HEMELSTAGS. MAGAZINE February Betfred League 1. Quality without compromise 2.00 HEMEL STAGS. Quality without compromise PROUD SPONSORS OF

Transcription

1 Quality without compromise PROUD SPONSORS OF HEMEL STAGS LOCAL FIRM WORLDWIDE REPUTATION Hemel Hempstead Cape Town 79 Marlowes Hemel Hempstead HP1 1LF solicitors.co.uk HEMELSTAGS Betfred League 1 MAGAZINE February See Kerry s blog at: kerryunderwood.wordpress.com Underwoods Solicitors is a trading name of Law Abroad plc Quality without compromise

2 Proud Sponsors of PASSIONATE ABOUT RUGBY LEAGUE Established 1981 Pennine Way, Hemel Hempstead HP2 5UD Tel: Acknowledgements: Hemel Stags Rugby League Club Ltd express sincere thanks to all sponsors, advertisers, supporters and contributors. check out our Website Pennine Way Ramblings with Chairman: Bob Brown Welcome to Pennine Way to the players, supporters and officials of both clubs for the start of both the Betfred League 1 season and the Challenge Cup campaign. Since the end of last season there has been some significant changes at Pennine Way. Our Head Coach of the past 12 seasons, Troy Perkins, retired from senior coaching while the position of CEO of the League 1 club moved from myself to Dean Thomas who also took on the role of Director of Rugby. Joining a new look coaching team is Jack Howieson who grew up in Hemel and played for the Stags. His story is featured elsewhere in this magazine courtesy of Forty-Twenty magazine. While it s a brand new season the Stags 36th there s nothing new about the usual amount of controversy off the field concerning the structure of the sport. Rumours have been rampant during the offseason. There s been talk of Super League expanding and League 1 contracting with the Championship clubs in the middle not knowing which way they their clubs will go. After the success of Toronto Wolfpack last season there has been no lack of speculative proposed new entries ranging from Perth(Australia) to New York. Definitely the silly season! Finally our cover photo this month features the Rugby League Family pro, semi-pro, community, women, master, wheelchair and disabled participants reflecting the diverse nature of out sport. Enjoy today s game Hemel Stags 3

3 South of Sheffield The Stags controversial move to West Yorkshire in 2017 to train at Dewsbury s Tetley Stadium is generally regarded as having been unsuccessful for a variety of reasons. Top of the list was the failure of Dewsbury and Hemel to make their dual-registration agreement work. At the heart of the move to Dewsbury was the belief that having four or five fringe Dewsbury first team players turning out for us on a regular basis would strengthen our team. In the end we did not have a single Dewsbury DR player appear for us due to Dewsbury s own playing difficulties that had them relegation candidates for most of the season. Nor did a single Hemel player turn out for Dewsbury. Additionally, the change of Head Coach at Dewsbury Rams mid season saw a change in attitude by Dewsbury and our presence at the Tetley Stadium was seen as an unnecessary distraction. On the positive side, the squad we recruited showed immense team spirit and by the end of the season had gained some deserved wins and always wore the Stags shirt with pride. One thing that moving to Dewsbury showed us was just how poor the winter training facilities at Hemel are and this has led us to source 3G pre-season training facilities for our community teams at Hemel this year from juniors through to our open age team that will compete in the London Premier League. For 2018 the club decided to move south to Sheffield given that the bulk of our players tend to come from South Yorkshire. With Troy Perkins stepping down at the end of the season, the club appointed the very experienced Dean Thomas as Director of Rugby and CEO and he was joined by Jack Howieson as League 1 coach. Also stepping up to a playing coach role has been the popuklar Mark Barlow. We have enjoyed the use of superb training facilities at Sheffield Hallam University and other venues and have signed a community dual registration agreement with Sheffield Hillsborough Hawks to keep our fringe players fit. Another significant off-season change saw our long-serving sports rehabilitation team of Andy Bowman & Lynne McClurg move away from Hemel to live in Norfolk. This has led to a restructuring of our medical team although Andy Bowman will still be acting for us on game day in matches in the South. Proud to support Hemel Stags Our heritage, our passion. Your ipa. 4 Play off Rugby League

4 League 1 Round Up All Home Matches Kick off 2.00pm Date Opponent Venue Result Att. Try Scorers Newcastle Thunder(Trial) (A) L HUNSLET (H) NEWCASTLE THUNDER CCRd3 (H) Oldham (A) COVENTRY BEARS (H) Challenge Cup Round Whitehaven (A) LONDON SKOLARS (H) Keighley Cougars (A) Doncaster (A) North Wales Crusaders (A) WORKINGTON TOWN (H) York City Knights (A) BRADFORD BULLS(All ticket) (H) West Wales Warriors (A) NEWCASTLE THUNDER (H) Workington Town (A) DONCASTER (H) KEIGHLEY COUGARS (H) Coventry Bears (A) Newcastle Thunder (A) WEST WALES WARRIORS (H) OLDHAM (H) Hunslet (A) NORTH WALES (H) WHITEHAVEN (H) London Skolars (A) YORK CITY KNIGHTS (H) Bradford Bulls (A) The off-season was dominated by the confirmation that both Oxford and the University of Gloucestershire All Golds would withdraw from League 1. For Oxford the issue was the player supply in the South (where have we heard that before?); an unsatisfactory playing venue and the lack of a decent back up commercial operation. We were good friends with Oxford and they will be missed. The All Golds - with their 500 match payments subsidised by the taxpayer simply were not a viable option and the University decided they would rather put their funding into netball. Talk of Oxford & the All Golds merging and playing in Bristol would appear to be wishful thinking to sugar coat their departure. There s more chance of Coventry and Hemel merging and playing at Northampton!! After experiencing the delights of travelling to Toulouse in 2016 and Toronto last season the League 1 clubs this season have to settle for an unexpected visit to Bradford to play the Bulls whose liquidation last year was death by a thousand cuts. They will be welcome visitors to Pennine Way on the Whit Bank Holiday weekend. There have been reports of a club from New York joining League 1 in 2019 and even Boston and a second Canadian club so League 1 clubs can optimistically still look to playing in exotic locations. For the other clubs in the League the off-season appears to have been a stable time. The former nomadic South Wales Scorpions are now well and truly bedded in at Llanelli as the West Wales Raiders. The League remains a daunting one geographically with clubs ranging from Cumbria to the North East down to West Wales and the South East. On the field the Bull should be favourites to gain promotion with any number of a half a dozen other clubs being in contention for the second promotion place. Finally, check the League 1 season launch photo above. Have two clubs already dropped out? 6 Play off Rugby League Hemel Stags 7

5 League 1 Stags chase Herts and minds Training nights will be closer to home in IAN HENSHAW chats to new Hemel coach Jack Howieson ith the Dewsbury experiment consigned to ignominy, and even Wthough they are undertaking most of their training in Sheffield this season, the priority for Hemel Stags has been to signal a return home. Caught between a rock and a hard place having entered what they were told was a development league when going semi-pro after 30 years in the community ranks, only to find it an ultra-competitive one instead the Stags tried to improve their access to necessary playing resource by, in effect, moving to West Yorkshire and returning to Hertfordshire to play games. Local players were disenfranchised, loyal fans were turned off and the exercise proved to be counterproductive. So when long-serving coach Troy Perkins left at the end of last season it made sense to link with one of their own as his replacement. Step forward Jack Howieson, native of the borough, introduced to league at the Stags during the amateur days before enjoying a long career at Sheffield Eagles, retiring in Now 36, a man who can also boast Scotland international credentials is the archetypal local boy made good. I knew I wanted to do it straight away, but was unsure about how it would work, he says back on his happy hunting ground. But when I knew that it would be based in Sheffield it made the decision a lot easier. I have a business here and three children, so travelling regularly was not an option. I m proud of being from Hemel and I have such good memories from my time at the club. I literally spent every day there between the ages of 15 and 18. Persuader-in-chief of him taking up the cudgels again was Stags chairman Bob Brown, a feisty, intense Aussie who built the club and their Pennine Way ground from virtually nothing, instituted a lottery that many professional outfits would be proud of to fund it, and then took most of the flak for the Rams initiative. Howieson recalls: Bob had a massive influence on my development as a player. It s only as I m older and look back that I realise this. He employed me at the club in various roles; glass collector, bar staff and night watchman so I Forty20 February 2018 Confidence boost: A 16-year-old Jack Howieson, back row, fourth from left, lines up with the Stags Academy team at Pennine Way. Inset: Some two decades on, he is preparing to coach the League 1 side I m proud of being from Hemel I literally spent every day at the club between the ages of 15 and didn t have to get a real job while I was at college. He was also the one who encouraged me to start my coaching career with the junior age groups from the age of 16. I remember my first game for the U16s in the old English Schools competition. We played Oldham, who had a number of future professional players in their ranks. One was Kevin Sinfield. he captained them that day. I was skipper for Hemel, we were a bunch of misfits and ended up losing Such an education was par for the course in his early days and served only to strengthen Howieson s resolve. I ll never forget making my debut for Hemel s first team a few days after my 16th birthday, he says, with a wistful look Skipper: Hemel s Joe Sheriff at the 2018 launch in Huddersfield SWPix.com into the distance. We played in the Alliance League [a bona fide reserves competition, somewhat ironically given the current debate] away at Rochdale. At the time, we had loads of Aussies and Kiwis in the squad and I really looked up to them. I held my own. It was a massive boost for my confidence and it was at that point when I realised that I actually had a chance of playing professionally one day. He did that with distinction, making 275 appearances for Sheffield, including captaining them to a Championship Grand Final win over Featherstone, and donned the Bravehearts jersey 11 times, including during RLWC2008. He was a redoubtable, reliable, hard-working prop, qualities he now wants to instil in his charges. League 1 will be a tough competition. There are obviously some very established sides who, with their current squads, would compete in the Championship, so there are going to be some really tough games. But I m just looking forward to getting going. I like a challenge. I want to create a squad that are close and want to play for each other that s half the battle. Last year, we were on the end of a couple of thrashings from the clubs at the top of the table and we are working hard for that not to be the case this season. We want and need to be competitive if we are to win back our respect. 8 Play off Rugby League Ladbrokes Challenge Cup - Fixtures ROUND 3 FIXTURES Hunslet Club Parkside v Workington Town Bradford Bulls v West Wales Raiders North Wales Crusaders v Keighley Cougars Coventry Bears v Distington Hemel Stags v Newcastle Thunder Doncaster v Myton Warriors Pilkington Recs v Millom Kells v British Army Normanton Knights v Batley Boys Whitehaven v London Skolars Askam v York City Knights Oldham v Featherstone Lions Hunslet v Oulton Raiders Ties played on 24/25 February Hemel Stags 9

6 Our Visitors this Month HIRE OUR FUNCTION ROOM AT PENNINE WAY Hunslet Rugby League Club has a history dating back to the formation of the Northern Union in 1895 and along with most of the great traditional rugby league clubs in this country have had their glory years and times when matters were as not as good as they should have been. In previous years they have won the Challenge Cup, the Rugby League Championship and the Yorkshire Cup to be regarded as the best in the League. More recently they have been winners of Championship 1 (now League 1) in 2010 and 2014 albeit promotion to the higher division was followed by relegation. As befitting a traditional rugby league club they have abandoned the Hawks tag and are now quite proudly just Hunslet. Although living somewhat in the shadows of Leeds Rhinos who operate just across the other side of the city, coach Gary Thornton is sure to make Hunslet a competitive side again this season in the Betfred League 1. Newcastle Thunder trace their origins back to the later 1990 s when the Gateshead Super League folded after controversially merging with Hull. Supporters of the Gateshead club formed a new club Gateshead Thunder who joined National League 2 and played out of the Gateshead International Stadium In the mid 2000 s our own Dean Thomas joined them as Head Coach and took them to the play offs in both seasons he was there. Subsequently, they tended to struggle on the pitch. However, in 2015 they were taken over by rugby union club Newcastle Falcons and rebranded as Newcastle Thunder playing out of the impressive Kingston Park stadium Since then they have regularly made the play offs without being able to gain promotion. This month s Ladbrokes 3rd round Challenge Cup tie is the second time the two clubs have met this month with the Thunder beating Hemel friendly on 3 February. Weddings Anniversaries Presentations Receptions Fun Days Contact Samantha Allum Play off Rugby League

7 Fan Zone Let us know what you want to see: Club Shop Support the club in the following ways... SEASON TICKETS More Games Prices Down! A season ticket is better value than ever with thirteen home games this season an increase of two PRICES ARE: Family 120 Adult 75 Concession 50 GOLD MEMBERSHIP Family season ticket Year s membership of our CASHLINE lottery Personalised reserved car space at Pennine Way on match day Just 180 PLAYER SPONSORSHIP Name in match programme Name on website with player s photo Mention on P.A. system Just vat CASHLINE WEEKLY LOTTERY Just 1 a week More than 600 per week paid out in prizes 29 winners each week Pay to a local collector or by standing order HEMEL STAGS REPLICA KIT & LEISUREWARE AVAILABLE FROM OUR ONLINE CLUBSHOP VISIT OUR WEBSITE FOR FULL DETAILS MATCHDAY HOSPITALITY Enjoy a two-course meal plus free bar pre-match Just 10 plus match entry 12 Play off Rugby League Hemel Stags 13

8 Support our Sponsors 14 Play off Rugby League Hemel Stags 15