Remember this nearly 2 years ago : Wed Mar 06, 2019 5:29 pm
WAKEFIELD TRINITY were founded in 1873 and their Belle Vue home is the oldest professional ground in the world.By Jeremy Cross, Chief Sports Writer / Published 3rd April 2017
The famous stadium was once used to film scenes for the iconic 1963 movie This Sporting Life starring the late Richard Harris.
Harris plays bitter Yorkshire coal miner Frank Machin, who is recruited by the team’s head coach after he has a fight in a nightclub with the captain and other members of the local rugby league side.
Machin is offered a trial, impresses club bosses and is signed up before going on to become a cult figure both on and off the pitch.
The film was Richard Harris’s first starring role. It won him the Best Actor award at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival and also saw him nominated for an Oscar.
Back in the 60s fact and fiction seemed to merge into one for Trinity, who won every major honour in the game including back-to-back titles in 1967 and 68.
Life was good, but what no one knew or could ever predict was that it would never get any better than those halcyon days for all those connected with the club.
Despite constant financial struggles throughout an evolving sport that switched to summer rugby with the advent of Super League in 1996, Trinity have somehow survived at Belle Vue.
But this survival has taken a gradual and damaging toll and it’s now emerged that Belle Vue is no longer fit for purpose.
The ground is owned by Leeds based property developers M88 group who purchased it and the adjoining site in 2016, immediately demolishing the derelict buildings which previously housed the former Wakefield Theatre Club. Their intentions for the site have not been made clear.
The upshot of it all is this: Instead of plotting how to celebrate their 150th anniversary, Trinity will have to leave the ground at the end of this season and find somewhere else to play, let alone host a party.
Wakefield Metropolitan District Council have watched this terminal decline and done absolutely nothing”
One option is to sell their Super League license and become a Championship club. Another is to ground-share with someone else - a rival even.
Throughout this crippling tale of woe Wakefield Metropolitan District Council have watched this terminal decline and done absolutely nothing.
The sadness is that Wakefield used to be a rugby heartland. It had a rugby union club based at College Grove which provided England internationals like Bryan Barley, Dave Scully and Mike Harrison, who captained his country in the inaugural World Cup in New Zealand in 1987.
Across at Belle Vue, Wally Lewis strutted his stuff for Trinity on a £1,000-a-match deal (plus free digs in a local pub) that reflected his status as the greatest rugby league player on the planet at the time.
Wakefield RFC folded in 2004 and now their league counterparts are heading in the same direction, but the local authority continues to fail in its responsibility to do something to help.
In 2009 a new community stadium was proposed on the outskirts of Wakefield. Planning permission was granted subject to section 106 agreements, which ensure that the developer in question has to build the said stadium.
The Council’s Planning Department are responsible for receiving the Section 106 Agreement, checking its validity and enforcing it, but council leader Peter Box has publicly denied any responsibility for its enforcement.
Box seems to be of the opinion the responsibility lies with the office of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government who, following a three week public enquiry funded by local tax payers, granted planning consent.
More than 200 acres of greenbelt land was reclassified, on the strict understanding that the desperately needed Community Stadium would be delivered.
There is much more to this scandal and the figures central to it need to be exposed, but the top and bottom of it is that the council’s neglect of Wakefield’s one remaining professional sporting team beggars belief. It is nothing short of shambolic.
Last week Leeds City Council announced ambitious plans to redevelop Headingley, despite the sporting bodies that play there having a millionaire backer in the shape of property magnate Paul Caddick.
The council will invest around £4m towards a £39m project that will see a new stand built for the Leeds Rhinos and also secure international cricket at the shared sports complex.
These two cities are less than 15 miles apart but might as well be on different planets.
Wakefield is having it’s sporting identity and tradition stolen from under its nose and what impact will this have on future generations at a time when child obesity is at record levels?
Those who grew up there and went on to represent either code are too numerous to mention, but the production line is grinding to a depressing halt
The catalogue of failure is heading towards the most decisive page, but how different things might have been had the local council shown the same fighting spirit as Machin did more than half a century ago.
