fevnut's musings #21: Blackpool, Barcelona and Bradford

fevnut's musings

Blackpool

The hoodoo is banished! Never again can anyone say that Fev have always lost at Bloomfield Road, Blackpool. fevnut (tongue in cheek) claims some credit for our wonderful win against York. As we have said many times, we loathe Blackpool both as a place and as a location for several years of misery.

Wiped out is the vision of throwing away the Northern Rail Cup final in 2012. Gone is the vision of being nilled by Halifax at Summer Bash in 2016. And gone too are the visions of our losses in 2015, 2017 and 2018. And they are all replaced by our new memory of a wonderful team performance to take apart a team that were lying above us in the table.

We watched it on television. We simply couldn’t bear to risk more misery in that place. And then, whilst deciding not to go we thought that as Fev always lose when we go maybe we can bring them some luck by not going!

Maybe in years to come we will simply remember that we won 42-10. I wonder if we will all recall that York were well on top for most of the opening 20 minutes and it was only the quality of our goal-line defence that kept them at bay. So it was a bit of a surprise when we took the lead. And it seemed almost inevitable that it was going to be from a long range interception try. 

We loved Chizzie’s celebration even though we were mistaken as to what it symbolized. Some have suggested that it was being disrespectful to York but that thought never occurred to us. We guessed that it was an on-the-spot enactment of exhaustion after his 90 metre run but it turned out to be a reference to his baby child.

So, now it’s on to our home game against Bradford and fevnut will definitely be there! We are really excited about it.

Barcelona

The other factor in deciding not to go to Blackpool was that we very much wanted to see the game at Barcelona’s Camp Nou. Had we been able to afford it we would have been there in person but we settled for watching it on television at home.

What an occasion it turned out to be for rugby league. Who are these people who make out that Catalans Dragons bring nothing to our competition?! We hope they are eating huge slabs of humble pie.

The old Super League record was the 25,004 that attended a match between Wigan and Saint Helens in 2005. The 31,555 that were there at Camp Nou increased that figure by about 25%. That’s an unbelievable increase in a record.

At the Mexico Olympics in 1968 Bob Beaman famously smashed the long jump world record but even that was only by a margin of 5%.

Super League chief executive, Robert Elstone, has been reported as saying that following Barcelona he is very keen to take other SL matches to major European cities. We need to add a word of caution. The factors that were in play last week cannot possibly be repeated elsewhere. Both Barcelona and Perpignan were part of the ancient principality of Catalonia. In both cities the Catalan language is widely spoken. There is a big desire within Spanish Catalonia for independence from Spain. So the very name of ‘Catalans Dragons’ has very large resonance in Barcelona. Whatever the teams playing, you could never repeat that effect in a match staged in say Rome, Berlin, Amsterdam or even Paris.

Bradford

So, now it’s on to our home game against Bradford and fevnut will definitely be there! We are really excited about it. They have beaten us twice already this year, both at their Odsal stadium and each time by a single point margin. In the first game of the season their win was down to a Chisholm drop goal. In the second it was a golden point drop goal after the teams finished level at the hooter.

And now Dane Chisholm is a Fev player and has dramatically improved the whole of the Fev team. So we think that we could well see a Fev victory on Sunday, not what we would have predicted a few weeks ago.

We generally don’t go in for predictions but surely it is not too far-fetched to surmise that Toronto will beat Sheffield, Toulouse will beat Leigh and Widnes will bet York. And if all that happens Fev will be sitting in 3rd place in the table on Sunday night by virtue of our far superior points difference.

That would make the next Championship game, away at Sheffield, immense. If we were to go there and win that would nullify the advantage they currently hold by virtue of having a game in hand and even if they win that game away at Widnes next week we could put ourselves well in place for finishing third.

Who would have thought that a few weeks ago?!!!