fevnut's musings 2025/#01: Pre-Season, Goole, West Cumbria and Sharlston Rovers

 

A new season begins

So, here we go, the beginning of the 30th Summer Era(?!) season!! Well, we hope it will be the beginning, but the chances of it being called off because of a frost bound pitch seems very likely.

Pre-season games are, to us, a bit like taking a foul-tasting medicine. We know it’s good for us, but we really don’t enjoy it. The reason for not enjoying them is simply that the usual thrill from watching a game is just not the same when the result just doesn’t matter. Added to that is the use of vast quantities of substitutes so it’s difficult to get any rhythm of the match.

That is not something to complain about because, quite understandably, as far as coaches are concerned it is a matter of giving as many players as possible game time and trying out different combinations.

There is only one reason we turn up to these games. The experience of watching your team in action is very much enhanced when you recognise the players and, as far as we are concerned the pre-season games are the start of beginning of getting to know the new additions to our squad. It’s hard work! It used to be three or four new players each year but now the world has gone mad and Fev start the season with a squad of 27 players and 13 of those are new signings, albeit that one of them (Calum Turner) has played for Fev previously when he made 8 appearances in 2019, on loan from Cas.

 

Fev v Goole

 

Each week we usually publish a page in the blog about previous matches between Fev and our next opponents. Obviously, in the case of Goole Vikings there is no history. Nevertheless, we did a bit of digging and did come up with some games between Featherstone (not Rovers) and Goole (not Vikings).

One of the many amateur rugby clubs that have been based in Featherstone were Featherstone Trinity. They began in 1889 before the formation of Rugby League. They only played as ‘Trinity’ for a few years before becoming just Featherstone in 1894. In those days there were no league competitions, only some knock-out cup competitions and ‘friendlies’. One of those cup competitions was the Charlesworth Cup. Featherstone Trinity got to the final in the 1891-92 and lost that final to … GOOLE. A result Featherstone made up for by winning it in the 1894-95 season against Kinsley in the final and again in 1904-05.

When the Northern Union began in 1895, there were 22 clubs but the following year the number rose to 30 and the competition was re-structured (nothing unique about that!) for five years there were separate Lancashire and Yorkshire Senior Competitions.

For the 1898-99 both Featherstone and Goole joined the junior sections of the Northern Union playing in the Eastern Division of the Yorkshire Second competition. Hull Kingston Rovers finished the season as league winners but remarkably, in their very first season as a rugby league club, Featherstone finished as runners up. So Featherstone must have played Goole that year and we did manage to find a reference to Featherstone beating Goole 34-0 in a very rough game in which 6 of the Goole team were sent off! We have been unable to find the results between Featherstone and Goole in the next two seasons.

In 1901-02 there was another restructuring of the senior competitions with a top division of 14 clubs and a second tier comprising of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Senior competitions. Goole were successful in gaining a place in the Yorkshire Senior competition.

 

At the end of the 1901-02 season both Featherstone and Goole teams were wound up.

Thanks go to Ian Clayton. Much of the above was gleaned from his book ‘A New History Of Featherstone Rugby’.

 

Whitehaven and Workington

In the first section of this article, we made reference to the large number of new signings Fev have made for the coming season and our need to get to the pre-season games in order to begin to recognise them. But the number of our signings pales into almost insignificance compared to what has been going on in West Cumbria where Whitehaven had Jonty Gorley as coach and Workington had Anthony Murray. In 2025 they have swapped and so have many of the players.

Whitehaven have published a squad of 25. Of those only TWO played for them last year and one of those only played once as a sub in their last game of the season. Amongst their 23 recruits are 9 who were at Workington in 2024 and 12 have joined from Cumbrian community clubs.

7 miles up the road at Workington, they have assembled a squad of 22 of whom 5 were Whitehaven players last year.

We are mighty glad that we are not living and watching our rugby league in that area. It seems to be another consequence of the dereliction of care by the RFL for the professional clubs outside Super League. How sad it is to see this happening in a real stronghold of our sport.

 

BARLA Yorkshire Cup Final

We have a soft spot for Sharlston Rovers. Of course, our first-choice amateur club is Fev Lions, but Sharlston has a very proud record through our history as the home village of many Rovers greats. We loved going to Post Office Road on February 6th, 2004 and watching a thrilling game in which Sharlston knocked out Dewsbury Rams in the 3rd round of the Challenge Cup 30-28.

The flags above represent all the nations that, under current rugby league rules, members of the 2025 Fev squad have played for, or are eligible to play for.