I guess there was nearer 16000 in that day.
One of the first games I remember that changing ends was forbidden.

Take your pick. There were 4 of them.

iirc, we played Hull KR at home, a few weeks later (severely depleted, with Mick Blacker and Gary Stephens as HBs on loan, as we literally had no players left), and guess who was reffing that night. Yes, the one and only Biased Billy Thompson. Guess what. He "made love to us, energetically" that night, too.

I'm with biscuit on the Wigan thing. They got the big decisions in those days (still do).

David "smug lover" Oxley and his acolytes at the RFL got what they wanted in those days. 2 VERY strong Humberside teams. And "woe be tide" anyone else. Refs (and their preferred/instructed by the RFL, teams) got away with murder, as there was precious little screened coverage of our game, so out and out cheating could be glossed over.

Say what you want about Sky, at least our game gets a lot more coverage now, so blatant bias can't be swept under the carpet.

As I've said many times on these boards re reffing standards today compared to the 80's, when posters say "oh no, it's Child this week".......
......YOU'VE NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD.

I pity to think what our sub 35 year-olds would think of Thompson/Kershaw/Lindop/Smith/Whitfield/Campbell.
There's a few more turd names for you to mull over, biscuit. Try not to throw things. I'm over it now. I hope you are, too

God this thread has wound me right up, will go home and kick the wife now!!!

Thank heavens, there would have be outrage if you had said the dog!

Lefty, you've just mentioned Gerry Kershaw and my blood ran cold, how many times did that man shaft us!

John Holdsworth was my fave ref (if you can have such a thing) of yesteryear. He wasn't biased particularly but blimey could that guy play to the galleries.

His arm signals to wave play on would have brought a tear to the eye of Lawrence Olivier and had the Old Vic audience in raptures. And if the BBC cameras were in town he couldn't have been more theatrical if he'd come out in tights clutching a skull and reciting Hamlet.

Now we get incompetent blandsville residents in terminator headgear.

I was there too. Money must have changed hands that day. Unless he was...erm....I better not say

He leaned towards Leeds I think. He put his residential as Kippax as opposed to Leeds so he could ref them.

Its like saying you live in Lymm Village as opposed to Warrington Borough.

That's how I remember Holdsworth...I thought he was a decent ref, plus he didn't mind getting in the middle of "set too"

got right in the middle of Boyd and Hanley in Millwakee as well

[Then Billy Thompson cheated, quite why or how I have no idea but never ever have I seen something like that on a sporting field since.

The story I heard at the time was that Hull were considering starting another team, called Hull White Star ( I think) and that Thompson was lined up to be a director of the new club (allegedly) .

Thompson became a life member of Hull FC.
I vaguely remember the Hull White Star team too.
About the same time as Kent Invicta started up? ?

Terrible decision by Russell Smith, I'm still not over that 20 years on!

I disbelieve that referees are biased in the modern era, but that day we were straight up robbed.