Owning a sports team does not usually have the fairytale ending, but for solicitor Neil Hudgell, there could not have been a better moment than on Saturday.

His Hull KR team (the Robins) beat Warrington in the final of rugby league’s Challenge Cup, with the winning try scored with 90 seconds left on the clock. It was the Robins’ first cup win since 1980. 

Hudgell (pictured) joined the players and coaching staff on the Wembley pitch and got to lift the trophy in the pouring rain, taking the acclaim of the supporters who had travelled in their thousands.

Neil Hudgell

Coach Willie Peters told the media: ‘We’ve been building for a while. Neil (Hudgell) has put so much money and time into the club and we wanted to do it for him for a long time.’

Hudgell said it was a special day for everyone involved with the club. ‘In the moment, my first thought was for all those Robins no longer with us, flying high,’ he said. ‘Let’s make this the first of many. For now we celebrate the moment.’

It was the pinnacle of Hudgell’s lifelong devotion to the club, which started with his grandparents taking him to matches when he was seven years old. He was the club’s legal adviser before becoming chairman around 25 years ago. He had announced in 2020 that he would step down as chairman and put the club up for sale, but later changed his mind.

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