BILL Smith left Orrell without going for his normal pint of bitter at the clubhouse on Saturday. The life-long fan, who had watched in the early 70s as his heroes famously knocked Harlequins out of the Pilkington Cup, had had enough.

After seeing his side destroyed 47-8 by Worcester, the 77-year-old could not bare to surround himself in the club which was once his passion.

"No more," he said. "I've had enough, I'm disgusted by what I've just seen. If that's how rugby is going then I don't want it. They can keep it."

You could put it down to a supporter's knee-jerk reaction after watching his side being completely overwhelmed by Worcester.

But there was more to it than that. The comments showed the scars of the past five years in rugby union, a professional era, a brave new world which is slowly but surely leaving it's past behind.

The pensioner knew it, he'd seen it coming. Orrell, once a proud club with a distinguished history, has been reduced to an outfit hanging on for dear life by the fingernails.

The "good news" last week was the club had come out of receivership after the ground was bought by a property developer -- the proviso being that the developers can build on the land and move the club somewhere else if wish.

I don't know whether I was the only one in the ground on Saturday who thought the deal might be bad news in the long run but the financial situation had gone beyond a critical stage for the Lancashire club.

If you believe the hype from Murdoch's tabloids and TV, then rugby has never had it so good. The glittering world of the Premiership and it's foreign stars are taking the game to new levels and the money ploughed into the league by satellite television will find it's way down to the grass roots to further improve the foundations.

However, they don't believe it at Orrell and they certainly don't believe it at Moseley who have left their famous Reddings ground after 120 years to play at Birmingham University.

In the future, between the builders and universities, people may be able to watch a game of rugby. Not that they will be able to identify with their clubs. Chances are they will have to take up an offer of a free estimate or an introductory sociology lecture before getting into the ground.

Five years of professional rugby at Moseley has led to the kind of deterioration now symptomatic in the game.

The 1,500 supporters who came to watch the Orrell game on Saturday were sick of this brave new world and vented their anger at Worcester.

"He's getting paid £500 a week to kick that ball!", said one home supporter, pointing at the Samoan fly-half Earl Va'a. "It's a bloody good job they haven't got the whole Samoan side out there!" he added.

The jealousy of the Orrell fans was plain to see and you can sympathise with them after recent years of turmoil at the club.

Worcester are lucky in that they have Cecil Duckworth's backing which has been instrumental in their meteoric rise. The clubs who do not have the financial clout in today's sporting culture, not just in rugby, are doomed to be picked off one by one by the circling vultures.

The sickening claim that the Premiership clubs should be exempt from relegation shows just how out of touch you can get in this so called professional era.

And, as Bill Smith trudged wearily out of Edge Hall Road on Saturday evening, it was blindingly obvious that the game had already sold up and moved on, leaving no forwarding address.

n Read Mark Dobson every Thursday in the Evening News