Hull KR's new Craven Park has the air of a mausoleum about it. It's a modern day altar for a dwindling band of faithful followers to come and pay homage to fading glory days.
Sparsely crowded, heavy pitched; leaden footed, pom-pom wielding schoolgirls waving on 13 anonymous grafters to a tinny tannoy rendition of 'Red, Red Robin' sung by the ghost voices of players long retired, returning to haunt - and taunt - the current day Robins with echoes of their success. It's a bit sad.
It's also a measure of how far Hornets have progressed of late, that we can come away from the once mighty Hull Kingston Rovers gutted to have lost a deadly dull game by 12-6.
Quite simply - excluding Everitt's penalty about 20 minutes in - nothing of any note happened in the first half. Both sides laboured with a heavy pitch and the even heavier cloud of malaise that hovers permanently over Craven Park. Given Hull KR's propensity for ekeing out low scoring wins, we've often joked that they take 60 minuites to bore teams into a stupor leaving just enough time to muster up enough points to win. Having seen it first hand today, it looks like a (un)pretty good gameplan.
For 30 minutes, the second half followed much the same pattern as the first. Everitt collected another penalty for 4-nil (cue much jumping around from home supporters - are points really this rare there?). The usually steady Andy Ireland had his ire roused in the tackle and proceeded to pound Robins' hooker Mike Dixon's head into the deepening mud to escape with a ticking off. And we muttered amongst ourselves that one try would win it. Short-lived joy arrived after 70 minutes as a deft close range grubber from Sculthorpe saw Matt Calland, dive through a static defence and touch down. Woody converted and all that remained was for Hornets to tackle for another ten minutes and turn an afternoon of animated torpor into another fine away win. But... there's always a but.
With five minutes remaining, Paul Owen gathered a speculative kick a couple of yards from his own line. With the tackle obviously complete and the referee already retiring to mark the defensive line for the ensuing play-the-ball, a couple of Hull KR players manhandled him back over his own line. And when Mr Taberner re-engaged his interest to find Owen two yards back from the original tackle spot he gave the afternoon's most ludicrous decision... a drop out.
In the subsequent set of six, Hull KR worked the ball smartly to Fletcher who slumped over the line from close range. Everitt took the extras and at 10-6 it had all gone a bit tits-up.
A last minute penalty for offside sent the home fans into paroxysms of joy and we alll went home.
So we're all peed off, but let's be philosphical. Hornets have always been plucky toilers and fully aware of our place in the great scheme of things. Hull KR? Well, they're hardly the force they used to be. Indeed, imagine the 20,000 or so 1980 Robins supporters breathing a sigh of relief at having nicked a game against us thanks to a couple of dubious penalties. It was all summed up on Radio Humberside after the game, when the presenter said that Hull KR's victory was a 'big win for them'.
Yep, we're a big scalp now down by the Humber - so while we sulk through our Sunday night having thrown away a game we should have won, at least we haven't thrown away a glorious history.