On this Throwback Thursday, Club Historian Bill Dalton looks back on some of the Black & Whites’ most famous goal-kickers from years gone by…
Goal-kickers in our game have always had an important role, but in different degrees. Throughout history, goal-kicking has always been major factor in point-scoring.
The very early days of the Northern Union were little different, until the reduction to 13-a-side in 1906-07 resulted in predominantly higher scoring and an increase in opportunities for conversion kicks.
However, it was not until 1914-15 that Hull’s first centurion goal-kicker emerged (Ned Rogers with exactly 100). After the Great War, Jim Kennedy took over the mantle of chief kicker (among others) and topped the goal chart for eight seasons, although he only topped the century once.
Jim, in addition to establishing the club’s goals-in -a-match record (14) was one of only two of our goal-kickers who have kicked 10 goals or more in a match on five occasions. The other is Peter Bateson.
In 1928, Joe Oliver joined the club and, surprisingly, in view of his record career goal tally of 674. He never recorded a century of goals in a season. Indeed, ‘Old Faithful’ Joe only once managed 10 in a match.
Freddie Miller was perhaps Hull’s best kicker in the days of the old leather ball and sodden muddy grounds in the winter era, until Colin Hutton – by stages – established a new season record of 166 in 1956-57.
Peter Bateson followed and recorded two centuries in addition to his five ‘ten in a match’ feat. Probably the most consistent kicker we ever had in the pre-summer era was John Maloney in the 1960’s whose 674 goals places him only 13 behind Oliver’s career record.
Sammy Lloyd surpassed Hutton’s record in that glorious 1978-79 season when the team carried all before them in the league season. Along the way following that period, we have seen Gary Schofield, Lee Crooks, Mark Hewitt and Paul Cooke recording moderate totals whilst not being the kicker for a sustained length of time. Squeezed in there though in the 1987-94 period, Paul Eastwood managed 496 successful kicks to add to his 118 tries, together putting him 2nd place in the all-time point scorers.
Hull’s Super League era has seen only 2 preach a season century – Paul Cooke in 2004 and Marc Sneyd in 2016, 2017 and 2019. Danny Tickle was highly regarded, and his 5672 goals puts him in 5th place overall, whilst his 1331 points ties him in 5th place with Colin Hutton.
Now to the present day: It goes without saying that Marc Sneyd’s reliability off the kicking-tee is par-excellence. He has, thus far, landed 552 place-kick goals from 694 efforts – a phenomenal success rate of just shy of 80% over his six seasons with Hull. If we liken opposing teams as cricket bowlers regard certain batsmen as their ‘rabbits’, then Castleford must be Marc’s ‘rabbit’ as 74 of those 552 have been landed through their posts, followed by 69 against catalan.
As we know, Marc has raised the bar when the single-point drop-goal comes into the equation. He has landed 34, having passed Gary Pearce’s 30 such efforts, although Gary has the record for a season with 16.
I have to admit surprise when I compiled Marc’s 34 successful drop-goals, as I would have thought that Wakefield were the chief victims of the Sneyd left swing, but in fact, his five single-pointers against Trinity are matched by five against the Wolves.
One other record that Marc jointly holds with Colin Hutton is that of 250 points in a season on three occasions. Whilst that magic left foot keeps totting up the extras, there can be every expectation that Marc can establish another new record in that direction.
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