“Since 1985, since 1985, you haven’t won a trophy, you haven’t won a trophy, you haven’t won a trophy, since 1985.”
Those are the words sung at Rovers fans by our cross-city rivals on every derby day. They’re technically incorrect, as we have won “trophies” since then (Challenge Cup Plate in 1997, Northern Rail Cup in 2005), but we can’t begrudge them that, have you seen how their team is playing? They still need some hope to hang on to.
Joking aside, it’s a jibe that rankles the Robin’s faithful because it reinforces our status as ‘the noisy neighbour’, or their lesser little brothers, and no doubt after we do win something (soon, I hope), I’m sure another equally hilarious chant will come along to reinforce the FC’s fans sense of being a bigger club than us and distract them from the seemingly endless calamities that engulf their club.
It is true historically that FC has been the bigger club. It could be argued that during the 70s and 80s, they were fairly neck-and-neck, but once the 90s rolled around, it wasn’t in question. Hull FC were the dominant side in East Yorkshire, even more so once the new millennium dawned and FC established themselves in the Super League while we Robins toiled away in the lower leagues.
It was in that era when I started watching Rovers. Hearing a packed Craven Park nowadays will never cease to amaze me, considering the ghost town it was when I first started going when you needed a loud hailer to talk to the person next to you and the toilets were only slightly above a trench in the ground. We even still have the greyhound and speedway track when I started going, and the tracks frequently looked like better surfaces to play rugby on.
Back in those days, surpassing Hull FC seemed like a pipe dream. They had just moved into their swanky new KC (later KCOM, and now MKM) stadium, whilst we were struggling in a run-down stadium with big ambitions, but low resources.
In 2005, the same year Hull FC won the Challenge Cup in Cardiff, Rovers lifted the Northern Rail Cup in Blackpool. This was the precursor to today’s 1895 Cup, for those who don’t know and is roundly dismissed as a ‘Mickey Mouse Cup’ by many. I, on the other hand, see it as a bit of a watershed moment.
I was there that day. It was the second such final I’d gone to following an unsuccessful trip to Rochdale’s Spotland the year before (Wikipedia tells me that we lost to Salford) where we were underdogs even in that environment. In 2005, we were challengers after steadily improving over the preceding year, despite the fact we were without a coach at the time (fan-favourite half-back James Webster stepped in as player-coach) we won the trophy. I managed to miss the match-winning try, scored by Byron Ford, but the feeling of elation when we lifted the trophy has stuck with me.
The upward trend continued the following season. Improvements were made to Craven Park, the pitch was re-laid, the dog and speedway tracks were gone, and impressive young coach Justin Morgan took the reins after taking French side Toulouse to the Challenge Cup semi-finals the previous season.
He would repeat this underdog feat that season at Rovers, managing to beat Super League side Warrington in a thrilling quarter-final at home, another game I was there for, and another key moment in the turning-around of the club’s fortunes. I had never seen the place as full at that time. We would go on to be soundly beaten in the semis, but the feeling of change in the air was palpable.
We went on to top the league at a canter in 2006, topping off the season by sealing a return to the top flight of rugby league, and a first Super League season, by beating Widnes at the Halliwell Jones Stadium. Once again, the feeling of euphoria is ingrained in my memory, as we danced with complete strangers, and celebrated our long-awaited return to the big time.
Things since then have been, to put it mildly, a rollercoaster ride. We survived our first season, bounced around the Super League for a few more, toyed with the playoffs for a bit, and then in 2015, we finally made it back to Wembley for a Challenge Cup final. We genuinely thought we were in with a shot before the game too, against the all-conquering Leeds Rhinos. We were either foolish or naïve. Leeds went on to win 50-0, and we had the quietest coach journey home to look forward to.
The following year, we were relegated courtesy of a Salford drop goal. This, in hindsight, turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to us. It allowed the club to re-group, retaining the players who genuinely wanted to be there and cutting away the driftwood. It helped build a positive culture around the club. Season pass numbers remained the same for our solitary season back in the Championship.
It didn’t help our club’s self-image or confidence when those pesky Arlie Birds went and won back-to-back Challenge Cups in 2016 & 2017, breaking their Wembley hoodoo whilst we were getting relegated and rebuilding once again.
A few years of mediocrity followed as we finished no higher than 10th for three seasons running. World Cup-winning coach Tim Sheens came and went, and Tony Smith was drafted in. We narrowly avoided another relegation by the virtue of the pandemic, and Toronto Wolfpack’s capitulation, but against the odds, a corner was turned.
In 2021, we finished sixth. FC finished eighth, and haven’t finished above us since then. Even after a disappointing 2022 season saw Rovers tail off and finish eighth, Hull were one placed lower in ninth. The tide was seemingly turning.
It was the appointment of Willie Peters in 2023, which seemed to herald the coming together of something truly special for us. We were heading in the right direction in the past few seasons, but Peter’s arrival turned us into contenders for the first time in a very, very, long time. We finished fourth in his first season in charge, and we reached Wembley once again, edged out by a devastating Leigh drop-goal (made even more devastating by the fact that it was my wedding day). The club started to feel like it was going places.
But this feeling alone isn’t what is going to cement a legacy. We cannot simply be happy with punching above our weight. Simply making a final is not an achievement, and to think it is re-enforces our inferiority complex established through seeing our neighbours do so well while we struggled. Willie Peters has said as much himself, as have some players. Progress has been made, but we can’t pat ourselves on the back until we have a trophy in our hands. We can’t be happy to just be there, that is not a winning mentality.
I may be tempting fate, writing this as I am in the days before a semi-final against the champions of not only the Super League but the world, but we have proved this season that we have no one to fear. We have beaten Wigan already this season, comprehensively so. Granted it was at home, but the semi is being held on our turf, in Yorkshire, and we have sold significantly more tickets than Wigan have. Our fans are our secret weapon in many ways, and they are sure to add to the task Wigan have to break us down.
I believe and have since the season started, that we have a trophy coming our way. I have had tickets for Wembley reserved since before we entered the competition, and this weekend might show that I’m foolish and over-confident to do so, but I know that we can do it. We have it coming, and to prove that we’re not just the ‘noisy neighbours’ we have to lift that trophy, not only to prove to Hull FC that they’re not the only big dogs in town, but to prove it to ourselves.
Maybe then we can serenade the FC fans with: “since 2017, since 2017, you haven’t won a trophy, you haven’t won a trophy, you haven’t won a trophy, since 2017.” After all, what is sweeter than sticking the boot into a rival?
Written by Nathan Major-Kershaw (Site editor & Hull KR fan)
Gerrim Onside! 
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