Featherstone Rovers fans have celebrated the highs and lows of the Rugby Football League (RFL) for more than a century, but for the first time in its rich history they have been denied a place in the structure. Supporters say the economic impact could be similar to the struggles experienced during the Covid pandemic. <\/p>\n
“Without the club, the community feels a gaping hole,” fan Scott Haslam says.<\/p>\n
The Wakefield councillor, who is also a postal worker, has been a lifelong Featherstone fan and worries about the knock-on effects of no matches in 2026.<\/p>\n
“If they are not playing at home, Featherstone is like a ghost town, when they are they are pumping on all cylinders,” he says.<\/p>\n
The club went into administration in December and one takeover bid submitted did not meet the required criteria set by the RFL.<\/p>\n
Rovers had been set to begin their 2026 campaign with a Championship fixture away at Batley Bulldogs last Sunday as well as kicking off their Challenge Cup campaign this weekend.<\/p>\n
“The RFL will continue to work with the administrator and remains committed to supporting a sustainable return of professional rugby league in the town of Featherstone moving forward,” an RFL statement said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Featherstone Rovers fans have celebrated the highs and lows of the Rugby Football League (RFL) for more than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-385750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}