Re: Keith Bridges : Fri Apr 30, 2021 11:40 pm  

We had a huge support at Wembley that day. Not only did we fill the Hull end, we also had a third of the Featherstone end. We’d been crowned Champions the week before and Hull were the hottest favourites ever for the Cup.

Featherstone started brightly and went ahead, then Terry Hudson stuck the boot in on Harkin. Think we were down 5-0 at half time. Paul Rose was the first player to be sin binned in a final. Hudson eventually found his way into the bin. However, we game out flying in the second half with Leulai in under the sticks and (Crooks) penalty try. It looked like we were going to run riot. However, Featherstone dug in and fought back to level it up.

With 3 minutes to go, I think Charlie Stone head butted Peter Smith in the tackle near our sticks and Quinn kicked the goal.

On the day Featherstone deserved to win.

Re: Keith Bridges : Sat May 01, 2021 1:36 pm  

Rugby Raider wrote:

We had a huge support at Wembley that day. Not only did we fill the Hull end, we also had a third of the Featherstone end. We’d been crowned Champions the week before and Hull were the hottest favourites ever for the Cup.

On the day Featherstone deserved to win.

Just one of my memories during the 80's. Came from Aus to see the 4 games( 1 draw and 3 losses) at Wembley. The attendance at the Featherstone match was the only one less than 90,000.

Another memory takes me back to childhood when one of my favourite Hull players in the 40's was fullback Freddie Miller who followed in the footsteps of one of my dad's favourite players, Joe Oliver. Freddie moved on to Featherstone and I went to see him play at Wembley against Workington in 1952. His team were beaten that day.

Freddie was at Hull in 1935 when they finished league leaders and won the Championship. Joe Oliver played at fullback in that final against Widnes and my dad was at the game.

Re: Keith Bridges : Mon May 03, 2021 5:01 pm  

Armavinit wrote:

but and it’s a big BUT, Charlie Stone did not head-but the player in the tackle, blood was already streaming down Steve Quinn’s (believe that was him) face and when Charlie stood up the ref saw the blood and gave the penalty, it happened right in front of me. He got up and kicked the winning penalty. It was just another Wembley freeze in a long line of them. Thank God for Radford.

I'm afraid your memory is badly letting you down there! The player that Charlie Stone head butted was Peter Smith not Steve Quinn, and the penalty was on the touch judge's intervention and he was already on the field before Smith had even stood up again, it was nothing to do with seeing the blood. If you watch the replay of the final (and I have many times 'cos I'm a Fev fan!) Smith's face was unmarked literally 30 seconds before he took that carry and then he was covered in blood immediately afterwards.

That said, the ref had been hoodwinked literally a minute beforehand - David Hobbs had dropped what should have been the match winning drop goal, you can see Whitfield get the handkerchief out to award the goal, and then a Hull player claimed he had touched the ball and the ref swallowed it (replays showed he hadn't touched it) and awarded a drop out.

No consolation to you guys, but one of the greatest days of my life. I'd travelled up to Barrow to watch us try and stave off relegation a couple of weeks before and we'd failed to score a point, we only stae dup because you guys beat Barrow the following week. I could scarcely believe the transformation at Wembley.

Sad how many of the major players from that final are no longer with us. Steve Quinn, Charlie Stone, Dave Topliss, Steve Evans and Ken Kellett, all great players.

Re: Keith Bridges : Tue May 04, 2021 6:06 pm  

Was an interesting article , you certainly paid a decent fee for him. Still , at the time both Rovers and FC were probably paying over the odds for many players.