Yarn from
Mary Fletcher - wife of the Late Arthur Fletcher. "Mad Fletch" was a fanatical Hull FC Supporter, if not the most fanatical supporter of all time... from all clubs. At my request Mary sent over some newspaper clippings about Fletch, and his antics -

Submitted 01/08/2006

Arthur "Mad Fletch" Fletcher
An Airlie Bird Legend.

Mary emailed the Biff back in late April with the following message - "My late husband Big Fletch was a diehard black and white.He wouldnt eat bacon.smoke park drive or even let us have a coloured tv because of the colour red [the robins] His wishes for when he died was for his ashes to be scattered on the sacred turf [The boulevard] so that is were he has laid for the last 20years. I am sure many many people have great memories of him because he was such a character and is still missed greatly in Hull"

AND NOW THE GOOD NOOSE... retyped for ease of reading

HULL FC fanatic Arthur Fletcher has a big rugby league hang-up.

He kept regulars at the Sandringham Arms in suspense when he announced he would rather hang the see his team defeated.

But one condition was that the rope is black and white - his team's colours.

Landlord Steve Edwards, a life-long Hull Kingston Rovers supporter, duly obliged, with a black and white noose specially for Airlie Birds' supporters.

Arthur, will not buy a colour TV in case there is any red and white on show and refuses to smoke cigarettes from a red and white packet.

HANG ON, IT'S MAD FLETCH... retyped for ease of reading

At the Sandringham pub in Paragon Street, landlord Steve Edwards can boast the most fanatical Hull FC supporter in the city.Arthur Fletcher (58) known to his mates as "Mad Fletch" has tried to cut the colour of red out of his life entirely.

He refuses to have anything to do with the colour red. He refuses to smoke cigarettes that come in a red packet, will never buy any clothing that is red, and can count the number of Rugby League finals he has missed on the fingers of one hand.

This week he joked that he will hang himself if the Airlee Birds lose, in a special black and white noose put up in the bar by the Sandringham's landlord. Fletch went to his first Rugby League Cup Final in 1935.

But it is rumoured that he has a skeleton in te cupboard ... his grandfather "Froggie" Fletcher once played full-back for the Rovers!

PLAIN AS BLACK AND WHITE... some quotes retyped for ease of reading

"On Sunday the man who named his black and white cat Sully after Hull RFC's famous wigner Clive Sullivan, only to sell it when the player defected to Hull Kingston Rovers, ....."

"Fletch - real name Arthur Fletcher - admits to being on 59, having spent 49 of those years following the black and whites around the country"

"He's so fanatical that he wont have anything red and white in the house because Hull Kingston Rovers play in red and white. He will not allow his wife or children to buy anything red .....

"Even bacon is not allowed because it is reand white"

ALL HULL BREAKS LOOSE OVER THE HAIR RAISING FINAL.. some quotes retyped for ease of reading
from NOW- dated May2, 1980

"One of the stars involved is Clive Sullivan. He was a Hull star and Arthur Fletcher, a lifetime Hull supporter who drinks under the black noose in the Sandringham House, named his black and white cat after him. Then Sullivan transferred across the city and became a Rovers star. Mr Fletcher, local folklore now insists, was so outraged by this treachery that he had his cat put down. He says what actually happend is that he actually moved house and the cat preferred to stay put, although he admits he went off the animal in such a big way that "perhaps the cat got the message"

John Bird - WHEN WILL HULL'S WALL COME DOWN?... retyped for ease of reading

"I wonder when the 'wall' in Hull will come down, if ever!

You know, the imaginary but nevertheless unscalable wall that exist between East and West right here. It baffles me as to how it got there, surely it isn't all down to Robins and Airlie Bird's rivalry.

Although I don't know. I once covered a story about a West Hull chap called Fletch who was so fanatical over the Airlie Birds the he would not entertain anything that may have the remotest hint of red and white in it.

For example he did not own a colour TV, in case he saw red! He never ate bacon because it was red and white and he would never dream of smoking Park Drive because of the colour of the Pack.

Sadly Fletch is gone now but his fanaticism was in my opinion the lovable and acceptable face of Hull's east/west divide. ......

R.I.P. Fletch

8/8/06 Comment from Airliebird Downunder

Eyup Quigs!

Love the story about this nutter!

A lot of the sentiments in those reports ring very very true. My Granddad was quite similar in a lot of his thoughts. My Grandmother and her sister (great aunt I think that makes her) used to be Hull FC's Laundry girls in the 40's and 50's and in fact shared the house right next to the old Boulevard ground when both of their husbands were in North Africa fighting Rommell.

They actually used to use the dressing rooms as bomb shelters in those days as Hull was the most bombed city in all of the UK.

After one raid they came up out of the shelter and discovered their house had been totally obliterated by a direct hit. The club let them sleep in the dressing rooms until they could get somewhere better to live.

The old girls actually used to have scarves and hats from every other team on the league and if Hull were every without a game or playing too far away to travel, they used to go across the city to support whoever Hull KR were playing!

Thats Hatred!

9/8/06 - Comment from JB Downunder off RLFans Forum

Strangely this kind of character wasn't uncommon in Hull during the late 70's and early 80's! I met a fair few in my time including a butcher and his wife who stopped talking to each other for two weeks leading up to the 80 CC final!

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