BY ZACK WILSON
Hull Kingston Rovers are in the Super League Grand Final.
In two decades, off and on, of writing about sport, that is a sentence I never believed I’d write.
When I was exiled from Hornsea, East Yorkshire in 1982, I was a Hull KR fan. My interest in the club maintained a connection to the North for me in far away Warwickshire, before my return a decade later.
At the time, Rovers had a real claim to being the top side in British rugby league.
Regular contestants in finals, the Robins were kings on the pitch, with names like Broadhurst, Smith, Prohm, Fairbairn and Harkin gracing the side in the early 1980s.
The great Roger Millward was the coach, of course, and the club was a proper force.
Rugby league was not well known in Warwickshire, but the name Hull Kingston Rovers was.
The Robins were the one team that those Midlanders, sadly deprived of the nurturing qualities of the Greatest Game, had actually heard of. Rovers had crackled into their minds via half-remembered Saturday BBC commentaries from the likes of Eddie Waring and Ray French.
One kind of felt it would all last forever. Then the Wigan juggernaut came rolling in, and history’s course was irrevocably altered for a couple of decades or so.
Since, then the Robins have stumbled and then soared, sunk and then risen, fallen and clambered back up, without ever reclaiming the position they enjoyed forty-odd years ago.
Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire can seem a strange place to outsiders. Our accent, our quirky local fast foods and our white phone boxes all help to create a distinct sense of place.
There’s a strong current of local pride too, a pride that is only sharpened and strengthened by the snobbery the city continues to face from the country at large, mainly from people who have never been there.
One of those local Hull quirks is, of course, rugby league. The city’s two professional sides kept their traditional names after the often troubled and fraught transition to the Super League era.
They are still Hull Kingston Rovers and Hull FC. In an era of Tigers, Rhinos and Warriors, there is something defiantly traditional about these names, something that says, “We are different, and we like it that way.”
Sadly, part of that difference has been a marked inconsistency in what Rovers have delivered on the pitch for the last 20 years.
Brief flickers of success have been quickly extinguished.
Willie Peters was the missing piece for the Robins. He is the man with the ambition, drive and, crucially, coaching talent who has taken the club to the next level.
One senses that his presence is crucial to the club’s further development and retaining him for at least two more seasons will be important.
Peters has shown a ruthlessness, especially when it comes to recruiting the right players and staff.
Yet he has never lost his integrity and basic decency, rarely, if ever, uttering negative comments about those who have left.
He gives an impression of a man who doesn’t just want to do things well, but also do them in the right way.
The club hierarchy clearly do a very good job in providing the team with the commercial and administrative support they require.
In the past, it often felt like Rovers were successful by chance, it always seemed fleeting, something that burned bright then faded quickly.
A play-off excursion here, a naively disastrous Challenge Cup final there. Scraps to briefly savour then bitterly remember.
Peters has brought something different to the club, a sense of permanence as he looks to build a sustainable legacy in imitation of Saturday’s opponents, Wigan Warriors.
It will also be important that Peters works to groom a successor who can carry on the dynasty when he inevitably leaves.
He is already appearing on the radar of NRL clubs, and their interest will surely continue to grow after this season, whatever Saturday’s result.
To have a coach who is in demand seems slightly strange too – another sign that things are changing for the better. Paying such a price of success feels different, and far better, than continually counting the costs of failure.
Whatever the final score in Manchester on Saturday, this cannot be the end for Rovers.
This cannot be another of those brief moments in the spotlight that lead to nothing sustainable.
It can be the end of the beginning of the new era, but it must be a stage on a bigger journey.
Fans of the Robins have endured an interesting few decades. It has often been torrid and stormy, as well as discouraging and depressing.
It feels like something glorious is just within reach, something that can illuminate memories for years to come.
Is that hope I feel? I can feel my cares being packed in a whistle, ready to be blown away by these red, red robins.
This time it feels different, not a brief blip on the sport’s narrative.
Over to you, Willie and the boys. Let history’s hand on your shoulder lift you to new heights.
Zack Wilson is a writer and journalist who has been following Hull KR since 1977.
