T'Other Side: Batley Bulldogs

  

Head Coach: Craig Lingard 

Craig Lingard’s took over as head coach of Batley at the start of 2020 following on from Matt Diskin who had moved to take over in charge of Oldham. Craig has previously been head coach at Keighley from 2017 to May 2019 and he started his career at Bramley Buffaloes where he was head coach in 2012.

Before taking over as coach he was the head of Batley’s community team and his entire playing career (1998-2008), mostly as a fullback, was at Batley. In total he played 205 games and scored 142 tries which remains as Batley’s all-time career try scoring record.

He was so highly regarded by the club that the terrace opposite the ground entrance was named ‘The Craig Lingard Terrace’.

 

Craig has recently joined Castleford Tigers as assistant coach and will be leaving Batley at the end of this season.

 

 

Captain: James Brown 

James Brown is the Batley captain, succeeding Shaun Lunt who retired at the end of 2020.

He made his début with Swinton in 2013 and then joined Batley in 2015 where he has remained ever since although he did play one game for Keighley on dual reg in 2017.

He usually plays at prop or loose forward.

Loan players and Dual Registration

Batley currently have Aidan McGowan on loan from Huddersfield Giants. He has previously played on loan at Dewsbury (2022) and York (2021). He has not yet played in the Huddersfield first team.

Luke Hooley, fullback, who left Batley to join Leeds at the end of last season is back at Batley on loan.

Batley do not have a dual registration agreement in 2023.

 

 

The Fev connection

There is a long history of players who have played for both Batley and Fev. In our database of all Fev players since 1921 there are 118 that we know also played for Batley and there will almost certainly be others who we haven’t discovered so far.

Amongst the pre ‘Summer Era’ players are Benny Lingard who made wartime guest appearances for Batley, Carl Dooler who played his last season before retiring at Batley and Jeff Grayshon who also finished his playing career there at the age of 45 and coached them for two seasons. 

One of the most fascinating players to have played for both clubs was Ben Gronow. After a career in which he played for Wales at both league and union and also played for Great Britain and ‘Other Nationalities’ in league. One of the many Welsh rugby union players to ‘come north’ he joined Huddersfield in the 1910/11 season. He played for Grenfell in Australia in 1926/27 and then returned for another season at Huddersfield before joining Batley in 1928. He made his début for Fev in 1929 at the age of 41 years and 3 days, the oldest player ever to make a Fev début!

 

Nyle Flynn, who is in the Batley 2023 squad, is the son of Adrian Flynn who played for Fev in 2003.