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THANKS to my Scottish heritage, I have, all my life, been a member of sport’s Anybody But England club. Yes, I cheered for Australia in the 2003 rugby world cup final.

Now, in the age of the PR agencies who are turning rugby union into an imitation of the worst of soccer, it’s even easier to join the club. Who could shout for a set-up that’s more marketing guff than rugby team?

Rugby, for all its elitism, used to be a very democratic sport on the pitch: if you were fat and slow, you could play prop; if you were tall and gangly, you could play in the second row; if you were fast but a snivelling coward like me, you could play out on the wing; smoking was de rigeur, certainly at half time, and drinking was, well, like breathing.

On the pitch, everybody was equal: no front row forward ever stopped to enquire about your nationality, class, job or colour before folding your trembling testicles into his hairy paw and twisting.

Everybody did exactly what the ref said at all times. He was referred to as ‘sir’ on the only occasions you spoke to him, which was when he was telling you off. If a gym bunny turned up, muscles bulging, you could be absolutely certain his balls were going to emerge from his jock-strap at full time looking like two soggy over-ripe strawberries.

And in the stands, supporters mingled and, while they cheered for their team, what they most appreciated was a good game. I’ve sat at Twickenham sharing drinks and laughter and embraces with Scots, Irishmen, French supporters and even the Welsh.

Now?

On Saturday night, as England capitulated to Australia to universal rejoicing from the rest of the world, so-called supporters were leaving the stadium long before the final whistle, just like soccer fans who care only for the result and nothing for the game.

On Saturday, England’s scrum half Ben Youngs spent chunks of the game theatrically demanding that the referee give a penalty against his opponents (and he’s certainly not the only one to do this), just like a soccer player. At every ruck, players threw their arms in the air in horror at the supposed indiscretions of the opposition and looked at the ref for advantage, just like soccer players.

When England were playing with a penalty advantage, they did what rugby teams should do and played on regardless; but some ‘fans’ watching said they should have stopped playing and taken the three points on offer. I’ve seen Scotland simply drop the ball when given an advantage so they can have a kick at goal, rather than play on and try to score a try as proper rugby players should.

Before the match, England’s sponsors O2 played the team a video in which supporters and ‘celebrities’ like Take That urged them on. Every single rugby player with whom I ever played or talked would have taken that film and rammed it right up the arse of the PR man who thought it up, but in the soccer age it seems the players checked their hairdos in the mirror and sat and took it.

And what hairdos! Marler’s lovely mohican! Owen Farrell’s sculpted coiffure, not a hair out of place! Ye gods.

In Scotland’s game at St James Park, the full back Stuart Hogg threw himself to the ground, hoping for a penalty. The ref, Nigel Owens, blew his whistle, summoned Hogg and told him : ‘If you want to dive like that again come back here in two weeks [when Newcastle Utd are playing soccer]… watch it.’

England are no worse than any other team in terms of marketing, PR and hype – or not much worse, anyway. Ireland seem to have a refreshing ‘give it a lash’ propensity to cock it up royally just like they used to, and with France chaos is never far away.

So I suppose it’s being in England that makes English horror seem worse: the appalling exaggeration of rugby into some sort of warfare, all brainless macho posturing about intensity and wearing the Rose with pride and ‘hundreds before you, thousands around you, millions behind you’ and absolutely nothing about playing a game for the fun of it. A game.

Of course, at this level, just like soccer, it’s not a game. It’s not a sport. It’s a business, pure and simple, and as such added to the long list of loves of my life that have been ruined by accountants.

But ultimately, the complete surrender of the game is what I think cost England their World Cup. The Australians had a smile on their face. England looked pumped to the gunwales with intensity and desire and commitment and aggression, so much so that actually playing rugby was just a distant memory.

I’m pleased, and not just because like all members of my club I love to see England humiliated at rugby. I’m also pleased because of the suffering of the marketing men and women who have taken the sport I once loved and turned it into a sad imitation of soccer. Their adverts will suffer, their products will not sell (shirts at how much each?) and, hopefully, even their disgusting, obscenely priced tickets will end up valueless.

These bastards have taken rugby, a sport that anybody could play, removed every shred of humour and fun from it, pushed fat little props into the gymnasium for conditioning, turned elegant mazy back-line runners into 20-stone battering ram freaks and charged £75 a ticket to watch 80 minutes of this nonsense. No wonder so many brainless twats were at Twickenham on Saturday, filing out before the final whistle.

I don’t suppose there’s any chance of us ever being given our sport back, so what I urge you all to do is what I urge soccer supporters to do: turn your back on the hype and obscenity of the over-priced over-regarded joyless elite of your sport, and go back to the grass roots.

Support your local club on a Saturday for a fiver. They could do with the money and your presence. Support the people you know, the real people, turning out for the love of it.

If enough people refused to continue being treated like some sort of dumb inanimate cash dispenser and milked of money for replica shirts and absurdly over-priced tickets to watch millionaires posture and cheat while Tarquins and Jocastas toast them from the corporate boxes, then one day, please the Crab, the people who have turned the people’s pursuits into multinational advertising orgies will go the way of the England rugby union team: into oblivion.