That’s right, Russell Crow has got rid of the cheerleading squad from his Australian Rugy League club, the Rabbitohs, in favour of a drumming band; proving that the ‘Gladiator’ of Aussie Rugby hates cheerleaders…. right?
A closer look at this story reveals that rather than suddenly coming out as a ‘cheer hater’, Russell has only highlighted a problem with cheerleading that very few professional sports clubs want to address. Namely, that cheerleading just isn’t cheerleading anymore.
The squad in question are the Rabbitoh Bunny’s – a classic ‘Dallas Cowboys’ style squad with every squad member taking the name ‘Bunny’ on joining. A click on a few profile pages reveal a squad of professional dancers who love the game they cheer for and love supporting the team.
Their head cheerleader, Ashleigh Francis, told the BBC that they “had only tried to add glamour to the Rabbitohs’ games” and is, understandably, upset about this development. You have to ask why there wasn’t more of a compromise on the issue before just dropping the squad.
Cheerleaders are often credited with being able to add ‘glamour’ to events and games and a lot of squads try to achieve it by dressing and performing in a manner that they believe they are expected to. Surely Ashleigh and her squad were only doing what has become standard in professional sports and shouldn’t be renegated to just doing ‘corporate events’ for that?
An approach that The Sydney Morning Herald reports that other Australian Rugby clubs, such as the Parrmatta Eels, are taking. After recent complaints about cheerleading the club is changing their squad rather than getting rid of them altogether. By adding male cheerleaders to the squad and replacing the previously ‘pouty dance based routines’ with ‘athlethic tossing, tumbling and tricks’ the club is embracing a new way to cheer – or, as some of us might say, a return to what cheerleading is really all about.
The Bunny’s have become a casualty in the, some might say inevitable, change in opinion about what is acceptable for cheerleaders to do and whilst it can’t have been easy news to break, there is a strong argument for it being only a good thing for cheerleading over all and for that, at least, we can safely take Russell Crow off the list of celebrities that hate cheerleaders.
He does however stay on the list of celebrities that act before thinking things through completely……
British Cheerleading has had it’s own share of controvosy over how cheerleading is perceived. The British Cheerleading Association have implemented a rule about no bare midriffs this year, causing some squads a lot of problems and has changed the design trend for uniforms to include arms and longer tops.
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