A
record in the making?
Many
of our younger fans will probably be unaware of how big a club Oldham have been
for much of their history, evidenced by their 4 Challenge Cup Wins, 3
Championship titles and no less than 9 Lancashire Cup victories.
In
Fev’s early days as a professional club fixtures against Oldham were
infrequent. We did play them twice in our 1921/22 inaugural year and lost both
times. In September 1942 we lost yet again which took Fev’s unhappy record
against the Roughyeds to: Played 11, Won 0, Drawn 1, Lost 11. However, two
months later, Fev, at last, recorded their first win by 18-10 at Post Office
Road.
By
the time we got to the first season of the ‘Summer Era’ the record between the
clubs was a bit better with Fev having won 30 to Oldham’s 38 and there had been
5 draws. In 1996 and 1997 there were no matches between us because Oldham
were in Super League. Since then Fev have won the majority of games and the
current position is that Fev and Oldham have now won 45 times each (with 6
draws).
We
have never been ahead but now, in our centenary year, we have the chance to
take a historic step and go ahead of Oldham for the first time ever.
TV
Like
everyone else, we are so looking forward to taking our place at Post Office
Road on Monday to watch our beloved team playing in front of us. There maybe a
restricted crowd but we are sure the atmosphere will be electric.
Although
the opening up is very welcome but there is one factor from the last few weeks
that we are going to miss. The ‘Our League’ streaming has not been the greatest
but we have been really grateful for it and we have been watching at least two
Championship matches each week. It’s been really good to be able to watch Fev
but also to watch our future opponents.
Last
week we watched York v Fev (that goes without saying) and what a gripping match
it was. A lot is being made of Craig Hall’s sprint down the pitch to score the
winner but we should also pay homage to Dane Chisholm for creating the
opportunity for the try with his tremendous charge-down. It was interesting
that he had a faultless game at fullback and makes us wonder how the team will
line-up in the next few games.
The
other game we chose to pay for and watch was the one between Toulouse and
Widnes. It was a bit worrying to see how easily Toulouse annihilated their
opposition. We can’t quite work out how much was Toulouse being brilliant and
how much it was Widnes being complete shambles.
With
crowds back in the stadiums there will be no more live streaming of
Championship matches. That is a great shame. It’s going to have to be back to
watching Super League to get any extra rugby but we really prefer to watch the Championship.
What
the streaming service has proved is that the Championship is a wonderful
product and it is a huge hope of ours that sometime soon the RFL manage to
agree a contract with a television company to keep live games on television.
Josh
and James
Congratulations to Josh Hardcastle on
playing his 100th Fev and Career games against York last week. It is
so good to have a real Fev lad in the team. Josh is Fev through and through and
shows it by his total commitment to the team.
We have another major milestone that
might occur on Monday. In his career Captain Lockwood has now played 249 games,
190 for Fev and 59 for Dewsbury. So we could possibly watch him playing his 250th
against Oldham on Monday.
The
Loonies
At first, we weren’t sure how to take
James Webster’s reference to the ‘Fev Lunatics’ when he was interviewed after
the York match. But very soon we decided that we really liked it. ‘Fev’s Loony
Army’!!
Now we need to get people to make up
a new chant to replace the dirge-like ‘Oh Fev are we’. And maybe someone can create
some Loony Tunes as well.
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