Featherstone Rovers

Featherstone Rovers Rugby League
50 of the Finest Matches
by Ron Bailey

Featherstone Rovers from Tempus Publishing UK

Featherstone Rovers have carved a distinctive niche in the annals of Rugby League history. With the smallest population of any rugby league town, the Rovers have had to manage on limited resources and have constantly struggled to survive.

However, their remarkable brand of success in the second half of the 20th century has endeared them to rugby league fans far from Featherstone.

The matches begin with the Rovers' first in the senior league in 1921. The game saw Featherstone away to Bradford Northern at Birch Lane. The Rovers won 17-3 against a Bradford side that would eventaully finish the season in last place.

Whilst the Challenge Cup campaigns dominate the following pages, the Rovers have had their fair share of memorable league encounters too, culminating in the First Division Championship of 1976/77. Fifty of these classic matches are relived in this inspiring journey down memory lane.

The author has been a supporter of Rovers since the end of the war years. Bailey though does illustrate a salient lesson for all fans, especially for those whose loyalty is currently being tested by a lowly performing club.

"By Christmas 1946 the Rovers had delivered a disastrous season, winning only one game of the eighteen so far played. One game not included in the book is a game v Widnes in the first week of 1947 of which there is little archival material."

"I have to confess that, as a 15 year old, my allegiance had waned and I was supporting Wakefield Trinity. On that day I journeyed to watch Wakefield play Wigan assuming that the last placed Rovers were no match for league leaders Widnes."

"A lone try by Rovers' Bill Street secured an astonishing 3-2 victory. My feeling of guilt at having deserted my club and missing that historic game was such that I immediately returned to the fold - and never strayed again!"

Let that be a lesson to us all!

'Fifty Of The Finest Matches' chronicles the history of a rugby league club that is rightly proud of its history.