Look North remembering 40 years ago this weekend. Dave Gibbins, Vince Groak..... all the old guard wheeled out tonight to cement the mythological weekend when at least 190,000 people went down from Hull to see the biggest sporting occasion in Wembley's history when the rest of Britain and most of mainland Europe could only look on in wondrous envy. This was the era of Peter Ward on RH, Harry 'West Yorkshire' Gration presenting Look North from Leeds every night and we had to make do with Simon Redfern in the HDM and 30 second score updates every 15 mins from a bored sounding Peter Ward on the wireless. Then Robbo came in.... .
Ahh Vince Groak, the Hull City hating, football hating ( but loves the Premier league from the pub) pro RL spokesman appears again after being in hibernation for an age. The editor of the Fc fanzine which famously campaigned for a 15k capacity KC stadium, and said that the only way Hull City would ever fill a 15k stadium was to invite LUFC to play there. His every word is worth hanging onto. I'm amazed the BBC still had his contact details.
It was great to hear that 'Last one out turn out the lights' story again. As I recall it was an urban legend about an A4 piece of paper stuck on that Darleys footbridge. Now it's been retrofitted as a huge flag draped the length of the Humber Bridge.with a Red Arrows flypast. Great Days indeed. .
Beautiful summation of the man - just typed the word 'parochial' into Google and a picture of Vince Groak came up!
anyone recall a guy called Charles Egberg (or something similar) on RH, the GT correspondence. He was like a cross between Gwilym Lloyd and Quasimodo
Anyone who was around in the 70s/80s will recall Charles Ekberg the GY reporter for Mudbank. Creaking banter with Peter Ward and Dave Gibbins. There was zero positive coverage of our club from these media jobsworths, who preferred to reserve their postivity for RL and Hull's latest triumph against mighty Keighley or at the Watersheddings. As stated earlier, Look Leeds with Gration or ecky thumper Michael Cooke was no better and YTV on a Sunday was Leedscentric. The benefits of having a BBC centre can never be overstated. It's enabled people in HU to get a fairr crack of the whip and have a proper media outlet befitting of a regional centre
Dave Gibbons, the most anti Hull City broadcaster ever to darken the local air waves. Remember him repeating time and time again when discussing City on RH that 'there is no such thing as potential' . He constantly ran the club down at every opportunity.
Not much in the media about the 40th anniversary of peak Rugby League in our city. Small bit on Look North, nowt in the HDM, sporadic posts on social media. Hopefully tomorrow passes like tumbleweed with a few private thoughts of Keith Edwards goal.
I consider Gibbins to be close to the top of Hull City villains of the 1990s. Not quite Lloyd or Hinchliffe levels, but he was a poison on the club. He made no bones about the fact that Arsenal's form was number one in his priorities, he held City in nothing but disdain, only really there to creep to whichever horrendous owners we had, and he did nothing to offer a genuine service to City fans (or those of Grimsby or Scunny). If City weren't playing on a Saturday afternoon or Tuesday evening, there was next to nothing on our games on the station beyond maybe a half-time and full-time report. If anyone tried to criticise the club's owners on RH in that era - as I found to my cost, along with many others I know - you'd a) be lucky to get through, or b) say your piece, be cut off, and then Gibbins would 'correct' what you said without you having the right to reply. I know at least one bloke who had Gibbins read out an apology on air after criticising him a long time after his call had finished, meaning he had no recourse to reply. What a coward. I also knew a couple of lesser RH sports reporters round that time who thought he was a prick. Burnsy may not be everybody's cup of tea, but he forced the station to take City and football more seriously and worked hard to give us a service worth listening to. Gibbins was odious in every possible way.
Blimey, harsh words indeed! I hope my sister doesn't read this board, she was married to him in those days!
There's a great piece of commentary from Gibbins that Burnsey once played. Gibbins in commentary referred to a goalkeeper flying through the air like a , wait for it, radish.
It mysteriously disappeared, ****ing hell it was a tiny bit of cardboard probably just blew away, really didn't know it was so small. Same message was flying from A63 bridges around Brough in 2008 on much larger white sheets. Still it's been low key enough today thank ****, has the tumbleweed blown through now?
Sad thing and never mentioned is that Fred Lewis and his son Dean are Hull City fans. It was the lid off a flower box and written in chalk tied to a lamppost and the HDM are still talking about it.
A bit of cardboard from 40 years ago is revered like it's a major sporting milestone in this city's history. It really is true - Mickey Mouse does wear a HDM wristwatch. Coming soon : Bloody Rubbish Mansfield, the terrace cult shout that has become legendary on the terraces of England and beyond, traces its origins to Hull City's world famous Kempton Street stand in the late 70s..
The lid off the flower box didn't make the back page headlines of the following mornings News of the World like the Action Group's coffin march did. A couple of dozen working class lads showing support for a club bottom of the old 4th division organised something that DID capture the national headlines but received nothing but ridicule locally.
The person who shouted Bloody Rubbish Mansfield was my mates dad, both called Ken Tong, he was an old curmudgeon but sometimes his mutterings were spot on, young Kenny, was a fearsome offender of all away fans who dared step into Kempton.
Latest desperate proposal in rugby league land to save the floundering minority sport is to streamline the super league. Apparently there were conditions attached to the latest Government handout the game received and from that comes a proposal that some of the clubs merge and form a 'streamlined' super league. With the typical disrespect of our club and game the RL 'community' show us, the proposal suggests that the two Hull RL clubs merge and call themselves Hull City. Obviously unaware that a club of that name already exists in the city of Hull. This hairbrained scheme will probably never see the light of day but it is out there. Then again who would have thought a club based in Canada would be cobbled together to play in the 'Rough, tough, its rugby league' ( but only in parts of Northern Britain) ? Or one in France even ? Stranger things have been allowed to happen.
I think there is some merit in this. Perhaps just one enlarged local club might be able to get the better of Cas, Wakey, Widnes and all those other small M62 towns who seem to get the better of our local RL clubs on a regular basis. Not sure about the name though. Maybe an aviary themed one to continue the Robin/Airlie Bird tradition: Hull Kestrels or Hull Falcons? It could be the solution to the violence and disturbances that have plagued this city for decades, and gained us a notorious reputation for being a city split right down the middle and brawling housewives scrapping it out on the pitch.
