Rugby League
League 1
Sunday 23rd March 2025
Kick Off 15.00
Goole Vikings 6 North Wales Crusaders 28, attendance 447
@ Goole R.U.F.C.
Westfield Banks
Westfield Lane
Goole
DN14 5PW
£15 Admission
No Programme.
Goole Vikings are new into the league this season, as part of the R.F.L.’s expansion plan in an effort to spread the game. It’s hardly groundbreaking though, with Goole being situated along the established M62 corridor, right between a handful of well established professional clubs, with Doncaster and Castleford to the south west/west and Hull and Hull Kingston Rovers to the east. They’ve gained entry with the intention of staging their home games at Victoria Pleasure Ground, home of Goole A.F.C., but with that undergoing redevelopment, they will be unable to play at ‘home’ for the next four months, with this game switched here to Goole R.U.F.C. to enable those works to get underway as soon as possible.
The ‘welcome’ at the entrance was far from friendly and not a great first impression of the club. You are met with the compulsory £5 car park charge and threatened with having your car removed if you choose to park in the lane leading to the ground, despite there being no restriction signs or yellow lines. The ground itself is poor for this level. It is fully railed and has floodlights, but no has cover whatsoever. Thankfully, it remained dry, although there was a cool wind for the entirety. Unless you were a ‘hanger on’ there was no access to the clubhouse building, but there were a number of mobile catering vendors doing a range of hot food/drinks and the only toilets available were a few portaloos.
Vikings had lost their opening two league matches, both by narrow margins, whilst North Wales Crusaders had won the only one they’ve played so far. However, the two sides have already met this season, when Goole came out as 26-18 victors in the 1895 Cup in February, which was played at Goole A.F.C. I normally watch matches as a neutral, but having experienced the frosty welcome today, I was very much hoping for a NWC win. It only took the visitors four minutes to get their first try, which was converted and followed it up midway through the half with their second, but they missed the conversion. Just before halftime Vikings got their only try of the match, which they converted, to go in only trailing 6-8 at the break and set things up perfectly for the second half. However, NWC added another two tries in the opening twelve minutes of the second half and Vikings never looked like turning it round. Two late tries saw NWC extend their lead to 6-28 and in doing so maintain their 100% winning start to the season, whilst Vikings are one of the three clubs still looking to get their first points on the board. The official attendance was announced over the tannoy as 447, which was almost 100 more than my headcount. There were obviously a lot more ‘hangers on’ hiding in the clubhouse than I thought!
With the full weekend closure of the M25 between J10 and J11 in place, SatNav took me via the Dartford Crossing, M11, A1 route, with no traffic problems whatsoever in either direction. I hope everything goes as smoothly when I return to see a game at their redeveloped ground later in the season.
