The FC Fans Have Done Good!!!

That has to be the message to the game in general and what’s more, the FC Faithful should be congratulated as after a really disappointing couple of seasons, we approach 9000 season tickets sold, we’re apparently selling merchandise like never before, we’re heading for a massive Derby gate and we’ve sold out the away end at Leeds for the big first game of the season. Meanwhile, as if to consolidate the loyalty and passion of our fan-base, several intrepid FC fans are walking all the way to Headingley before that first game, in an effort to raise money for the Rob Burrow appeal. 

Later in here, in the company of Club statistician Bill Dalton, I’ll take a look at our fortunes at home as a Club over the last few years, which includes stats that make those efforts from some wonderful supporters even more incredible and a real tribute to the resilience of the FC fans who have once again, defied logic, stumped up and come back for more.  

If ever it was timely to say to the players and officials of our great Club, ‘Right Guys we have done our bit, now it’s over to you!” this is the time to do it!! As the excitement grows for the season ahead and optimism abounds in the rank and file of the FC supporters, it’s now or never, for the team have to deliver. 

But, as fans, it’s great to have our appetite back and feel the great expectation that surrounds a time of the year, when we all believe that anything is possible; The players look fit, the squad looks better than last year and as for us fans? Well, let’s face it you can’t be moaning about a loss when you haven’t played a game yet can you!!!

“It’s time to make the KCom a fortress!!”

So, said Adam Pearson in his Christmas Day message to the fans and perhaps after all the claims and promises that have been made throughout a period of rhetoric, meaningless media comment and now pretty tiresome trivia, for me, that statement has come through as perhaps the most pertinent point to date! 

So at last we are up and running and in producing this first Diary of the new decade, I’m conscious that after all the hype, promises, speculation and hope that always surrounds the selling of season tickets, a new campaign at last beckons and brings to us all renewed hope and a deal of expectation for our club’s future and the success of our team. 

So, with that in mind, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and I’ll take this opportunity to wish you all a belated Happy New Year, what’s more, let’s hope that for all us FC fans, it’s a great and memorable one. 

Hello and Welcome to the 15^th Dentists Diary Christmas Edition! 

It’s that time again when there’s chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Halls decked with Holly, children with faces all aglow and turkeys everywhere….(not just at Caravan Park).

It was 23^rd December 2005 when the first regular Diary went out and no doubt some would say that they have been steadily and progressively going downhill ever since. Thanks to the efforts of Joe and his predecessors at blackandwhites.com the journal of a totally biased FC supporter has soldiered on through good times and bad and I must thank everyone who has taken the time to read all those rants, dreams, whiffs and conspiracy theories for their support, patience and understanding over those years!

2019 was by and large an arduous, lengthy and challenging year for the long suffering FC fan, but although we came through a difficult and erratic season a little disheartened and a little disappointed, some great signings have reignited the interest and resulted in excellent season ticket sales. Therefore, I guess that the majority of the Faithful fans have at least emerged with their hopes and dreams intact. Once Christmas is out of the way the pre-season games begin and all the crazy stuff is back again. There’s quite a bit of FC news around at present so here goes with my final offering of 2019!

Rugby League news: Sean O’Loughlin’s replacement, Hull KR’s Toronto trip, Warrington Wolves star has bike stolen!!

Not much happening at present? Well perhaps Warrington Wolves star has bike stolen at the head of a piece including all the happens in one day in Rugby League, says it all really!! That and of course a discussion on the FC player’s shoes sizes is about all we have had to talk about really. Have you seen anyone who wears size 17 rugby boots?

So, once again, it has been a quiet couple of weeks, when it seems to have done nothing but rain incessantly and with little news coming out of the club, even season ticket sales seem to have slowed a bit. Still Mahe’s arrived to great welcoming from everyone and the squad is slowly taking shape again, but I for one can’t wait now to get some action under our belts and to see some games again, because for this fan it seems to have been such a long closed season already!!

Two weeks into pre-season training and it seems it’s all going pretty well so far, whilst off the field both shirts are now out and season tickets are not far off topping a very respectable 8000 sales. 

Scott Taylor was in the gym the other day chomping at the bit to get started today (Monday) and with him being joined by another 3 returnees’ and the fixtures now confirmed, its all moving along and we now know what we are doing in 2020 and when we’re doing it. 

As for those fixtures well it’s certainly a tough, tough start to the Super League campaign with the first 4 rounds against Leeds, Rovers, Wigan and Saints. What’s more time is flying and already today (Monday) it’s trombone time, with just 76 days to that first game at Headingley. That’s under 11 weeks and counting and yet it will probably be another 5 weeks before we have everyone in camp and training for the new campaign and that in turn is likely to be just 3 weeks before our first pre-season game! Although its been very quiet, times flying by isn’t it?  

Welcome to what is another Milestone edition of the Dentists Diary! 

It’s 14 years almost to the day since the first one and since then there’s been 650 editions, over one million hits on the site and over 4 million words written. In fact, there’s been enough words to fill 5 bibles (and the content has been no doubt at times far more difficult to understand than the eminently baffling Book of Ezekiel you’ll find in there!!). And all that just to talk about the Club with whom I’m obsessed and whom I have loved all my life. 

Yep, this week, once again, we’ve all made it to another landmark edition of the weekly Journal of an ordinary fan, with an extra ordinary fixation for his and his families rugby league team. For me it’s certainly been a great ride and a wonderful experience, furthermore I’ve really enjoyed writing it and linking up with all the friends and acquaintances I’ve made along the way. 

But, enough of that (although there’s a bit more later on), because life goes on and probably because Radders and the rest of the coaching staff have been on holiday, the Club has again been quiet in the last 14 days. None the less, the fans have still been busy showing their amazing loyalty and in so do have taken our season ticket sales up to almost 7,200 after just five weeks of them being on offer. Thankfully for the news starved supporters, tomorrow sees the fixtures published and this morning (Monday) 80% of the squad are back for kitting out before they launch into the start of the pre-season grind, as the hard yards and the hills of Brantingham and Beverley Westwood beckon again.

Hello Again and Welcome to the annual, ‘Everyone’s away on Holiday’ edition of the Diary!!!

Two weeks on from the last one, there’s plenty of controversy to talk about across the sport, but news wise at Hull FC it’s been pretty quiet, most of the players are missing as are the Coaching staff, but with season tickets selling well and already only around 3000 behind last year’s total and the new home strip revealed last Friday in Princes Quay, things are bumping along towards the International games and the start of pre-season. 

Somethings however never change and as such, the great and loyal FC Faithful have once again put disappointment behind them and risen to the occasion. As we all prepare to go around again with hearts full of hope and heads full of dreams for 2020, (which will no doubt be a real crunch season for the Club), I believe that it’s been made clear at the club that it’s do or die for some! 

The 2019 campaign ends next week with the Grand Final between Salford and Saints, but after a season that promised so much it all went wrong form us and so it’s already all quiet at Hull FC. But, hasn’t it been great watching Salford!! 

However, as I sit here on Saturday morning, off the field things are changing!!! We as fans are signing up again for next season, whilst the appointment of a current Championship coach of some standing as assistant to Lee Radford was a real sign of our ambition and the owner should be applauded for making such a statement.

But, more of that later, because for me personally a period of reflection has followed the last Diary. In fact, as the local media regurgitate stories and try to keep us amused with pen pictures of our new players and ‘look’s backs’ at seasons past, it has for this fan been a time to take stock. Personally, with no involvement in the play offs, I’ve sat back from it all a bit and wrestled with the parlous state of our game; for if you dissect our sport Club by Club, we really are in a bit of a mess. I’ll be having a look at that this week and what I would do (which won’t please a lot) to drag the game into the modern era of ‘multi-platform sport’ and make it again, what it most needs to be; entertaining. 

Off the field at the club the push is on to sell season tickets! Things certainly started well although I guess the first day sales figure of 3000 included all the direct debit clients who had decided to not drop out of the scheme, or had indeed forgotten to do so. But with almost another 1500 added in just 7 days since, it’s all going pretty well.  And after that disappointing end to the season and all the doom and gloom it engendered, once again the FC Faithful have come up trumps, had faith and instigated what can only be seen as an extremely encouraging start. 

So here we go on the first of our closed season fortnightly editions of the Diary, in which I hope you will at least find something to interest you!

No game this week and I guess we all set out into the closed season still disappointed and with a few unanswered questions, a few opinions and perhaps even a bit of hope for the future.  

I guess after the dust has settled on a pretty disastrous finale to the 2019 campaign and you looked back a few games to what happened in the Huddersfield match, it was always destined to be that way wasn’t it? We have been mentally frail throughout this season when the pressure wasn’t on, so when it was, it was perhaps just the inevitable outcome and we were, at the business end of the campaign, always going to implode somewhat.  

The last week has seen the Club, like the rest of us, licking their wounds, dusting themselves down and starting to try and pick up the pieces as we all set sail toward the 2020 campaign. What’s more, its been a process that has at least given us all a chance to reflect, to consider where we’re at and indeed where we are hoping to go! 

‘I’m Glad it’s all Over’

So sang Captain Sensible, but there has been little that was sensible about our last four performances of 2019 and although Friday was much better for effort, in hindsight you realise that we were never going to win it, because in attack we simply lacked any variation or ideas ….again. 

We were outplayed by a much better team on Friday.  The FC fought hard and never gave up and without the ball we showed some real guts and determination to stem a tide that flowed from a Saints team that were more direct, more lethal and who showed us just how to vary your attack to keep the opposition guessing. 

On the other hand, our offensive play was again predictable and even a bit pedestrian at times. We have to do something about our style of play, for we again lacked any sort of craft with the ball. We all applauded the effort in defence, but we were again lacklustre and uninspiring in possession, as too often we lost our way and looked devoid of ideas at the end of our sets. 

Changes have been promised by Adam and for me they have to come, because we need a completely new outlook as to how we play rugby next season, particularly when you see how far ahead of us Saints are. We need to be enthused as spectators again too, because even with the signings we have made, if a bad attitude creeps in again, we could be in trouble next year if we aren’t careful! Adam this week alluded to a change of playing style, but as the recruitment of big forwards and the ever increasing size across our back line continues into 2020, it’s hard to see a change of game plan coming any time soon but, all we can do is hope!