Peter Gentle backs Championship club for Hull idea
Hull FC coach Peter Gentle is enjoying life in East Yorkshire after joining the club from NRL outfit Wests Tigers in the close season.
What has particularly impressed the coach about life in the region is the massive role rugby league plays in the life of the city of Hull and the wider region.
Indeed, Gentle believes that there is some mileage in the idea that Hull and its district could sustain a semi-professional club in the future, with five teams from the area set to compete in the amateur National Conference League’s top division.
Many amateur players in Hull remain in the city for work reasons, limiting the opportunities to play at semi-professional level due to the distance between Hull and the rest of the game’s heartlands.
Gentle sees real worth in the area having a club in the Championships, with such a depth of amateur talent available on which to call.
“I think that idea definitely has merit,” the coach told Code13.
“Though whether they would feed to Hull KR or FC would be debatable. Maybe we could both use something like that.
“There’s plenty of people playing the game at that level, and there’s enough talent there to be a competitive team.”
A unique city and a lovely place
Gentle is enjoying life in East Yorkshire, and has visited some of the region’s seaside towns with his family. He is also thrilled to be in a city where the game of rugby league means so much, with a pre-season friendly between Hull FC and Hull Kingston Rovers attracting a big crowd, as well as resulting in a really fierce battle on the pitch.
That resulted in a rash of injuries for both sides, and Gentle believes his team will need a warm-up game before the derby friendly in future.
“I think it’s a very unique city really, having two rugby league teams,” Gentle told Code13.
“The people have made me that welcome there. I honestly feel very comfortable with my family. It’s a lovely place, I’m really enjoying it.
“When you see that 14 or 15,000 turn out for a friendly the other week, then that gives some indication of the passion there.
“And we weren’t playing for points or anything, just bragging rights. So it is a very strong, passionate group of people there.
“I looked at it as a friendly, but unfortunately a lot of other people didn’t!
“Next year, we’ll make sure that we get a game in beforehand. I was unaware of the extent of physicality of a local derby here.
“We have derbies back home, but nothing like this. To not have a run out before and go in cold with 25 players probably wasn’t the ideal thing to do. we got ambushed there a little bit.
“But it’s definitely something we’ll do again next year.”
KC derbies 2012
Both regular season Super League derbies between the Hull clubs will be played at FC’s KC Stadium this year, in order to boost the attendance. Gentle can see no problems with the arrangement.
“It’ll be interesting, obviously that doesn’t hold any fear for them,” he said.
“They’ve already got us there once! But I’m more than happy to play it at our ground.”
