It was good to see his familiar face getting off the Fev team bus on Sunday afternoon.

He's now the Rovers coach but "Hobbsy" was of course a very successful football manager here for three years from 1996 to 1999.

On Sunday he was perched in the East Stand but his regular vantage point a decade ago was on the staircase outside the club offices doing the game statistics.

It's funny how connections work in this game though.

There is somewhere a picture of the Bradford Northern team of 1988/89 which features Hobbs, John Pendlebury, Gary Mercer and Kelvin Skerrett.

All were integral components of the Blue Sox side which finished third in Super League in 1998.

Also on the shot were Karl Fairbank and Brendan Hill.

And when Hobbs signed Martin Pearson and Daio Powell for Fax their respective agents were Peter Fox and Barry Seabourne, both of whom had coached him at Odsal.

Skerrett was a personal friend of course but hadn't played for nearly a year.

It was Hobbs who persuaded him to sign a contract which was virtually a pay-as-you-play deal rather than one which gave a lot of guaranteed contract money.

Skerrett broke his arm – at Bradford of all places – in April 1997 but 1998 saw him back to his best and he showed his personal loyalty by walking out of the Shay a season later when Pendlebury and Hobbs both resigned.

Assistant coach Tony Anderson had also been at Northern in that era.

It was very much a hands-on operation in those early days of ground sharing as will be appreciated in a few weeks time when we have to resume using the dressing rooms under those offices at the south-west corner of the Shay.

It will be for a good cause though as the facilities under the East Stand become out of bounds again as the area becomes a building site once more.

When those dressing rooms beneath the pavilion were built though it was Pendlebury who did much of the building work.

Some Academy lads acted as his labourers.

They also built the gym as well, and no-one can say that the club haven't had their monies worth from that particular job.

Alliance coach Nicky Kiss, a qualified plumber, fitted the hot water tank plus showers.

And during this period Hobbs spent a fair bit of time tiling said shower area……….

This all happened in 1999 when the success of the previous season was starting to turn sour.

April and May 1999 was a defining period for that team.

Rumours about financial problems started to surface just after Easter and there were some lacklustre performances on the pitch at places like Gateshead and Sheffield.

And the management team were gone by the end of June.