world was very different then.
Springboks World Champions and Rugby Goes Professional
The mid-nineties was a time of massive change in the rugby world. The Springboks won the Rugby World Cup in 1995, Captain Francois Pienaar receiving the William Webb Ellis trophy from Nelson Mandela in front of a united South Africa. This was to be the last amateur World Cup.
The late Vernon Pugh, chairman of the IRB at the time had been negotiating the transition of the sport from amateur to professional. Despite the protestations of many die-hards within the game, he managed to come up with a formula that was acceptable to the majority. In August 1995, a momentous announcement was made. Rugby was now an ‘open’ sport where players could be rewarded for their efforts.
How Would the Lions Survive Professionalism?
With the advent of professionalism, priorities within the sport changed. No longer was it simply a question of asking a player to pitch up to Heathrow on a certain date. The clubs were now employers and had a vested interest in the well-being of their ‘assets’. With the game becoming so much more physical and demanding, summer rest periods were considered essential for the top stars. How then, could a Lions tour be contemplated?
Fortunately, this had already been addressed to a certain extent. When the Lions last visited South Africa in 1980, the itinerary included 22 games and 4 test matches. This had been cut to a more manageable 11 matches with 3 tests when the team visited Australia in 1989. This model was again followed in 1997, reducing the load on the players.
Huge British Support for the Lions
There was one change to the traditional itinerary that was to help cement the popularity of the Lions. For the first time, the tests were played over three consecutive weekends. This made it feasible for Lions supporters to follow the tour without arranging sabbaticals or quitting their jobs. Allied to the relatively cheap cost of air travel, a new breed of rugby supporter was born. An unprecedented 8,000 fans travelled from the UK to watch the games, numbers which had not been seen before and would set a trend which would increase even further over the next two tours to Australia and New Zealand. Some estimates have the potential following for this summer’s tour as high as 50,000.
This was also the first tour during the satellite TV age. Previous tours had seen coverage of the Test matches, but Sky won the rights to broadcast the 1997 tour and maximised their investment by broadcasting every minute of every game live. Their faith was rewarded when the Lions, generally expected to be whitewashed by the Springboks, won a scintillating series 2-1. The success of the team brought the Lions to the attention of a new audience, whose numbers built as the tour went on.
In many ways, McGeechan’s 1997 team can be seen as the saviour of the British Lions. The tour was a watershed in Lions fortunes. It proved that the British Lions was a popular and probably more importantly, profitable venture. Had the 2001 tour to Australia with management/player issues or the unmitigated disaster of New Zealand 2005 been held in 1997, instead of the 2009 British Lions, we'd only have the cricket to watch.
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