My Passion With Beverley Dobson-Cave

MY dad, who inspired my love of rugby league when he started taking me to Headingley in the late 1980s, once told me that you don’t choose which team you support, it chooses you.

Going on form back then, no one would have chosen to support Leeds.

The talented, powerful and focused Leeds Rhinos side, which recently swept aside a strong St Helens team in the all-singing, all-dancing Grand Final at Old Trafford seems like something from another planet compared to that muddy, brawling spectacle I first attended all those years ago.

Cliff Lyons was the one who caught my 14-year-old schoolgirl’s eye, with his flamboyant hairstyle and get-stuck-in attitude, along with the recently-signed Garry Schofield.

Back then, we seemed to lose every week, but watching my dad and grandad get so fired up about it, that didn’t seem to matter. I absorbed their passion and it became my own.

It wasn’t just the rugby, I loved the whole thing. My dad and I would get to the pub early on a Sunday afternoon. The men would have a couple of pints of Tetleys, then we’d try and park as near as we could to the ground.

Once inside The Ponderosa, as Headingley was known, the heady smell of beer, liniment and onions from the burger van would add to the build-up. There were no dancing girls or Rhinos then to watch, we stared at an empty pitch whilst ruminating on the possible team members that day, and the likelihood of a Leeds win.

But the thrill when the team came out – the roars of the crowd and the hope that we’d be victorious – that’s always the same for any supporter. I used to dread being put between my dad and grandad because they would deafen me with their commentary.

In time, Leeds began their ascent, the odd semi-final here and there, then finals, then league championships and grand finals.

Today’s young Leeds fans no doubt expect their team to be always in the running for some trophy, whereas I will never forget the feeling in 1994 when Hanley seemed to crawl over at Central Park for a try against Saints in the cup semi-final – for the first time I could remember, Leeds were going to Wembley.

Nor will I forget Leeds beating London for the last Challenge Cup final at the old Wembley – and my mum’s horror at being kissed by a total stranger next to her. I do know though, that whenever I think of my beloved Leeds, it’s not the big occasions which spring to mind.

Instead, the overriding memory is of walking out of a darkening Headingley, past the cricket pitch with the roped-off square, the nip of winter in the air, my dad striding away next to me – the sense of a passion shared, and the feeling that “there’s always next week”.