Goole Vikings are hoping to line up a pre-season friendly with Super League giants Leeds Rhinos next year.
The Vikings are preparing for their inaugural season in League One after being accepted into the competition last month by the RFL and they are starting to put preparations in place. Scott Taylor has been announced as the club’s very first professional head coach, while Jamie Shaul, Tom Halliday and Ben Hodder have all put pen to paper on deals to pull on the Vikings jersey in 2025.
Goole will pack out the rest of their squad in the coming weeks and months with the club hoping to attract players from across Yorkshire as they bridge the geographical gap that exists between East and West. The Vikings are bold, optimistic and ambitious and the hope is that they can activate something of an untapped fanbase in the town, who have been starved of professional sport.
The Vikings aren’t the first team to operate out of the area, though, with Goole having a team in the early years of the Northern Union. Goole played Leeds twice in that time, per Serious About RL’s sister site the Yorkshire Evening Post, with contests taking place during the 1901-02 season.
As such, conversations are now taking place about the possibility of renewing acquaintances with the West Yorkshire club 123 years on from their last meeting. According to Goole’s strategic advisor James Clark, who left Hull FC earlier this year, the Vikings have reached out to the Rhinos in the hope of making Leeds one of their first ever opponents.
If a deal can be reached the Rhinos can be expected to make the journey down the M62 to the Victoria Pleasure Ground in January as Brad Arthur prepares his side to enter the 2025 Super League campaign.
The game would help the club to capture the attention of the town, of course, and Clark will be hoping to use his contacts in the game to arrange more high profile home friendlies before the start of the League One season.
