Wakefield are finally renovating their home, but other clubs have problems
Crossing the pothole cratered car park, past random toilet walls tilting like abandoned tombstones, and climbing steps where vibrant flowers emerge defiantly from the brickwork, to enter what is left of Wakefield Trinity’s ground, you could be forgiven for assuming that it has been left to rot since This Sporting Life was filmed there 60 years ago. Instead, Belle Vue has staggered on as an increasingly embarrassing Super League venue. But not for much longer. By spring there will be little left of the ground that served as a location for so many epic scenes in the Oscar-nominated masterpiece – and the jokes from visitors will have to stop.
By the time Trinity host Hull in their opening home game of the season on 13 February, a big screen and new floodlights will be in place. Later in spring, the 1924 main stand will be demolished and a new one-tier stand twice the height, with a 300-seat restaurant facility overlooking the pitch and offices in the back, will start to rise. Temporary seating will enable Trinity to continue playing at Belle Vue, the cost of moving out for a season considered too expensive.
“It will be a mess in 2022,” said chairman John Minards. “We’ll be playing in a building site but I don’t think people will mind because they’ll see that we are making progress, that we’re all in this together. We’re taking it piece by piece. Things can still go wrong. It’s not done until it’s done. There have been a lot of false dawns.”
That’s something of an understatement. Not only is the current project 18 months behind due to Covid, but Belle Vue has been due for a massive overhaul – or closure – throughout Trinity’s 22-year stay in Super League. Much of it is over 50 years old, some 70.
The trigger for the bulldozers to finally move in was not only approval from Wakefield council but their decision last month to grant £2m to each of their three professional clubs from a new Rugby League Resilience Fund. The bulk of the funding for Belle Vue’s overhaul however comes from a Section 106 agreement that sees a development company build on the site at Newmarket originally earmarked for a new Trinity stadium.
That dream never materialised, nor did the threat of Trinity moving to Dewsbury, nor a new stadium at Belle Vue paid for by the then landowner, as revealed in September 2017. Instead, in March 2019 the club bought back the freehold on the ground that has been their home since 1879 and are going to revamp it bit by bit.
As Minards admitted, they are merely dragging Belle Vue into the 21st century. “It was fit for purpose in the sixties and started to look tired in the seventies. They put up a temporary structure [the Sandal End corporate boxes 20 years ago] and it’s still there. This is 50 years overdue. It’s not rocket science or anything different than you see elsewhere. We’re just going to give a 21st-century experience, which is what people expect and deserve.”
The north stand terrace, which was packed during the filming of This Sporting Life back in 1963, will be resurfaced next winter and when the new east stand is opened complete with changing rooms and offices, the social club and changing rooms in the corner – a hub of activity on matchdays – will be replaced.
Finally, Belle Vue, famous for its enormous pitch, will get a new artificial playing surface, probably for 2023, possibly 2024. By then, only stadium archaeologists will detect the surviving parts of This Sporting Life’s real world set: such as the tunnel from which the players emerged beneath Arthur Lowe and his fellow directors sitting in the gorgeously ornate Edwardian stand, long since demolished, leaving an ugly hotchpotch of Portakabins and sunken terracing.
With a population of a third of a million, Wakefield district should have a modern stadium. But with three professional rugby league clubs among its five towns, the council have opted for inertia rather than investment. Trinity’s fierce local rivals Castleford have also put their new stadium project at Glasshoughton out of its misery. Instead, the next generation of Tigers fans will make the same stroll down Wheldon Road as their ancestors. Trinity’s redevelopment will surely prompt Cas to get on with using the council’s £2m grant to upgrade the ramshackle fun palace that is The Jungle, for fear of being the only Super League club stuck in a dilapidated home.
While my octogenarian father can still watch Cas from any vantage point and feel totally at home – other than liberal use of amber and black gloss, it hasn’t changed since the 1960s – if he stood on the open end at Featherstone Rovers he would look out on an unrecognisable Post Office Road. Ironically, it is Fev who remain stuck in the Championship.
There are grounds for concern elsewhere, though. Salford appear to be resigned to leaving the AJ Bell if Salford City FC and Sale Sharks buy it from the council, and are preparing to be at City’s Moore Lane ground in Kersal for 2023. Given that Super League minimum standards encouraged them to leave The Willows, they must look back with gritted teeth as a string of clubs get annual exemptions, Wakefield and Castleford included. And now Perpignan council are trying to cajole Catalans Dragons into ground-sharing Stade Aime Giral with USAP union club rather than them paying to modernise two stadiums a few hundred yards apart.
Regardless of the ownership situations, the need for clubs and local authorities to work together is paramount. As Minards admits: “The decline of Belle Vue and the unfulfilled promises of a new stadium have been embarrassing for the club and the city.” They must work together to put an end to such humiliation and to have facilities their clubs and citizens will be proud.
Foreign quota
When the IRL world rankings system was devised, it did not take into account a global pandemic. The latest standings were greeted with scorn in some places. New Zealand remain top, with England second after their win over France. But some other rankings – Australia being in fourth behind Tonga, Samoa down to eighth, and Ireland and Lebanon in 12th and 13th – reflect the teams’ chronic lack of action. Serbia, the sport’s busiest nation in 2021, are up to ninth despite finishing bottom of their World Cup qualifying group. Clubcall: Seaton Rangers
The National Conference League, the top amateur competition in England, has struggled to justify its name since London Skolars and Coventry Bears were elevated to the professional ranks. But NCL – which comprises four divisions: premier, one, two and three – has increased its footprint ever so slightly with the promotion of Doncaster club Bentley and Allerdale’s Seaton Rangers into division three for 2022.
Among the 48 clubs, Bentley are the only representatives from South Yorkshire, and Seaton, while the sixth Cumbrian club, are the furthest north since Gateshead Storm pulled out.
Bentley, who have eight underage teams, are currently building a new facility at their ground so will play their Challenge Cup first round tie with Stanningley elsewhere. A village club between Workington and the Lake District, Seaton have teams from undersixes upwards and have produced a string of future professionals. Their chairman is 32-year-old Miguel Blanco-Charters, who played for Spain, and England rugby union’s new hooker Jamie Blamire is another Seaton product.
Goal-line drop-out
The 2022 season kicks off on Boxing Day under 2021 rules. Leeds and Wakefield headline the West Riding friendlies at Headingley, with Dewsbury heading down one hill and up another to play neighbours Batley, and Bradford hosting Halifax. In theory, scrums and the other pre-Covid playing regulations will return on 7 January when the newly named Midlands Hurricanes – formerly Coventry Bears – go to York in the first fixture of 2022.
While Leeds have four friendlies, and Wakefield and Huddersfield have three, the rest of Super League have only confirmed one or two pre-season games each. Catalans and Toulouse will play each other and can give players competitive run-outs for their reserve teams in Elite 1. But with travel to England off the cards for now, Super League chiefs must be getting twitchy already. Fifth and last
Paper hats off to Whitehaven RLFC who are opening the Recreation Ground on Christmas Day to put on dinner for those who would otherwise go without. “We don’t want anyone to be on their own if they don’t want to be,” said Haven’s Jordan Weir. “We have the facilities and can provide not just a meal but a chance to socialise. There’ll be a full Christmas dinner and we’ll even get the Queen’s Speech on!” It’s open to locals and fans from further afield. Contact the club by Thursday.