Welcome to this week’s Diary and thanks again for joining me as another week goes by when again (for most of us at the older end of the community at least) one day looks very much like the last. It’s been a long cold January in more ways than one and I for one am glad to see the back of it!

Normally whatever the crises we have faced in our lives we have always been so lucky to have our beloved rugby team to at least offer a modicum of distraction. I have talked in here in the past about how a visit to the Boulevard or the KC has always for me, even in the darkest of times, offered a sort of oasis and a diversion for a couple of precious hours each week. There was always something happening and always something to distract you a bit. 

And boy, if ever there was a time when we need that sort of thing then surely it is now. Yet here we are with no rugby, no meet ups with our mates in the pub or at the KC, no chance to meet the players or enjoy a fans forum and no opportunities to even visit the club shop and get ‘all excited’ when we see the new seasons strips and range of merchandise. All we have is the media and because of the state of things across the country the level of news about our game and our club is now at an all-time low. Not because its being kept from us, but rather that there isn’t anything to report on. 

Still with vaccines rolling out, there is at last hope on the horizon and with just 8 weeks to go to the new season (whatever that actually means) I can’t wait to get going again, even if it is behind closed doors. But boy could we do with something to get our teeth into! Still as always, I’ve done my best and so once again here is my take on the last 7 days in Rugby League and around Hull FC. 

It’s been quiet again this week hasn’t it? Well, it has with regard to our club and even the Mail (which at times produces articles that at best resemble those of Hans Christian Anderson) have struggled to find anything meaningful or otherwise to discuss. Our noisy neighbours seem to find plenty to talk about, but news on our side of the City certainly seems to be in short supply, but more about that later. However, I hope I have got something included in this week’s edition that will interest you. 

If it’s been quiet in West Hull, it’s certainly been another strange week around the game, with both Leeds and Huddersfield declaring cases in their ranks and having to shut down their operations for 10 days or so. I guess that was to be expected and whilst, with masks to be worn when training inside and sometimes outside and daily testing in place, the game has done its best, it only takes one player to bring the disease into camp and the whole thing collapses under the pall of self-isolation. As it was in the spring, we can’t help but wonder who will be next and whether we will ever get to the start of another season any time soon! 

At Hull FC our Coach at least seemed happy with the delaying of the start of the campaign because, as he prepares for his first season in charge, it gives him another two weeks with the players. Those players must however wonder what is happening in the bigger scheme of things because there is certainly a deal of understandable uncertainty about across the game.

So, although I’m still trying my best to find something to talk about, this week it hasn’t been easy.

Another week, more doom and gloom, more uncertainty and more changes to the season ahead!!!

This last week is traditionally the most depressing’ in the calendar of a normal year, so with all that is happening it was always going to be a dire one for all of us lot craving a bit of rugby to watch, wasn’t it?  However, as another tough week comes to an end, the only certainty in the future is, once again,  that everything is uncertain. The season has now been put back two weeks and although the guys are all in at training, they must wonder exactly when things will get anywhere near normal again and even indeed when they will get playing at all! 

In such a cold and very dark January, things are nothing if not mundane for all of us. Covid continues to ravage the country and it’s certainly ironic that it’s the only thing that I have ever known that was made in China, that’s lasted more than a year!! 

Here at home after another week of asking the three questions I outlined in the last Diary, it’s been a time of not doing anything besides getting up, walking once a day and going to bed. Mind you, I’ve again been guilty of drinking endless amounts of tea and coffee, which usually means that the dishwasher is full by tea time. Then, because there’s no mugs left to drink from, if we’re thirsty, we have to drink wine! And, we always seem to be thirsty these days!!! Every cloud or just a recipe for disaster? Who knows and indeed who at present even cares!!

I hope like our family you managed to have a good, if not restricted, Christmas and welcome to 2021 and the first Diary of the New Year. 

I’ve purposely refrained from using the ‘Happy’ word above because things are, at present, decidedly far from ‘happy’, but at least we now have some future prospects, as the ‘jabs’ role out and although I really can’t see us all back at the KCom for a long time, you have to hope don’t you?

I’m pretty confident that we will have to start the 2021 season behind closed doors again and what’s more, as I have said before in here, it will be a while before folks like me have the confidence to get amongst big crowds again anyway; for the last year has changed a lot of people, perhaps in more ways than we possibly know. 

With no rugby to watch, the weather doing its January best to imitate the inside of our freezer and with this damn virus again terrorising large swathes of the population, these days life in our household circulates around just three daily questions. Where are we going to walk today? What are we having for tea and what the hell are we going to watch on TVtonight? That’s about it at present, as I’m sure it is for a lot of you reading this. 

The fact is, at these times, we don’t only need books, TV and films that speak of life and give us a lift, we all need sport to do that as well. Now more than ever we all need the sort ofbuzz our great game can bring us and hopefully, after a massive effort from everyone inside and outside the club over the winter that, at our beloved Hull FC, is once more in sightfor us all again. For now however, the proliferation of inane articles in the media and the lack of any sort of substance in the editorial across the game indicates that we are in a sort of state of suspended animation, where everything is in place but nothing is happening. As fans we are all desperate for something to get passionate about again, even if we can only watch our heroes on TV. 

Thankfully, at least the lads are back training, our owner has got over his health problems, the new Coach is getting to grips with the issues and our new ‘Marquee’ signing is here and making all the right noises. So, at least we have a real hope that perhaps despite all the doom and gloom around, ‘things can only get better’.