York
How
very disappointing it is that we can’t get in the car this weekend, drive up to
York and take our places in their new stadium for the match.
It
was bad enough that we couldn’t go to the Christmas market last year, but that
is nowhere near as much of a shame as not being able to go to the match. Other
than the traffic jams, York is a such a good place to visit.
But,
back to rugby. We have heard several people talking as if the coming match is
going to be easy. We don’t think so. True they have lost three out of six
matches this year, but two of those were against Toulouse and Wigan. Although
they didn’t manage to score in the match with Wigan, they did manage to
restrict them to 26 points which is not at all bad against a top Super League
team.
Then
you also have to factor in the poor luck York have had with injuries in the
halfback positions. Before the season started they lost Morgan Smith (grandson
of Fev’s Peter Smith) with an ACL injury which may well keep him out for the
whole season. And then they lost their Aussie halfback, Brendan O’Hagan who had
been looking good to another injury. Whether he will be back this weekend we
are waiting to see.
So,
York have had to make do with loan signings and players such as Danny Washbrook
filling in the halves. We do think that Fev will win on Sunday but they need to
put in a more consistent performance. If Fev play even half as well as they did
the last time we were away at York in the 2019 play-offs we will surely retain
our 100% start to the league season.
fevnut’s
passions
Our
two great passions are rugby league and classical music. You may think that
they are world’s apart but there are aspects that they share.
Some
people associate the word ‘culture’ with classical music, but rugby league is
absolutely core to the culture of Featherstone.
Another
aspect that they share is that live performance is hugely more fulfilling than
television, CDs and DVDs.
Of
course we have been grateful for the opportunity to watch rugby league on the
television and to listen to our music CDs but the experience is simply not the
same.
Being
part of a crowd watching a match should at the core of the experience.
Especially when it means getting together with our friends. There is a group of
us who have sat together in the main stand at Post Office Road for many years
now and we usually also get together at away matches too.
We
have the date of May 17th firmly fixed in our minds. The day when we
can start to live our proper lives again. Of course, it will have to be a
restricted crowd but perhaps one day we will return to a match when the ground
is heaving but even a restr4icted crowd is at least a hundred times better than
no crowd at all.
The
second important date for us is June 9th but don’t bother to start
scanning the fixture list to see what we’re on about – that’s the date when we
are off to Leeds Town Hall for the joy of hearing live music!
Josh
Hardcastle
We do hope that Josh plays on Sunday.
If he does it will be his 100th game as a professional rugby league
player and, of course, that is also his 100th game for Fev.
Huge congratulations to Josh. Over
history there have been many players who have come in from the amateur game and
made very few appearances in the team but Josh has been a great signing. He is
skilful, strong and always gives his all for the team.
99 games and 47 tries so far. That’s
a great strike rate. In our dreams Josh plays on Sunday and scores a hat-trick
to make it a double century of 100 games and 50 tries!
Tackle-It
You may have noticed that we have
added the Rugby League’s Tackle-It logo to the top of our ‘musings’ page. Rugby
League has traditionally been most sports but there is absolutely no scope for being
complacent about it as recent events have indicated.
Fortunately, we have very rarely come
across overtly racist people within the rugby league community but
unfortunately there are quite a lot who take a very lax attitude to racist
language.
They just do not understand the huge hurt that such language, but it is really
important to reflect on the consequences. Racist language is not only extremely
hurtful but it lends support to the out and out racists within our society.
In the 1930s most of our family escaped
from Nazi Germany and ended up scattered around the globe. A few stayed to work
in the resistance and needless to say did not survive.
So, let’s work together to make Fev a
club where all aspects of racism are not tolerated. Just start to think of all
those players from ethnic minorities who have made a huge contribution to our
club’s history.
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