Talking Sport Now & Then featuring Doncaster Athletic Club, Doncaster Knights and Doncaster Bowls League

The club have also announced plans to host their popular Sprint/Endurance meeting on September 10. The event had to be called off last year due to a lack of officials available on the night.

Returning this season is the club’s popular Startrack course which will run from 10am to 2pm each day between August 18th to the 25th.

Entry to the five-day course, which caters for youngsters aged between 5-11 year olds, is £80. Details available from the club.

Although membership (309) is slightly down on last season as a result of athletes leaving for university courses, chairman Kev Lincoln says he anticipates the club doing well in their first ever season in the Northern League Premier League following their promotion-winning campaign last season.

“The quality of athletes available for team selection is already looking good,” he said.

Kev says the club’s brave decision to take out a 25-year lease on the site over a decade ago continues to be vindicated.

“Our site bookings are at record level as a number of sites under Local Authority control have failed their UKA Trackmark inspections as Local Authority funding is low,” he said.

“We are half way through our lease and as a result of keeping pace with track repairs, new equipment, new pole vault bed, LED floodlights etc, many people tell us it is the best track in the region.”

On the subject of athletics, I’m pleased to see the return on the popular Sprotbrough 6.5km family fun run this summer.

*It is 30 years ago this month that Doncaster RLFC played their last ever game at Tattersfield – their home since joining the Rugby Football League in 1951 - in their last game of their ill-fated 1994-95 season.

A crowd of just under 3,000 witnessed a 50-16 defeat – their 14th in a row - at the hands of Workington Town who had been promoted alongside them the previous season.

The ground had been sold during the season to help clear some of their debts which had brought the club to its knees less than 12 months after celebrating promotion to the top flight for the first time in their history and it looked like being the end of the road for the Dons.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen but the club were forced to start at the bottom of the league structure operating on a shoestring budget operating out of Stainforth Greyhound Stadium.

The club’s problems started before the campaign, the last before the game moved to become a summer sport and the Super League was born, due to the Bradford City fire in the closing weeks of the football season.

Money earmarked for players had to be diverted to improving the safety of their rundown ground – particularly the wooden main stand

Although they were able to put out a competitive side, as was shown by the fact that they won three of their first four games and made a star-studded Leeds side work hard for their 16-6 win in front of a 6,500 crowd at Tattersfield, their lack of depth was cruelly exposed as injuries started to pile up.

The two-year drugs ban on star full-back Jamie Bloem, whose performances had attracted interest from Leeds, proved yet another body blow from which the club never recovered.

*Doncaster Knights may well have missed out on the chance to win promotion to the Premiership, but there is plenty left to play for in the closing weeks of the 2024-25 Championship season.

Knights, who have beaten the top two sides in their last three games, could still challenge for the runners-up spot if they keep on winning and other results go their way.

Their hopes of second spot would become more of a reality if leaders Ealing beat second-placed Bedford Blues this weekend.

Currently ten points off second-spot, sixth-placed Knights also need to help themselves by beating the likes of Coventry and Cornish Pirates at Castle Park and Hartpury – all teams currently above them - in the run-in.

*Even though I had an appointment at the DRI at 7.15am on Monday morning, I still stayed up past midnight – as will have hundreds of other Doncaster golfers - to watch the closing stages of the Masters Golf on Sunday night. It provided gripping entertainment throughout the evening.

*Woodlands Park A and Armthorpe Welfare A have continued their dominance of the Doncaster & District League Saturday League Section A post-Covid.

Woodlands, the 2018 and 2019 champions, will be defending the title this summer after finishing runners-up to Welfare three years in succession.

Woodlands, who pipped Carcroft A to the title last season, will be aiming for a fifth successive Doubles League titles post-Covid.

Armthorpe, four times runners-up during that period, will be hoping to go one better and claim their first title success since 2017.

Defending champions Armthorpe Welfare have won seven of the last Over-60s Singles titles and again look the team to beat.

Woodland Park’s Martin Wilson will be looking to record a hat-trick of Saturday League Section A averages titles this season.

Runner-up to Armthorpe’s Keith Ryde (2.00) in 2022, Wilson topped the 2023 averages with 2.58 and saw off the challenge of team-mate David Patrickson last year.

Margaret Smith (Armthorpe Welfare B) will be hoping to defend her Section B averages title.

It’s disappointing to see that the number of teams in all competitions has dropped substantially since the days when I used to cover the sport in The Star though the same thing can be said for a number of other sports over the last decade or so.