1990’s
The 1990’s, proved to be another golden decade for the Ovenden club. They had at times three open age teams plus a 4th team playing friendlies as well as 12 junior teams.
As the decade started, Ovenden had their first team riding high in second place in the Pennine Premier Division, the “A” team sitting in mid-table in Pennine Division 2 although the “B” were struggling in January 1990 as they sat bottom of Pennine Division 6 with only 2 points to show from their 13 games.
A winning first team was taking shape with Dave Hebblewhite, Steve Taylor, Chris Cochrane and Mark Sutcliffe amongst those stepping into open age Rugby League either via the “A” team or directly into first team Rugby League.
Throughout the development of the club, volunteers had always been a big part of the club and none more so than two local teenage lasses, Suzie Morton and Karen Crossley, in the latter half of the 1990’s. Suzie’s dad, Sam, got her involved and she invited Karen to join her at the club. They travelled everywhere with the team and hung up the team’s kit in the changing rooms on match day and collected up all the dirty kit after games! Suzie and Karen enthusiastically recalled those times,
“The club and the players made us feel we belonged. Part of the family. There was always lots of banter. The lads looked after us whether on a night out in Halifax or at an away game or when we met all the lads in London on their legendary Wembley Challenge Cup Final trips.”
The first team had a good decade winning the Halifax Championship in 1993-94 and 1994-95 defeating Park Amateurs on both occasions. There were also two Halifax Cup wins in 1991-92 and 1996-97.
In 1995, Ovenden were elected to join Division 2 of the National Conference League. They played against teams from across the country including Barrow Island and Wigan St. Jude’s. They remained in the division until the 1998-99 season when they were sadly expelled from the Conference. (see below)
It was unfortunate, as Ovenden made their Four Fields ground a real destination for the National Conference games with the club house featuring heavily.
During the 1990’s Ovenden success as an amateur club was shown as they qualified for the first round of the Rugby League Challenge Cup on five occasions. In January 1997, Rugby League Challenge Cup qualification came around again and Ovenden were drawn away at Wakefield Trinity. With three divisions between the teams, one of which was also professional, the trip to Belle Vue was a difficult one. But one which Ovenden made with their usual tenacity and belief. The Evening Courier reported.
“..gutsy Ovenden set about trying to show the chasm was not as wide as it may seem. They went a long way to proving their point, particularly in defence, where they were dogged and determined in pursuit of their more illustrious foes!”
Despite conceding a try in the third minute, Ovenden dug deep and it was another 20 plus minutes before their line was breached again. In the end, Trinity ran out winners by 52-0 but as the Courier commented, “Ovenden had shown the kind of pride and passion that earned them huge applause from the Belle Vue faithful as they left the field”.
In the following year, 1998, Ovenden became the first amateur club to face Super League opposition in the Rugby League Challenge Cup when they took on the might of Salford in the 4th round.