RL vs local football clubs

[Gooleboy]

15 hours ago, Ramon Rojo said:

Remember it well at Elland Road, quite a unique experience for Stones Bitter Division 2 sides. They only opened the Main Stand which gave the stadium a completely different feel after seeing all 4 sides full of football supporters.

Hunslet were one of the top Division 2 outfits alongside Barrow at the time, played some entertaining stuff.

Last time I attended a Featherstone game there against Hunslet, probably mid eighties, we stood on the Kop. Under Coach David Ward they had a good side winning the Second Division. Same season they knocked us out of the Challenge Cup at Featherstone quiet easily and we were in Division 1.

[meast]

As a Huddersfield fan, of the RL variety rather than Association football, I never picked up on any animosity, certainly, lots of people followed both "Town" and "Fartown", I used to go to a few HTFC games with my mates, some of who also supported Fartown.

But things changed, if not when Fartown moved into Leeds Road, but certainly with the new stadium and especially Ken Davy's ownership of the football club.

I'm not going to go into all the details. but HTFC attract a lot of support from the WF postcode areas, Mirfield, Heckmondwike, the heavy woollen and spen valley districts as well as Wakefield itself, so there became, and still is even now quite a bit of animosity between the 2 codes' fans, as a lot of those town fans follow Bradford, Wakefield, Batley, Dewsbury etc, and took great pleasure in ridiculing the Giants, no different to most RL fans then?

Both Giants and Town used to do reciprocal season ticket vouchers allowing the other's fans to watch the other for £5, more often than not the HTFC fans would be sat with the away supporters rather than the home fans.

As far as I am aware there is a good working relationship between the 2 clubs, but for some, the mere presence of the other is enough to make their blood boil.

Quite sad really.

 

[fieldofclothofgold]

Leeds United even in the 50s averaged more than Leeds RL , but the football area seemed to seemed to stop at Armley. From Bramley down to Kirkstall, Burley  Woodhouse etc was the Rugby heartland . Even lads who went to football schools played Rugby at home and went either Barley Mow or Headingley. There was the odd trip to ER but that was like a big trip an occasion.  I think lads who came of age around 1964 65 in the Revie era became solely football fans and Leeds became a football city . I dont know if Hunslet fans ever held any animosity towards near Neighbor's Leeds United, but I never noticed much in west and north Leeds