December 1985 was a Classic

"...............Having been knocked out of the Yorkshire Cup in the semi final by Hull KR, our bad luck continued that December without a ball being kicked in anger. Despite some patchy form in the League campaign, having beaten Swinton and Salford at the Boulevard in the first two rounds, we had reached the last eight of the John Player Trophy, and so, we eagerly awaited the draw for the quarter finals.

On Monday 2nd December, the day that local poet Phillip Larkin died, I got up early to watch the draw being made in front of a massive TV audience on the new and ground breaking BBC Breakfast Show. In those days each Club in the competition was, before the first round draw, allocated a number in line with their position in the alphabet. They kept that number throughout and it was included in the bag for each draw, until they were knocked out.

We should all have realised that something was wrong when the first ball out of the bag that morning was number 1, which was Barrow, who had already been knocked out the day before. However despite this, the draw continued and we were allocated a home match against York, whilst Hull KR were drawn away at Warrington. There was however one too many balls in the bag, which was certainly apparent when David Oxley the Chairman of the Rugby League, (a man knick-named by the Threepenny Stand ‘The Cheshire Cat’ because he could smile through anything) got to the end of the proceedings with a ball still remaining.

40 minutes later, amidst much confusion, the draw was retaken ‘off camera’ with, this time, the right eight balls in contention and Hull FC were drawn away at Saints whilst Rovers ended up with another away tie, but this time at lowly York. There were complaints a plenty, but the second draw was endorsed by the Governing Council of the Rugby Football League, and so we made our plans to travel to Knowesley Road, St. Helens the following weekend.

Then the frost descended in Lancashire and the game was postponed 18 hours before it was due to be played. It was rescheduled for the following Wednesday when after I had taken a day off work to travel over to Lancashire and everyone (around 3000 fc fans) including the team had battled over the top, we were ‘demolished’ 57-14. It was then our biggest defeat ever and followed a shambolic performance which epitomised our plight that season".