York v Fev (Championship Round 1): Match Details

York v Fev (Championship Round 1): 21 Man Squads

    

Fev and York have both announced their 21 man squads.

fevnut thinks that the charts that clubs usually use to publish their squads makes it difficult to see the shape of the teams so we have placed the players into positions with guess work! It's extremely difficult at the beginning of the season, with so many new signings in both squads and no previous matches to refer to, to assess who may be starting and who will be on the bench.

fevnut's musings #01: Good to be back, Chizzy and Heritage Numbers

  

So good to be back

Thank goodness for Christmas and New Year. They do make up just a little bit for the misery of going months without a Fev game to go to! This year there is even more of a buzz about the place largely because of the fantastic squad that has been assembled. We have a new coach who brings with him a tremendous winning history and we are all hoping that he can get Fev back to where they truly belong.

Sadly, we have a poor record of losing in the big end of season matches after performing really well during the league season. Many of us remember that last gasp defeat by Wakefield in the 1998 Grand Final. Then there was the amazing success winning the Championship league four times in a row from 2010 to 2014 but only once following up by winning the Grand Final. And, of course, in 2019 and 2021 losing in the Million Pound Game.

It may be rather early for this but fevnut is more excited than usual and believes that winning both the league and the Million Pound Game is a real possibility with this team and coach.

It all starts at York’s new community stadium on Monday and hopefully it will end at Post Office Road on October 2^nd with a huge party following our promotion to Super League. 

 

Chizzy

We were appalled when the news of his 8 match ban was announced. The RL disciplinary system is clearly not fit for purpose. As we understand it the sentence was determined on the basis of one person’s statement with no evidence whatsoever to back it up and against Dane’s denial of the accusation.

This is not JUSTICE. It also sets a potentially very damaging precedent. It means that any team official can accuse opposition players of verbal misconduct and get them banned.

fevnut knows that Dane is not guilty of using the words he was accused of. How do we know? We were very close to the incident and could hear the exchange. We can’t remember what Dane actually said but, after campaigning for more than 50 years against the use of discriminatory language, we would have certainly remembered if the words he used were indeed discriminatory. Not only that, but had the accusation been true but we would have spoken to Dane after the match and told him how unacceptable it was. 

Had the procedures taken place in a court of law the accusation would have been thrown out. Indeed in our view, there are grounds to take the matter to a court for denial of a person’s right to work in a prejudicial manner.

Heritage Numbers

At the recent Fans Forum we were asked about what the Heritage Numbers were for our new players. We had to explain that the Heritage Numbers would depend on the order in which they make their débuts so we cannot tell yet.

What we can say is that the new players this year will get Heritage Numbers from 1,135 but there are a some ‘new’ players who already have their Heritage Numbers from previous appearances with Fev. Luke Briscoe is #1,046. The other signing pleased us very much and not just from a playing point of view. Kyle Trout played some games for Fev on dual registration from Wakefield in 2014 and 2015 and his Heritage Number is 1,000. It used to really irk us that such a significant number had gone to a dual reg player so we are happy that he is now an actual Rovers player.

This week's referee: York v Fev

    

Started refereeing professional matches in 2015 and was highly regarded by the RFL leading to him joining the full-time panel in 2016. He chose to revert to part-time in 2018 to pursue other interests but has re-joined the full-time group in 2022.

T'Other Side: York City Knights

  

FIRST TEAM SQUAD

LAST TIME OUT

Head Coach: James Ford

James Ford is widely regarded as one of the best of the younger coaches. He began his career as a head coach with York in 2015 and has remained with the club ever since. 

In 2017 Toronto Wolfpack won all 15 of their League One Fixtures but Ford’s York team caused a huge upset beating them in the League One Super 8s.

In 2018 he guided them to promotion into the Championship and remarkably, whereas most promoted clubs struggle in their first year, York finished 3^rd in the Championship in 2019.

As a player he was usually in the backs although he did also play at fullback and half-back. His career started with Fev in 2003, making 34 appearances in 3 years. In 2005 he went on loan to Sheffield and then spent the following three years there and established himself as a regular first team member before moving to Super League with Castleford in 2009. In 2010 he joined Widnes, and in April 2011 he transferred to York where he has remained ever since and when he retired from playing at the end of 2014 moved into the head coach position.

 

Captain: Chris Clarkson

 

The son of former Fev player, Micky Clarkson, Chris Clarkson made his professional début with Leeds Rhinos in 2010 and was there for 5 seasons which included a few dual reg appearances for Hunslet. In 2015 he joined Widnes and then, in 2016, moved on to Hull KR. In 2019 he signed for Castleford and joined York at the beginning of 2020.

He usually plays in the second row or at loose forward although he also filled in at halfback last year during York’s injury crisis in the halves.

 

Star Man: Jamie Ellis

 

For 2020 York signed Morgan Smith as their new halfback but a pre-season injury ruled him out for the entire year and now, of course, he has joined Fev. This year they have replaced him with Jamie Ellis, after a brief loan spell with them last season. He brings a vast experience of playing in Super League with 149 games for St. Helens, Castleford, Huddersfield, Hull KR and Leigh. He also kicked 225 goals for those clubs.

 

 

New Signings in 2021

After a relatively poor year in 2021, James Ford has recruited 12 new players for 2022 including powerhouse second rower Pauli Pauli from Salford.

 

 

Loan signings

 

Ronan Michael (prop) is on on loan from Huddersfield Giants.

 

 

The Fev connection

 

There have been some notable moves between York and Fev. Steve Quinn moved from York to Rovers and Fev’s Challenge Cup Captain Mal Dixon had 2 spells at York and was also their Head Coach. Terry Ramshaw played exactly 100 games for Fev between 1961 and 1965. On leaving Fev he played for several other clubs and finished his career in 1977-1978 at York while Mal Dixon was the coach there. 

Past Matches against York

    

LAST TIME (2021)

The reason the league match from 26th August 1939 appears in the 'Other Competitions' section is because the normal League competition was abandoned on the outbreak of the second world war in September to be replaced by the Wartime Emergency League, Yorkshire Section.

Undoubtedly the most astonishing stat for Fev v York matches is to be found above in the 'Scoring Records' chart. Just look at the figures for the number of times Fev have scored 40 or more points against York and then look at the number of times York have scored 40 or more against us!

 

Fev v Wakefield (Pre Season): Match details

  

Fev v Leeds Rhinos (Pre-Season): Match details