Our journey around the villages, towns, cities and regions that have rugby league running through their veins arrives at the home of the newly-crowned Challenge Cup winners.
HULL KR are flying high.
With the Challenge Cup already in the cabinet, ending a 40-year wait for top-level silverware, Willie Peters’ Robins are now seeking a return to the Super League Grand Final – and this time a win.
Making another appearance at Old Trafford after last year’s 9-2 defeat by Wigan, and claiming victory to cement a double of Betfred-backed competitions, would clinch a first league title since Roger Millward’s red-and-white stars had supporters knocking back the celebratory pints by topping the Slalom Lager Championship for the second season running in 1984-85.
It was Rovers’ fifth title triumph, and earlier that campaign, a team boasting talents like fullback George Fairbairn, stand-off (or centre) Mike Smith and hooker and skipper David Watkinson won the John Player Special (later Regal) Trophy.
That counts among what after this year’s dramatic 8-6 Wembley win over Warrington are six successes in major league-wide knockout competitions.
Rovers’ sole previous Challenge Cup glory, at the expense of neighbours Hull FC in 1979-80 and with club legend Millward as player-coach, came after lifting the BBC2 Floodlit Trophy in 1977-78 and before clinching the Premiership crowns of 1980-81 and 1983-84 (the club’s third championship was secured in 1978-79).
The Robins also won the old Yorkshire League twice (1924-25 and again the season after), the Eastern Divisional Championship in 1962-63 and the long-gone Yorkshire Cup seven times between 1920-21 and 1985-86.
It’s a decent haul of honours, but there have also been distinctly dark times on the east side of Kingston-upon-Hull.
With a current population of around 270,000, the mighty maritime city has had two top-line rugby league clubs since 1899, when Rovers, having turned professional two years earlier, moved up from the ‘junior’ ranks into a Yorkshire Senior Competition which already included Hull FC, founder members of the Northern Union in 1895.
However fast forward a century and major financial problems, including administration, meant Rovers’ very existence came under threat.
That was in the early stages of the game’s summer era, which the club began in the third tier in 1996 (there have been promotions and relegations aplenty since the abandonment of one division in 1973).
Although they won their divisional title in that seismic year for the code, and were Wembley winners the year after, albeit in the secondary and short-lived Silk Cut Plate, simply being members of Super League, never mind genuine contenders to win the competition, must have seemed a very long way off.
Rovers’ first season back at the top table since sliding out of the Stones Bitter Championship in 1993-94 wasn’t until 2007.
As recently as 2016, having only once finished above mid-table in their first Super League spell, they were relegated again.
And while Rovers returned at the first attempt, they didn’t then finish above sixth until 2023, when in Australian team chief Peters’ first season at the helm, they made the Challenge Cup final, losing on golden point to Leigh, and the Super League play-off semis, with owner Neil Hudgell and chief executive Paul Lakin also being credited for the upturn in fortunes at Sewell Group Craven Park.
While some clubs are rattling around their grounds, such is the resurgence of interest in The Robins that they have been working to expand their nest, which can currently hold around 11,200.
In addition, planning permission is being sought to redevelop the area around the venue and create a sports village with training pitches and indoor and outdoor facilities for community use.
Part of the site would be turned into a retail park with more than 400 car parking spaces.
The club bought the stadium, which is around four miles from the city centre and has also hosted both greyhound racing and speedway, from the local council in March 2022, having played there since the start of the 1989-90 season. It was sold in the late nineties as funds were sought to help ensure survival.
Financial issues had also been behind the two-mile move from the original Craven Park, now a supermarket. That venue, which included a dog track, had been home since 1922, with the first-season derby turn-out of 22,282 remaining Rovers’ record attendance.
The twenties represented the first golden decade of the club who were formed as a works team by boilermakers in 1883 and had previously played at a string of arenas around the city, including a short stint at The Boulevard before Hull FC took up residence there in that momentous year of 1895.
In between Yorkshire Cup triumphs in 1920-21 and 1929-30 camethe first two league titles (1922-23, the first season at the first Craven Park, and 1924-25) out of three Championship Final appearances, with Huddersfield (at Headingley) and Swinton (at Rochdale’s Athletic Grounds) the two sides beaten by a team including a high proportion of locally-sourced players.
There were also the two Yorkshire League triumphs referenced earlier, and a Challenge Cup final in 1924-25, when Oldham came out on top at Headingley (one of seven times Rovers have been beaten in the knockout showpiece, five of them at Wembley).
Stars of that time included respective Championship Final-winning captains, backrower Arthur Moore and fullback Laurie Osbourne.
Now loose-forward Elliot Minchella is the skipper with the title in his sights.
First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 510 (July 2025)