As soon as Garry Schofield announced his retirement from the world of the rugby league press, I felt a need to write this article.

As a Hull FC supporter I see his name in our Hall of Fame and, as an RFL accredited journalist, I have seen him and spoken to him many times in various media suites and press boxes throughout our great sport.

Many people would probably expect me, as a Hull FC supporter, to absolutely slate him due to the way he has been perceived by the Old Faithful for many years, since the day he left The Boulevard and signed for our much-hated rivals Leeds Rhinos, but if that’s what you’re looking for, then don’t read anymore of this article.

My experience of watching Schoey in his days in Black & White were very positive, he was a living god to us, he could almost do anything he wanted, however controversial and we would still defend him, because he was one of our own.

He was a regular GB international and was part of our trophy-laden early 1980s squad, he scored tries and kicked goals and he did it all with a swagger and confidence that all of us wanted to be like for ourselves, he was the embodiment of what many of us dreamed about.

No doubt, certain people will laugh at the mention of him suffering with brain damage, but I’m not one of them and neither should anybody else. Indeed, my thoughts are very much with Schoey and his family at what must be an incredibly difficult time, and he will certainly be missed in the press box, let there be absolutely no doubt about that.

Yes, he left under a cloud at a time when our funds were very low, so as arguably our most prized asset, we had to sell him to Leeds, however quite a lot of parting shots from him and his subsequent obsession with the team from Headingleywhen he looked back on his career certainly didn’t endear him to the Old Faithful.

He was also part of the Huddersfield Giants side that the Airlie Birds turned over in 1997 to seal our promotion to the promised land of Super League, but certainly to my knowledge, did not go public regarding any congratulations he may have felt for his former club at that time.

Since 2015 I have been working in the rugby league press and have regularly bumped into him and spoken to him many times, the most memorable of those being in 2017 when Hull had just conceded a half century of points at home for a 2ndtime in consecutive home games, the two teams who had thumped us were Leeds and Salford, and I said to him our next home game was against runaway league leaders Castleford Tigers, which made him laugh out very loudly and say “You’ll definitely have to sort your defence out by then.”

However, having spoken to him several times by then, you definitely knew he had his tongue wedged firmly in his cheekand that he had taken absolutely no pleasure from watching his former club get thumped by back-to-back half century scores and that he was genuinely concerned by what the form team of the time might do to Hull in due course.

Of course, history tells us that in that next home game, Daryl Powell’s Tigers were humbled by a resilient Hull side that had been reduced to 12-men in the first half after Liam Watts washarshly sent off for a supposed high tackle on Luke Gale, it was a result that simply didn’t make sense.

But the beauty of having Schoey in the press box was that he absolutely always encouraged debate, as journalists we are expected to concentrate and give the truth about the games we report on, we have to keep up with everything that’s happening on the pitch and at the side of it, but we’re also part of the entertainment, especially for those who are broadcast journalists and Schoey could always be relied upon to notice something that maybe one of us mere mortals could easily miss.

Sometimes you would see him taking great pleasure out of a current player pulling off something that he could produce in his playing career, other times you would see him getting seriously wound up by a player or a team producing absolute rubbish on the pitch.

One of my abiding memories of his significant contribution to rugby league media, will be his obvious pride about Hull FC in a Super 8s game at Wigan in 2015, when a Hull team with no less than seven teenagers in it went to the home of the most successful team in our game, meant to be lambs to the slaughter as the Warriors looked to knock up a cricket score to close Leeds advantage on points difference at the top of the table.

In that game, Hull went 18-0 down and we all thought ‘Here we go’ but by the end Hull’s young guns had given Wigan’s superstars the almighty fright of their lives, with a last minute try by Joe Burgess proving to be the decisive score, but Schoey, who could easily have just slated Wigan, or banged on, as everyone would have expected at the time, about Leeds Rhinos advantage being maintained as they chased the treble, chose to surprise everyone.

Instead, he chose to be absolutely wholesome in his praise of the former club that he was supposed to hate above all others, talking of how glorious it was to watch a young, locally-built Hull team go toe-to-toe with Shaun Wane’s Warriors and how he left the DW Stadium absolutely bursting with pride at what Lee Radford’s team had just achieved, with absolutely no doubt that he felt it was a moral victory for the club which he represented in the 1985 Challenge Cup Final against that same opponent.

It’s certainly fair to say that Garry Schofield was not every rugby league fan’s cup of tea, but what he undoubtedly got right was that he got all of us in the press box in absolutely the right frame of mind that we need to have in the press box and a lot of us clearly understood his methods, the controversy and his undoubted passion for the game.

One last comment, enjoy your well deserved retirement Schoey, Old Faithful pal of mine!

Written by Ian Judson (site contributor & Hull FC fan)