BIG MATCH
It is 94 years since Fylde and Otley first played each other, meeting twice in the 1928-29 season. On 27th October 1928 Otley won 18-9 at Cross Green but Fylde gained revenge, 8-6, at the Woodlands on 1st April 1929. This became a regular fixture thereafter, twice a season until 1968-69 with the fixture at the Woodlands scheduled to coincide with Blackpool’s Illuminations. From 1969-70 the two clubs played each other once a season, alternating home and away. The onset of league rugby broke this pattern in 1990. By this time, they had played each other 87 times in club matches, with Fylde winning 56, drawing 6 and Otley winning 25. The clubs met in league competition for the first time on 25th April 1992 at the Woodlands, the final day of the 1991- 2 season. This was particularly important for Fylde who needed to win to secure promotion, along with Richmond, to National Division Two. It was a very tense occasion and Fylde just came out on top. It was in the 1999-2000 season when Otley were on their way upwards through the leagues, whilst Fylde
season, winning 15 and losing 7 games. One of their victories was a 28-27 triumph against Fylde at their famous old Cross Green ground.
Otley’s Head Coach is PE teacher Kyle Dench, a well known former centre at Otley, Harrogate and a regular Yorkshire County cap. They have a strong squad, with a mix of experienced campaigners, also with Yorkshire County honours, and young talent. In the game between the two clubs in February, their powerful pack caused particular problems for Fylde in the tight and loose exchanges. Fylde’s scrummaging and lineout play will have to be accurate if they are to provide their dangerous backline with sufficient possession to test the visitors’ defence. The Otley pack features props Jason Moss, Billy Nicholls and Ethan Thiart, hooker Luke Cole, highly experienced locks Simon Willett and Brett Mitchell, and a backrow including accomplished no 8 Adam Malthouse, Ben Wadington and Sam Hodge. But Otley are far from a one trick forwards-dominated team. They showed in the February game that they can attack wide with menace through a dangerous backline featuring Callum Irving, Sam Taylor, Clark Wells and brothers Charles and Elliot Morgan. Fly-half is usually Eddie Crossland and he’s most often partnered by scrum-half and goal kicker Joe Rowntree but the latter has missed recent matches. Leading points scorer is Rowntree with 90, with wing Clark Wells heading the try count with 11. Our visitors are not only one of the oldest clubs in England but is almost certainly the only club in the world that can count a Nobel Physics Prize winning scientist as a former player! Albert Fert, together with German scientist Peter Gruen-berg, have shared the award for their independent discoveries, in the 1980s, of a process allowing huge amounts of data to be squeezed into ever-smaller spaces - now used by billions of people on their computers and digital music players. The scientist, born in 1938, actually played in the back row for Otley RUFC in the mid 1970s, mostly in the second team. He was in West Yorkshire at the time, working with professors Jim Morgan and Denis Greig on the conduction of electricity by magnetic metals at the University of Leeds.
were slipping down. By the 2003-4 season, Otley were competing at level 2, Fylde at level 4. Seven seasons later, Fylde were promoted back to level 3 whilst Otley were relegated to level 4. So once again, the clubs avoided each other in league action. A gap of 18 years separated fixtures between the clubs until they met again in 2018-19. For Otley, life in National Two (North) since 2010 has been rather up and down. They finished 5th in 2012-13 but dropped to mid-table for the rest of the decade until a poor 2019-20 campaign saw them slip down to the regional divisions at level 5. But there was an immediate improvement and they stormed to the championship of North Premier last season and a return to National Two for 2022-23 – and it has been a successful campaign as they’ve been in the top four in the division for most of the
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