The long and rich history of Featherstone Rovers Rugby League Football Club

Tuesday 18 June 2013

Testimonials and Benefit Seasons.

Club Captain Liam Finn was recently granted a rugby league testimonial for ten years’ service to the sport. The tradition of the benefit year for players who have given ten years service to a single club really came into force after the war, and as such many loyal servants from the pre-war period missed out on that end-of-career pay day. Before 1945 testimonials seem to have been granted on a very ad hoc basis consisting of just one designated league fixture with a portion of the receipts going to the player concerned. Names such as Jim Denton, Ernie Barraclough, Jack Hirst all put in at least a decade of service each, but there is no documentation of them having received a benefit or testimonial. Some players were luckier.  In 1929 a joint testimonial match was declared for Arthur Haigh and Jimmy Williams. Previously John Willie Higson had a benefit in 1921 and three years later Billy Seymour.

It was quite common in those days for players whose careers had been cut short by injury to receive a testimonial fixture as recompense. Thus Jack Higgins had a benefit played for him in 1946 after a serious injury forced his retirement. The following year a game was arranged for the widow of Wakefield player Frank Townsend who tragically died in a match against Rovers at Post Office Road in 1947.

After the war that fine servant Frank Hemmingway was the first player to qualify for what we would recognise now as a benefit season in 1949/50. A feature of the club in the 1950s was unsurprisingly local lads signing for their hometown team and playing the majority of their career there. Thus, eight different players enjoyed a benefit season during the fifties.

50-1    Walt Tennant
51-2    Jimmy Russell & Jack Blackburn
54-5    Jack Ogden
55-6    Fred Hulme
57-8    Ken Welburn
58-9    Alan Tennant
59-60     Cliff Lambert

The pattern was similar in the 1960s. Again, seven benefits in that decade, including two of Featherstone’s most loyal servants sharing a testimonial year. Surely two such great players deserved separate seasons.

60-1    Willis Fawley
62-3    Jack Fennell
63-4    Don Fox & Joe Mullaney
67-8    Malcolm Dixon
68-9    Ken Greatorex
69-70    Stan Nicholsen

The seventies were a fine decade too. There were just two seasons when no benefit was held.

71-2    Arnie Morgan
72-3    Les Tonks
73-4    Keith Cotton
74-5    Mick Smith
75-6    Vince Farrar
76-7    Jimmy Thompson
77-8    John Newlove
79-80  Harold Box

In the eighties, such was the backlog of players who had played ten seasons, Keith Bell had to wait thirteen years for his benefit.

80-1    Ken Kellett
81-2    Paul Coventry
82-3    Mick Gibbins
83-4    John Marsden
84-5    Keith Bell
85-6    Peter Smith
86-7    Steve Quinn
89-90  Gary Siddall

In the nineties we had just two beneficiaries reflecting the changing times. Freedom of contract and the abolition of the old retain-and-transfer system meant that players started to move around a lot more between clubs.

91-2    Nigel Barker
95-6   Chris Bibb

Since then, that trend has continued although three players have proved themselves loyal clubmen by sticking out ten years.

2002    Danny Evans
2006    Steve Dooler
2007    Stuart Dickens

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