fevnut's musings 2024/#30: Bradford, The best and worst RL grounds and Toulouse

Bradford and the Peter Fox Memorial Trophy

All the opticians in Bradford must be really over-worked because it’s obvious that there are huge problems with the eyesight of their residents. Maybe there’s some sort of bug in their water supply.

We always used to stand on the terraces opposite the main (and one and only) stand but nowadays we have to sit for matches so have no choice but to go into the stand.

Every time a Fev player passed the ball there were screams of ‘forward’ from all around us, and every time Bradford had a play-the-ball shouts of ‘Offside’. At first, we thought that they were just trying to bully the referee into but looking around the anger on their faces indicated that they really meant it! It’s amazing that so many bother to turn up because they obviously find the experience highly unpleasant.

So, Fev ground out a single point win which was great but you really couldn’t say that about the performance as a whole. Goodness knows how many ‘six-agains’ we gave away. Cameron Worsley is a referee who seems to love getting involved. His penalty counts are well above average as is his use of yellow cards. You could well call him ‘pernickety’ so Fev players should have realised before the game even started that he would wave his hand for six again whenever he possibly could. And if they hadn’t been aware of that from the beginning they should have realised very quickly and stopped giving the ref the chance to jump in.

But a win is a win, as they say, and this was a very welcome one. Three wonderful tries from Reynolds, Hardcastle and Springer and gutsy defence when it was needed. We particularly enjoyed the one from Gadwin.

There’s nothing quite like the feelings of leaving a ground when we have snatched a win in the dying moments of a game.

Also, it was so great that we extended our unbeaten record when playing for the Peter Fox Memorial Trophy, The Bulls must heartily sick of taking part in those matches!

Grounds

We completely understand why many Fev fans don’t turn up to games at Odsal but we did, albeit reluctantly, decide to go. It’s a horrible place, nowadays, and particularly so for supporters with mobility problems.

When we got home we thought about the grounds where we have particularly enjoyed watching rugby league and those which we have found the worst.

The worst ones, as far as we are concerned are the ones where you feel as if you are miles away from the action and lack atmosphere. That is particularly true of any grounds that have either an athletics or speedway track around the pitch. Probably the very worst was Owlerton where the outside track was compounded by a very low viewing position.

Don Valley was better but not by much. The first time we went to Don Valley stadium we very much enjoyed it, but that was for the World Student Athletics Championships in 1991. A purpose which the stadium was designed for unlike rugby league.

Derwent Park, in Workington, was pretty bad, too, both for distance from the pitch and lack of height from which to watch the game. We don’t know what it is like now because it is many years since we have been there.

How sad it is to see a once great stadium become so awful.

Odsal is terrible. You feel a long way from the action and the pitch is far too small for a proper ball-handling game. Furthermore, we have to take a cloth with us to wipe the seat before we sit down because everything seems to get covered in that orangey-pink dust from the speedway track. It also gets on to your clothes.

So which grounds do we really like. Several of them sadly no longer exist. We always enjoyed going to Thrum Hall, with its wicked slope across the pitch, and also we liked Station Road at Swinton. It got to be very shabby but there was always a cracking atmosphere there.

Nowadays, our favourite away trip is to Mount Pleasant, Batley. It feels so welcoming to one and all and the area behind the main stand is a lovely place to sit and chat about all thing’s rugby league before the game. With that famous slope it is so interesting to watch the way teams alter their play according to whether they are climbing the mountain or descending it.

We don’t enjoy visits to many of the recently built new stadiums, but we do like the one at York. It’s modern but it still creates a good atmosphere.

Even better than Batley is a ground where the atmosphere can be electrifying, you are really close to the action and it has been made so much more comfortable for the spectators over recent years. Yes, the best stadium of all is Post Office Road/Millennium Stadium. Are we biased? Of course not!!

Toulouse

Saturday night will be intriguing. Two teams who are capable of playing sparkling rugby but have had really surprising defeats in 2024.

No need to go through all the painful, inexplicable losses for Fev, we all know them well. But what about Toulouse?

Last month they inflicted upon Wakefield their only league defeat of the season so far. If anyone had said that Toulouse would win that game you would have thought that it might just be possible but if it happened it would be by a very small margin. What happened? Toulouse 32 Wakefield 4!!

Fev concocted a lamentable loss at home to Doncaster but Toulouse beat them 52-0. Both of us have lost games against lowly Swinton but shockingly Toulouse lost at home to York last week and the week before they were beaten by Doncaster.

Let’s hope that we see the best of Fev without handing repeated possession to Toulouse. Can we win? Yes, but it’s going to be tough. Our biggest source of optimism is that for the first time in ages it looks as if we will have two proper halfbacks playing but we will have to wait to see how Ben Reynolds and Dec Patton settle into a team together as it will be the first opportunity for them to be alongside each other. Ben Reynolds’ recent form has been very good and we could certainly do with Dec Patton’s skills of kicking the ball out of hand. They can both be quite fiery so let’s hope they maintain their discipline throughout the 80 minutes.

We certainly won’t be setting a new record for Fev scoring against Toulouse. That came at Post Office Road (or whatever it was called then) in July 2011 when we beat them 90-10!