fevnut's musings 2025/#32: Widnes, New Structure, Green Shirts and Mark Aston

 

Oh dear! What a painful and frustrating match that was to watch.

We kicked off and our defence looked great when we forced the opposition back after each tackle in their first set but then when we got the ball what did we do? Knocked on in our first set and unfortunately that set a pattern for the rest of the match.

We were desperately missing Ryan Hampshire and let’s be clear we are not criticising Calum Turner who played well and provided a great pass to Gareth Gale for our first try. It seemed to be a psychological problem as much as anything else, as if missing Ryan had a negative effect on the psyche of all of our 17. Repeated carelessness with ball in hand, poor passing and lack of leadership. It even seemed to affect Ben’s goal-kicking.

Several of us in the main stand began to wonder whether the problem with our performance was, in those green shirts, an inability to distinguish between teammates and the grass!!!

We are still in 5th place but, when you look at the remaining fixtures for all the clubs vying for play-off positions, we can say any hopes of making it to 4th with a home fixture in the eliminators are pretty well gone.

We saw a post acknowledging that saying that it was now 5th or 6th. Well, if we play like that again, even 6th place could be beyond our reach. Of the teams currently lying in 5th to 8th places we have the most difficult run-in and Widnes probably have the easiest.

The match against Sheffield is vital. We need a good win before we have to face Oldham and Bradford.

 

Green shirts

Ever since we were a kid, green has been our favourite colour, but we hated those green shirts we were wearing against Widnes.

It just didn’t look like a Fev team. It seemed to us to show complete disrespect for the great Fev heritage. Of course, we need to have an alternative shirt for the times when we play away and out main shirt clashes with the opposition’s colours and we have enjoyed seeing some of our ‘away’ shirts such as the purple and pink ones from the recent past.

When we play at Post Office Road we think we should always be wearing a navy and white strip and our own preference for an alternative would be to have wide chocolate and white hoops which also reflect the Fev heritage.

 

The new structure

So, the RFL have decided to go with a second tier of 21 clubs. Obviously, we can’t have the clubs playing all the others home and away which would mean 40 league matches for everybody. It will be interesting to see what plan they come up with.

Of course, it’s not a new idea to have a great big league, From 1999 to 2002 we had the Northern Ford Premiership with 18 clubs for the first two year and then 19 for the last two.

After the major reduction in central funding to the clubs below Super League it has been difficult but particularly so for the clubs that have been in League One.

Too many blow-out scores will likely reduce their attendances even further and we would not be at all surprised to see some of them collapse.

The Northern Ford Premiership was subject to a large number of very one-sided games. We took a look and found 42 games during that time when the margin of victory was 60 or more points.

After York’s dismal showing in 2001 when they won just 1 and drew 1 of their 28 matches and conceded 1,499 points, they struggled on into 2002 but withdrew from the competition in April.

 

Mark Aston

The first time that Fev ever played against Sheffield Eagles was on November 22nd, 1987. Mark Aston was playing at fullback for the Eagles, not his usual position but it was a rather odd-looking Sheffield line-up with Daryl Powell at loose forward. In Sheffield’s early days they often played together in the halves.

Sunday will be the 65th time that Fev and Sheffield have met and the very first time that Mark Aston has not been involved in any capacity whatsoever.

In the previous 64 games he has been either a member of the Sheffield squad (whether playing or not) or a member of the Fev squad for the time between August 1994 and September 1995 or as Sheffield Eagles head coach or Chief Executive or Commercial Manager.

There is a lot of antipathy from Fev fans towards him and we fully understand why and agree with most of it but putting on a rugby league hat rather than a Fev one you have to recognise the service he gave, particularly when he rescued the Eagles from the ill-conceived ludicrous ‘merger’ with Huddersfield in 2000. Without him there would almost be no professional rugby league in the 2nd largest city in Yorkshire.

We can make no judgment on the offence he has deemed to have committed over playing a member of his squad when he should have been rested because of a failed HIA because, like all RL fans, we do not know the details.

But surely his punishment should have taken into account his service to the game, It is very sad that someone so dedicated to rugby league (and, in particular, Sheffield Eagles) has been driven completely out of our sport.