Regional rivalry played its part in the demise of fallen Vipers

Mar 27 2011 by Mark Douglas, Sunday Sun

THE sad demise of Newcastle Vipers brought to mind something North East boxing great Glenn McCrory said to me the other week.

When asked why we hadn’t produced a world champion since he hung up his gloves, he nailed the North’s “tribal rivalries” as one of the things holding us back in our efforts to make an impact at the very highest level.

As someone once taken to task for wearing a red jumper on the Newcastle United press benches, I knew precisely what he meant.

But Gentleman Glenn wasn’t talking about dust ups between Newcastle and Sunderland or Hartlepool and Darlington on the football and rugby pitches though, he was referring to century old grudges between towns, clubs or even villages that stopped normally sensible men from working together for the greater good.

No organisation has suffered more through that than the Vipers, who stand on the brink of oblivion after capping their very own annus horribilus by missing out on the Elite League play-offs last week.

After leaving the Arena under something of a cloud at the end of last season they moved to Whitley Bay Ice Rink. But, just as many predicted they would, huge swathes of fans turned their back on the Vipers because of the historic rivalry between the Whitley Warriors and Durham’s own Wasps.

Against that backdrop, the players simply didn’t have a chance. Working in conditions that no professional athlete should have to endure they have done as well as can be imagined – even making it to the last four of the Challenge Cup before their lack of resources told.

It would be over-simplifying the issue to say plummeting crowds are the only reason why Newcastle might not have an Elite League presence. Broken promises, the economic climate and the harshest winter for some time all played their part – as did a flawed short-term view.

But I can’t help but feel that the ice hockey fans that indulged a collective grudge have set their sport back a long way by turning their backs on the Vipers. Certainly the game will lose plenty of profile if the Vipers slide into oblivion over the summer – and that can only hit the number of kids taking up the game in the future. And who emerges victorious in that unsatisfactory scenario?

The North East already has a hard enough job getting noticed on a national scale without the petty bickering. Hopefully the mess the Vipers find themselves in will focus minds – after all, we are strong united.