Stephen Parker

On 5^th September 1970, aged nine, my grandad took me down to Post Office Road.  I can’t remember asking to go, we were living in Pontefract at the time, my dad also came which was about one of only two games I can ever remember him going to, so not really sure what triggered this visit.  But for whatever reason I was hooked immediately, after that he would sporadically pick me up on his way to the match.  This became a more regular routine when the move to Sunday rugby occurred, usually after his lunchtime session in the Willow Park club (different times!).  It was a great time to start watching just as Rovers began the most successful decade of their history.  Home defeats were a rarity and there were challenge cup and championship victories to see.  So a lifetime’s obsession was well and truly sealed. 

Now I was, in what modern parlance would describe as, a “bit of nerd”, so my other obsession of collecting programmes, and anything else to do with the Rovers, was also well embedded at an early age.  Jump ahead 50 years and retirement is looming, I know what I could do with the extra time, share my collection on-line.  Then I got talking to Mark (Las Palmas) Kirby and with the club’s centenary coming, this morphs into a full on archive website.  A key driver of using a website, rather than a book, was the desire to showcase as much as possible (no page limits) and to provide a means of updating and filling in any gaps.  In 1999, former club secretary Terry Jones put together an archive of material for the club consisting of photographs, press cuttings, programmes and records.  One of his wishes in doing so was to make the material available to all, and with the permission of the club, we have included much of this material on the site, alongside my own collection and that of others.

There is an enormous amount of material on the site already but over the coming months and years, we have much to add.  In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the site, and please get in touch via the Facebook group or contact page if you have anything to add to the site, have any comments or corrections, or ideas of how we can improve things.

 

Mark Kirby

You can take the boy out of Featherstone, but you can’t take Featherstone out of the boy. Although I live in Spain, I’m originally from Purston and we lived in front of Purston Park. Like so many other fans, my dad took me to my first game, which was against Wakefield. I kept the programme, the start of a lifelong habit. I can’t remember much about it, but I do remember getting herded down to the front railings with the rest of the nippers so we could see. The players looked huge, giants of men charging towards us. We left five minutes early to miss the rush, and Steve Evans scored the winning try after we left. We didn’t know this until we’d legged it to my friend’s house and his mam told us after hearing it on the radio. I don’t think I've ever left a game early since. Although I didn’t realise it at the time, I was watching the reigning League Champions in action. What an achievement that was.

I went on and off for the next few years, then came Wembley 83. I got my first member's card after that, and hardly missed a game home or away for the next ten years. Favourite players? Deryck Fox, Peter Smith, Chris Bibb, David Hobbs, Paul Lyman, Paul Newlove, every single one, at a certain point in his career, the best player in the whole league in his position. Some of the best times were the old A team games on a Thursday night under the floodlights. Great rugby, fantastic humour, a real camaraderie between the fans, the players and the hapless refs.

Since then, I’ve been living away. It’s easier than ever to stay in touch with Rovers, through social media, Rovers TV, etc. However I really miss not being there at 3pm on Sunday because there is just no substitute for being at the game itself, be it first team, reserves or juniors.

I’ve always been interested in Rovers statistics and heritage. Everyone I talk to about the Rovers’ history, be it players, historians or fans, is always kind and generous with their time and knowledge, always willing to share memories. It makes it all worthwhile, and I hope this website adds to that knowledge, and those memories.

 

Credits

Undertaking this sort of exercise always involves standing on the shoulders of giants. The Featherstone Rovers club has been blessed with a number of giants, the people who have helped to make this site possible, by giving permission to use their wealth of material built up over decades.

First and foremost, Ron Bailey, Irvin Saxton and Ian Clayton. Ron was club secretary from 1955 to 1967, and is a mine of information. He has published four books and countless articles on the club’s history.  Irvin was the founder of the Record Keepers Club, an expert on the history of the town (The Featherstone Chronicles), the club and the sport of rugby league. Ian wrote two books on the club’s history, many match programme articles, as well as being the published author of books on many other subjects.

Specifically with regards to statistics, Chris Heinitz did a tremendous work in digitising the original RKC documents, as well as creating Featherstone Rovers’ Heritage Numbers. A lot of his statistical work on the summer era was incorporated into the website of the reformed Record Keepers Club, now headed by Neil Ormston.

Other club officials from previous eras have also contributed greatly to the club’s heritage, most notably Terry Jones, Terry Mullaney and Donald Hunt. Terry J set up the club’s Records Archives, Terry M began the club’s first video and DVD library among many other things, and Donald wrote authoritative publications on the 1980s and 1990s.

The journalists of the Pontefract and Castleford Express deserve praise for their decades of dedication to covering Featherstone matches. Likewise their photographers. In the last 30 years dedicated publications such as League Express and League Weekly have also covered matches in detail, and their journalists have made an important contribution. Fan sites online and the club’s own website are also a valuable source of material. We have also extensively used the British Newspaper Archive.

We would also like to acknowledge the support and permission given by the club.

Whilst it is true to say there is a dearth of quality photographic images of the club’s history up to the 1970s, since then we have been well served by photographers including Eric Lorriman, Bob Nunn, Chris Taylor and others.

Copyright

We believe we have a right to use everything presented on this site, and have used all information and images in good faith and not for commercial purposes. If you have any concerns about the use of any content, please get in touch.  

If you wish to use any content or images you see, please also get in touch. All rights are reserved over everything displayed, and given we do not have proprietary rights over everything contained here, we ask that nothing is used without prior permission.  It is our intention to share as much as possible however, with an expectation of fair usage, and would be delighted if people want to use any content, to help spread the word about Featherstone Rovers.