Happy
New Year
We are
writing this on New Year’s Day, yes, January 3oth 2020. Don’t give us any of
that January 1st codswallop. As far as we are concerned, and many of our
readers too, we suspect, the year starts properly with the opening of the rugby
league season.
The period between
the last international of the year and the start of the new season is a pretty
miserable time and even Christmas is only a small crumb of comfort. This year
we tried even harder than usual to relieve the misery by spending Christmas
with relatives in Buenos Aires trying hard to explain that the sport that we
love is not the one that is played by their Pumas team. We got some rather
incredulous reactions from those who simply didn’t know that there was another,
far better sport with the name of rugby.
That’s what
we call evangelism. And we took it a step further, too, by wearing our beloved
Fev kit on a trip to La Bombonera, the ‘cathedral’ where Boca Juniors play with
a strange spherical ball.
But now we
need no distractions. Real life begins again, the exhilaration of a victory,
the despair of a defeat, and both are so much better than the numbness of
nothing!
Winning
Sequences
Let’s hope
that this doesn’t put the mockers on Sunday’s match. We were we’ll aware that
we have a very good record against Batley over the last few years. So we
thought we would have a look to see how good it is and we were amazed to
discover that Fev have won the last 20 Championship league fixtures against
them. That is an extraordinary feat.
Strangely,
during that run which stretches back to 2010 we have actually lost 4 times
against them but all the losses were in different competitions. Those were in
the National League (Northern Rail) Cup in 2012 and in the Qualifying
Semi-Final of the Play-Offs in 2013. We lost twice to them in 2016, once in the
5th round of the Challenge Cup in 2016 and then again in the Super 8s
Qualifiers.
We wondered
whether that run of twenty league wins is a record for Fev and on checking, it
certainly is.
There are
eight other teams who we have beaten in ten or more league matches, but none
match the 20 against Batley.
As well as
Batley, the other run which is current and could be extended is against
Swinton.
Israel
Folau
We have made no secret of the fact that our favourite Super
League team is Catalans Dragons. There are particular personal reasons for
that. It was, therefore, all the more appalling for us when the news came
through that they had signed Israel Folau.
We quite rightly pride ourselves on the fact that rugby league
is such an inclusive sport. It is a matter of pride that rugby league positively
welcomed players of colour long before football, cricket or rugby union. They took
their rightful places in the England and Great Britain teams many years before
the selectors considered them in other sports and that included naming people
of colour as the national team captain.
Again we led the way in the manner of acceptance when Keegan
Hirst decided to tell the world that he was gay. What must he feel when we have
a player in Super League who writes tweets saying that all gay people will go
to Hell?
We have seen people, on some forums, trying to compare Sonny
Bill Williams not wishing to wear a betting logo on religious grounds to the
position of Israel Folau. That’s nonsense, the two have nothing in common. To
be against betting is completely different to condemning people on grounds of
sexual orientation. Israel Folau is homophobic and should have no place in
rugby league just as there is no place for racists.
Wigan is not one of our favourite clubs (that’s putting it very
mildly!) but their decision to nominate their home match against Catalans in
March as ‘Pride Day’ is excellent. Well done, Wigan. Let’s hope that others
follow their example and demonstrate that we will not tolerate homophobia in
rugby league.
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