Every sport has its fair share of “colourful” characters. The eccentrics, the people who march to the beat of their own drum (even if they have no rhythm), the people who can be heroes to some or pantomime villains to others. Rugby League is no exception to this, of course, it’s just that most of our game’s characters seem to be confined to the field. Very rarely in RL is a club owner the headline-maker, but for every rule, there is an exception, and our game’s exception is Derek Beaumont.

Beaumont’s reputation precedes him amongst RL fans, there are some who will recoil in horror at his every word and action, and some (mainly those situated in the town of Leigh) who revere him, eccentricities and all. There comes a point, however, when you start to question who exactly his actions are supposed to be benefiting. Is it his team, or his own ego?

Now, to be entirely fair to ‘Deggsy’, you can’t argue with his team’s on-field results in the past few years. Back-to-back playoff spot finishes alongside a Challenge Cup win in your first few years back in the Super League aren’t to be sniffed at. It’s hard to deny that he puts his money where his mouth is too, investing vast sums into the club to get them where they are today. That being said, however, wouldn’t you as a player find it frustrating if all your efforts are being overshadowed by the latest off-field stunts of the owner? Isn’t it unfair to the hard-working team the Leopards have assembled that the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of them isn’t their achievements against all odds, but their owner?

There can be no bigger case in point than Beaumont’s stunt he pulled on Sky a few weeks ago, presenting the baffled Jenna Brooks with ‘humble pie’ (a pie with ‘humble’ on it) live on air. He chose to do this while his team’s man of the match was being interviewed, pulling focus from his team and their on-field performances yet again and onto whatever petty argument he had going on at the time.

Truthfully, I don’t even know what his issue with Sky Sports and their presenters is. I think it may be something to do with them writing Leigh off at the start of the season, but even so, read the room Derek. Your team has just secured play-off rugby again, one of your players is being interviewed as man-of-the-match, and you want to pivot that to make things about you? Strikes me a tad of an ego running out of control, to the detriment of those around you.

Maybe I’m way off the mark here. I don’t know what the Leigh players make of Derek’s antics, maybe they find it endearing, and it is at the very least a display of how passionate he is about the club. All I’m saying is if I were an athlete putting my body on the line every week, and my boss appeared on television pushing a pie at a TV presenter as some sort of publicity stunt, I’d be more than a bit miffed.

Then there’s his ongoing beef with Hull FC and while, as a Hull KR fan, I find it at least marginally amusing for someone to be going after FC with the ferocity he does, I have to say that I find it even more embarrassing. Could it be that he’s upset that Richie Myler & Co have managed to tempt some of his players away? Probably, yes, he has been known to throw his toys out of the pram for less, but maybe if he had a moment to reflect, he’d realise that it may well be precisely because of these outbursts that he’s losing players. I wouldn’t blame any player who didn’t want to be associated with that behaviour.

I’ve written over 600 words so far and yet I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of the life and times of rugby league’s most marmite character. There are his various squabbles with the RFL, his threats to create a breakaway league, and his issues with the IMG system (a system he voted in favour of, I should point out). All of this speaks to a character who it’s much too difficult to pin down in just one sitting.

All of this being said, however, it cannot be argued that Beaumont has done nothing but good for the club, and as this article from Total Rugby League attests, there is so much more to the man behind the Leopard print Lamborghini. The article is from 2016 and still revolves around his off-field controversies, so the more things change the more they stay the same, but they also revolve around a man who has faced and beaten significant challenges in life. Maybe there is more to Beaumont than initially meets the eye, but one thing is certain, he would avoid a lot of scorn if he learnt to keep his mouth shut, or would rugby league be far less interesting with a less-outspoken Derek Beaumont in it? I’ll leave that for my readers to decide.

Written by Nathan Major-Kershaw (site editor & Hull KR fan)