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What, or who, first influenced you to become a player, or a fan?


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Continuing on from part of a current thread, made me consider 'what got you involved'?

For me two things. The first was watching a Hull v HKR at the Boulevard on Boxing Day. Must have been around 9 or 10 years old and the ground seemed packed with an atmosphere I'd never experienced.

Secondly, when the players ran out, balancing over the railings, I could virtually touch some of the players. One player stood out in my mind as we walked back, (squashed) through the gate. Not that he was black, legs covered in Vaseline, caused the crowd to scream and the opposition to panic every time the ball went his way, but that he ruffled my hair as he walked off the pitch at full time. Very special player Clive Sullivan.

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Good idea for a thread L.

 

Secondary school and a successful period for the local team, and a feeling of finding what I'd been looking for when I tried other things.

2 warning points:kolobok_dirol:  Non-Political

 

 

 

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On a whim I went to see Ireland get smashed by Australia in torrential rain in Limerick during the 2013 WC. I didn't get properly into RL until around a year later and I'm not sure what happened in between to get me into it. I suppose I gradually took more notice of it and started to realize that it had all the things I liked about RU but none of the things I didn't like.

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Played union in high school and local club after that, beginning around 2009. Our league only plays 10 games and wanted to play more rugby, so when Brantford started a team in the Ontario league I gave it a try. That was 2015. Wasn't especially good, and the travel was a ##### cus even though we were "Brantford" -30 minute drive for me, we trained in Burlington which was an hour, and all the games were in Toronto which is 2 hours. So now I just watch :D

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Born a 4th generation South Sydney supporter from my mothers side of the family where RL & Souths are religion. I've loved the game from my earliest memory with the exception of the 2000/2001 seasons where I walked away from the sport in boycott .

RL is very much in my dna but that happens to be intertwined with my club rather than the sport in general.

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Just from my dad really. He was brought up about 500 yards from the Boulevard so he couldn't not be a Hull fan. He started taking me to games when I was about 5 or 6 and I've been an avid fan of RL and especially Hull FC ever since. First game was against Huddersfield at the Boulevard in (I think) 97. I played from a similar age up until I left school, mostly as a loose forward. Played in a couple of trial games for Hull FC's scholarship program when I was about 13. Didn't make the cut.

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Born on St Georges Rd.One day as a young lad i followed all the supporters going to the Boulevard..that was it!

Rugby Union the only game in the world were the spectators handle the ball more than the players.

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Good thread, Lowdesert.

 

I moved from rural South Gloucestershire to the Lancashire coalfield when I was about 13, when my dad, who was a doctor, got a job with the Wigan & Leigh Hospitals Management Board.  We lived in Astley, just down the road from one of the original 1895 secessionists, Tyldesley.

 

One of my new school friends said he would take me to see either Wigan or Leigh, which he did.  In my first game (Wigan -v- Featherstone), Billy Boston scored the game's first try, and I was hooked!  Sadly, my dad died suddenly and we returned to the Bristol area.  The last game I saw live at Central park was Wigan -v- New Zealand in, I think, September, 1965.

 

Having said that, I rather drifted away from the game a decade or two later.  To be fair, it was getting a Sky TV subscription that got me back into the game, about twenty years ago.  And I did enjoy watching Keighley Cougars when my family was up at my in-laws at Cononley (between Keighley and Skipton) for holidays.  Sadly, my father- and mother-in-law are both long departed, so I don't get the opportunity now, but I still enjoy the game on the sometimes maligned Sky TV.

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Good thread, Lowdesert.

I moved from rural South Gloucestershire to the Lancashire coalfield when I was about 13, when my dad, who was a doctor, got a job with the Wigan & Leigh Hospitals Management Board. We lived in Astley, just down the road from one of the original 1895 secessionists, Tyldesley.

One of my new school friends said he would take me to see either Wigan or Leigh, which he did. In my first game (Wigan -v- Featherstone), Billy Boston scored the game's first try, and I was hooked! Sadly, my dad died suddenly and we returned to the Bristol area. The last game I saw live at Central park was Wigan -v- New Zealand in, I think, September, 1965.

Having said that, I rather drifted away from the game a decade or two later. To be fair, it was getting a Sky TV subscription that got me back into the game, about twenty years ago. And I did enjoy watching Keighley Cougars when my family was up at my in-laws at Cononley (between Keighley and Skipton) for holidays. Sadly, my father- and mother-in-law are both long departed, so I don't get the opportunity now, but I still enjoy the game on the sometimes maligned Sky TV.

Did you come across a physio called Dennis Wright? Was in charge of that dept. in the Wigan area. He could tell some stories!
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My older brother got given a video for his birthday one year, which was Wigan's season highlights 1988.

One Sunday I was bored at home and put the video on. Up until that point 'rugby' had always been boring to me (unbeknown to me all the rugby I'd witnessed till then had been union).

Watching this video completely changed my view and players like Dean Bell, Ellery Hanley,Kevin Iro, Shaun Edwards and Andy Gregory started to become my sporting heroes.

I started playing for my local club here in east London when I was about 18.

Newham Dockers - Champions 2013. Rugby League For East London. 100% Cockney Rugby League!

Twitter: @NewhamDockersRL - Get following!

www.newhamdockers.co.uk

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Grew up on the terraces of Station Road, and Fartown. I lived in Swinton, and every other Sunday my old man would walk past me playing in the street on his way to watch Swinton. One day my friends weren't out and he saw me sat on the kerb, and asked me if I wanted to go to the match. That was my first game v Blackpool Borough (I may be wrong, but I am sure the opposition had an orange kit on). Around this time, I was always flicking through his rugby papers, and Open Rugby, and there was a piece on Huddersfield Barracudas, and Arena 84 (Fartown). There was a great picture of Fartown, which I wish I could see again. Then at some point in the late 89, Neil Stephenson part of the new consortium who took over at Huddersfield invited me up for a game after I contacted him to ask some questions for a GCSE project on the effects of all seater stadium on clubs after the Hillsborough disaster. 

 

Not long after some swine (pardon the pun), moved Swinton out of the town two months after telling us it would never happen... and with it went my support.

 

Then in the 90s, I moved to Devon, stopped following the game until 2006 when we started Devon Sharks RLFC, which re-kindled my love for the game. It was also the year Celtic Crusaders started, and as that was the nearest pro club to Devon, it followed that I would watch them regular. 

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My dad started taking me to sheddings in 1985/86 as a 5-6 year old,don't remember watching any games cos i was too busy running around the back of the stands lol

First game i remember actually watching was the oldham v australia tour game in 86,my family has close ties to australia so we all went to sheddings..

from then i started playing for waterhead,oldham juniors & saddleworth

OLDHAM RLFC

the 8TH most successful team in british RL

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Born on St Georges Rd.One day as a yoing lad i followed all the supporters going to the Boulevard..that was it!

Did Hull win that day jacksy?

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Two Leigh fans at work took me to watch Leeds .v. Salford in 1971. Just because I was from Salford they thought I would be interested but I had no idea what I was watching, or why Leigh fans would want to watch Salford in Leeds? In 1973 a few friends were going to watch Featherstone .v. Salford so I jumped on the bus with them and still didn't know what I was watching but great atmosphere. About 1975 somebody told me that the bars at Rugby grounds were open after the pubs closed at 2pm so I started to go to Salford and Swinton alternatively just to drink longer until the pubs opened again. As I was paying to go in I decided to watch the games. By the end of that season I was hooked. I mostly followed Salford home and away until Super League came along, but I get to games of all levels just about every Saturday and Sunday - midweek too before I started on nights about 8 years ago. I will be 61 in January but still get to games every Saturday and Sunday in the season. I will drive any distance to get my fix of Rugby League but I don't watch Super League. Well, I occasionally watch my home City club but that's only when nothing else appeals to me and I'm not up to travelling. 

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1957, aged 11, playing euphonium with Swinton and Pendlebury Band, we were called on to play at Station Road at a game - cup semi or international-cant remember which. Played at a few games, before the game, National Anthem, and at half time. During the games we were allowed to sit on chairs, pitchside up against the white concrete wall. Being that close to the action was magical and seceral of us started going to league matches - can pm names if required.. Albert Blan, Ken Gowers, John Stopford, Alan Buckley, Bobby Fleet, Peter Norburn, George Parkinson. Great club ruined by a sucession of useless owners. Then started playing more like 7 aside as we could never get a full team. Ended up playing some games for Moorside Juniors, one or two for Manchester YMCA 3rd team till the pain got too much. So next year marks 60 years of some level of involvement.

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Born and brought up just outside of Wigan. I guess I knew of Rugby but my dad (from Swindon) was a fanatical soccer guy and I had seen a lot of lower division football live.

A mate of mine joined a local team and persuaded me to go along. To see what I was getting myself into we went to see Wigan play. It was the 1984 Lancashire Cup final at a packed Central Park.

It was unbelievable. The crowd, the players, the intensity of the game... and most of all the biggest man I had ever seen in my life. Who turned out to be Mal Meninga in his prime!

And that was it. From that day on I was a League player, fan and evangelist for the rest of my life.

"The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless." — Sir Humphrey Appleby.

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" — Sam Harris

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I was 9 years old watching the st.george Illawarra v Melbourne Storm 1999 grand final and was amazed at Storms comeback. My favorite player was Brett Kimorley. I loved the Storms colours.

For the next few years channel 9 showed Storm games i believe from memory every Sunday afternoon i was the only kid who in my primary school who knew all the rules of rugby league which was unusual for a kid in a AfL mad city and school.

I loved the runs of marcus bai the play of brett kimorley the hardness of danny williams.

Even as a kid i would buy the paper and check on crowd figures and hope dearly the storm would succeed in a AFL mad city.

The issue was none of my AFL crazed freinds got into Rugby League so i had no one to go with too a game. As i didnt have any peers who where interested in league like me i kept going to AFL with them but eventually as i got older and could head out myself i meet people who liked league as much as i did and so i started going to Storm game. This goes to show the unique situation in a AFL mad city i faced. I eventually became a melbourne storm member and could not be happier.

The storm scarf hangs from top my bedroom closet now.

Love rugby league best sport on earth. Love that the storm got me into it all.

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Very interesting thread.

Another good idea I'd propose could be something like "how and when have you helped your friend(s) become RL fan?".

On the OP, my dad first started taking me when I was a baby. ST at headingley and went to various CCF and Magic weekends. Then my brother was born and we stopped going really; that juxtaposed with my dad not getting sky sports for another 7 years really put a pause on my relationship with RL (bar BBC CC games).

In an odd way it was playing RU at school that got me back interested. It confirmed that "rugby" of either code was a game I preferred to football and I wanted to go watch the rhinos (who had also just won from 5th the first time). Considering a ST for me at the time (2012 I think) was £60 for home and away my parents got me one and I used to meet some of the older lads from school. Gradually my dad started coming to games as did my brother and then I managed to "convert" one of my best mates (who despite his dad playing for Sheffield among others had only ever played union). He has had a ST for 3 years, been to the CCFs when Leeds won and we both went to all the 4Nations games this year.

My other mates have also all been to Friday night Rhinos matches with us and would class themselves as rhinos fans (apart from one who likes Saints but we deny him).

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To add to that unfortunately i didnt play league as a kid because it was difficult for parents who didnt drive who where non english speakers to take me to play a sport that was foreign to them.

I played a lot of Aussie rules football and quite well with some honours also played soccer was very average and cricket which i was ok at.

All that has changed now in victoria many clubs many chances for kids which makes me happy.

I know i would have loved to play league as a kid but circumstance made it near impossible but am glad i became a fan who fell in love with the sport of Rugby League.

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