T'Other Side: Batley Bulldogs

     

Head Coach: Mark Moxon

 

Following Craig Lingard’s move to Castleford Tigers for the 2024 season, Mark Moxon has moved up from assistant coach to head coach for the Bulldogs. He had been assistant coach at Batley for the last 12 seasons.

His playing career was as a halfback or hooker and he made his first grade début with Huddersfield Giants in 1998. He signed for Doncaster in 2003 and Halifax in 2004 and finished his playing career at Hunslet from 2005-2009.

 

Captain: James Brown

 

James Brown took over the captaincy from Shaun Lunt at the start of the 2021 season.

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 have a dual registration agreement with Castleford Tigers which is hardly surprising as Craig Lingard is the Castleford coach. The Castleford players who have played for Batley so far in 2024 are George Hill (hooker), Luke Hooley (fullback/scrumhalf), Samy Kibula (prop), Muizz Mustapha (prop/loose forward) and Nixon Putt (loose forward).

Batley haven‘t had any players on loan but Josh Rhodes (prop) has played nine games on loan at Cornwall.

 

The Fev connection

Nyle Flynn, who is in the Batley 2024 squad, is the son of Adrian Flynn who played for Fev in 2003. 

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 123 that we know of who also played for Batley and there will almost certainly be others who we haven’t discovered so far.

In that list there are quite a few notable players. We have singled out three in particular. 

David Barends, winger, was a South African rugby union player. At the age of 20 he played for the South African Coloureds team against the Springboks but could never play for the Springboks because of apartheid. In 1970 he came to England to play rugby league for Wakefield Trinity. He then joined York in 1973 and Bradford in 1977. In 1983 he signed for Fev and made 25 appearances scoring 6 tries. In 1984 he moved to Batley but only played for them twice (scoring one try) before retiring.

While he was at Bradford he became the only South African born player to play for Great Britain and during his time at both Bradford and York he played for the ‘Other Nationalities’ team.

 

Bradford born forward, Albert Fearnley, started out at Rochdale Hornets but we have been unable to find any references to him playing in the first team there. In 1949 he joined Oldham and then he signed for Halifax in 1951 where he was so successful that he became a member of their Hall of Fame. In 1956, at the age of 32, he joined Fev and over two seasons he played 67 games and scored 18 tries, a high try-scoring record for a forward in those days. His last season before retirement was at Batley in the 1958-59 season.

 

Despite being a Fev supporter since childhood, Tim Spears, second row/loose forward began his professional career with 3 substitute appearances for Castleford in 2003. In 2004 Cas loaned him out, first to Dewsbury and then to Batley whereupon he signed for Batley in 2005. Including that 2004 loan spell Tim played 113 games for Batley and scored 11 tries. Before the 2009 he got the chance to sign for Fev and he had no hesitation in accepting the offer.

He became a regular member of the team and gained Championship League Leaders honours in the four seasons from 2010 to 2013 and was in the Championship Grand Final winning team in 2011. Fev played a pre-season game against Wakefield in 2012. Fev kicked off and the Wakefield receiver dropped the ball. Tim, in his usual enthusiastic manner, had sprinted down field and was able to pick the loose ball up and go over for try just seven seconds after kick-off!

Also in 2012 he made amends for having started with Cas by being a crucial member of the team that defeated them 23-16 in the Challenge Cup.

He became the Fev captain in 2014 and continued until he was released at the end of 2016. In total for Fev made 201 appearances and scored 21 tries.

In 2017 he was signed by York and became their captain in 2018. He retired at the end of the 2021 season at the age of 37 (we have no problem in knowing Tim’s age as we share a birthday although Tim was born 38 years after fevnut!) having played 415 games during his career.