The Millenium Stadium, Featherstone

Featherstone Rovers 63-14 London Broncos

3rd July 2021

Missing my new-footy-grounds fix these days, rugby league has proved a bit of a godsend; the matches, of course, being played during the summer.  

Although, it has to be said, this tussle was nowhere near as entertaining as the one I had attended at Leigh a few weeks back.  Not that any of the home fans around me would agree - for this was as one-sided a slaughter-fest as I have witnessed for some time in any sport.  A veritable procession of Featherstone tries did we witness - eleven in total; with Executioner-in-Chief the tall, lean Craig Hall, who helped himself to a hat-trick.

This was the third week in succession Rovers had racked up sixty-plus points, and maintained their 100% record eleven rounds into the season.  Although, I noted French based side Toulouse Olympique are also presently still unbeaten.  But travel to France for other sides in the Championship is presently on hold.  So who knows where that one is going.  Thus, a pair of very important fixtures may or may not be in the post for Featherstone and Toulouse.  Who knows in these uncertain times?

What is true is that, should Rovers attain promotion this year, it would lead to the club's first visit to the top table since 1995; when they were demoted as part of the Super League creation Big Bang.  Featherstone had been champion for the (thus far) only time in their history less than twenty years earlier, in season 1976/77.  So an opportunity to joust once more with the big lads, one could suggesy, is well overdue.

Broncos choosing to knee - Rovers not.

I rather liked this mural of golden memories.

Featherstone Rovers v London Broncos - July 2021

Junior Moors

Featherstone Rovers v London Broncos - July 2021

Craig Hall scampers in for another try.

I am moderately sure this is Jarrod Sammut reaching out
to score one of the Bronco's three tries of the afternoon.

The Millenium Stadium is a neat amalgam of the old and the new, housing a selection of stands of varying sizes and vintages.  All of which live alongside a sizeable chink of terracing which begins behind one goal and sneaks up both sides.  Two of the stands were erected, after having been bought, dismantled and transported from The McCain Stadium - the former home of Scarborough FC.

Not all of the Next Match notices were so prominently displayed.

This chap in the orange watched me suspiciously through, clearly thinking
my camera represented some hostile covert surveillance operation.

He turned his back here though!

The Millenium Stadium - Featherstone Rovers.

Having arrived in the town a good few hours before kick-off, I drove along to Pill Pond Meadow where, in 2018, a garden of remembrance had been opened featuring a sculpted metal horse.  

The significance of the horse being chosen escapes me, (I don't think Michael Molpurgo's story was set in Yorkshire), but it was an impressive price of work all the same.  As are the ghostly outlines of Tommies which stand adjacent to it.  

The Mill Pond Meadow War Horse 

The Mill Pond Meadow Memorial Field

Each of the 353 locals who failed to return from WWI were commemorated.

I later went to the war memorial on Station Lane to see if i could find out
any more about Sidney Stead
(whose name I had chosen at random),
but I could not see his name inscribed anywhere.    

These black silhouettes really were very evocative.

The Mill Pond Meadow Memorial Field