…see!
There are a lot of links between City and Wire, not any club or fan links but just parallels in history and there are a lot links between United+Liverpool and Wigan+Saints (not just success, but the way in which their fans deal with being successful):
Record attendance in the country; 35 year run without a major trophy broken in consecutive years at Wembley; more down to earth than the Sky Redshirts, summed up with the line ‘lived in the shadows of Wigan, St Helens and to a degree Widnes hahaha in other words shite’ could be the biggest example of exactly what a Rag would come out with ‘City lived in the shadows of United, Liverpool and even Stockport hahaha in other words shite’.
Neither City or Wire fans go round calling other clubs shite because they happen to have won less than them, City fans don’t give shit to SheffWeds (random example) fans for winning less, Wire fans don’t give shit to Wakefield (random example) fans for winning less. Can you say the same for United and Liverpool fans in footy or Wigan and St Helens fans in RL?…
If you think Wire are a shit club, then the sport of rugby league is shit and we might as well as just pack it in and sack RL off because it’s failed.
When you look at major trophies won: Bradford (14 major trophies), Huddersfield (13 major trophies), Wire (12 major trophies), Hull (11 major trophies), Widnes (10 major trophies), Swinton (9 major trophies)… it’s like calling City, Spurs, Chelsea, Everton and Villa shite in football.
They’re the next tier down from the three most successful clubs and a credit to the sport. So are Salford, Hull KR, Leigh, Catalans, Oldham etc. and even the old defunct Hunslet and [various name] Rangers (both of whom had won more than St Helens in the first eight decades of rugby) as well as other clubs. All good clubs with good histories that contribute to a great sport.
Calling clubs shite because they haven’t won as much as you is classless and straight out of the United and Liverpool way of supporting a sports team.
Taking a step back from the aggro, Saints fans don't actually take that condescending manner with all other clubs in terms of having won more trophies, whereas Rags and Liverpool supporters, and to a lesser extent, the Pies do. In fact, Wigan do it to Saints all the time
Nobody took the piss out of Leigh on Saturday for being a club that hasn't won much over the years, and apart from a few bottle throwing knobheads, pretty much all of us wished them well at Wembley, although I do wonder if the Asiata-gate scandal will turn a few heads towards Hull KR now.
Widnes are probably our closest geographical neighbours but there is no condescending attitude towards them.
Similarly, we've never taken the piss out of Salford, Hull, Hull KR, Huddersfield, Castleford, Wakey or anybody else.
There are three clubs that are on the receiving end. They are Wigan and Warrington, because they are local rivals, and Leeds, because we've had a rivalry at the top of the table in relatively recent times. Those rivalries work both ways.
The piss-take to winning less extends to one club only. Warrington. That's just part of the banter that comes with a rivalry. It's a stick to beat them with and we use it. If somebody is going to dish out abuse, as they do, then you don't just see their cards. You match them and then you raise the stakes until there's a winner.
Wire aren't a shit club, but the fact that they haven't been Champions for 68 years despite their stature in the game is the kind of thing that banter is made of, and if they wanted to be creative, they could also point to the fact that even though we have a virtual monopoly over them at their place, they've beaten us in every Final and semi-final that we've ever met in going back to 1976.
