JUST over a mile-and-a-half from Wakefield Trinity's historic Belle Vue home is College Grove Sports Ground, once home to the city's successful rugby union team.

College Grove serves as a multi-sport facility which, these days, is used mainly by the hockey, bowls and squash clubs, having previously been home to Wakefield Football Club as well, prior to their demise three years ago.

With the rugby union team having gone out of business 10 years before their round-ball counterparts, Trinity remain the one major professional club left standing in the city – but the question remains for how much longer?

Club chairman Michael Carter is becoming increasingly frustrated over the continual delays to the proposed community stadium which would serve as Trinity's new home, particularly as they must inform the RFL of where they intend to play their home games next season.

As it stands, Wakefield are set to leave Belle Vue after over a century at the end of this year – possibly for a ground-share with Dewsbury Rams – with the ground no longer meeting Super League minimum standards.

If an agreement is in place to get the new stadium built in time for the 2019 then they could yet be granted an extension to stay at their current home and play in Super League by the RFL for next year.

But with Wakefield having to inform the governing body by July 31 of where they intend to play, Carter is anxious for a decision to be made on whether the project will finally get the go-ahead or not.

Should Trinity leave town at the end of the current Super League season, it may be many years before they come back – if they do at all, with Coventry-based Aviva Premiership side Wasps rumoured to be looking at buying a team in rugby league's top flight to relocate to the West Midlands.

More pertinently, it would leave a district with a population of 325,800 people without a senior, professional sports team, with the other teams in the 13-man code being amateur sides, rugby union club Sandal playing in National League Three North, and Wakefield City Football Club in the West Riding County Amateur League.

It sums up the sporting decline of this particular corner of West Yorkshire, where Northern Union founder members Trinity have led the way thanks to two Rugby League Championship triumphs and five Challenge Cup triumphs, along with being members of Super League for all but its first three years.

Across the city, the 1970s saw Wakefield RFC ascend into the national conscience with a run to the semi-finals of the 1975/76 John Player Cup, scoring upset wins against Moseley and Northampton before missing out on a Twickenham final after a 12-6 loss to Rosslyn Park in the semis.

The Grovers then firmly established themselves as stallwarts of English rugby union's second tier following the introduction of leagues in the late 1980s, but like many other clubs they struggled to cope with the demands of the sport following the legalisation of professionalism and withdrew from competition following relegation just three years after celebrating their centenary in 2004.

Meanwhile, the demise of Wakefield FC came about partly as a result of an ill-fated ground-share with Trinity under their guise of Wakefield-Emley, with an unaffordable increase in rent leading to them resigning from the Northern Premier League.

So it is Trinity who, for now at least, stand alone. For both rugby league and professional sport in the area, it should be hoped they can find a way to continue in their home city for many years to come.

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AS he entered Marseille's Stade Velodrome on the penultimate stage of this year's Tour de France, Chris Froome was greeted by a chorus of boos from the French spectators who, moments earlier, had been cheering their compatriot Romain Bardet.

Unsurprisingly, there was much harrumphing about how this was disrespectful to Yellow Jersey, while others were perhaps left ponder whether the crowd were saying "Booo!" or "Booo-urns!".

It would be easy to dismiss this simply as a nationalistic reaction to a Johnny Foreigner coming over to France and dominating their race, not to mention a British rider at that.

Bardet, on the other hand, is the latest to carry the millstone around his neck of being the great hope of French cycling destined to end the 32-year-and-counting wait for a home winner - much like every British male tennis player who entered Wimbledon between Fred Perry's last and Andy Murray's maiden triumphs.

But Froome, who has now won four of the past five editions of Le Tour, is hardly the first hugely successful rider to become something of a pantomime villain in the eyes of the French public.

Eddy Merckx, considered by many to be the greatest road-racer of all time, was regularly barracked en route to his five victories and was even punched by a spectator on the climb up the Puy de Dome in 1975.

The Belgian's dominance of nearly all of the categories - Merckx won both the points and King of the Mountains classifications on multiple occasions too - and aggressive style won few admirers, despite being deservedly revered today.

The same was true for Lance Armstrong even before his doping-related fall from grace, with the American perceived as surly and disrespecting the traditions of the Tour de France when he first burst onto the scene.

Such treatment is not just reserved for foreign riders though as five-time winner Jacques Anquetil never received much love from his countrymen, often being heckled at the finish.

Bizarrely, it was his great rival Raymond Poulidor who was the darling of the French cycling fraternity - a man who became known as "The Eternal Second" due to repeatedly coming close but never quite managing to win Le Tour.

Who knows, if Bardet fulfils his destiny then he might be on the receiving end of the same honour one day too.

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REGULAR readers of Peter Wilson's column in these pages every Tuesday will recall him wondering this week how a player like Geoffrey Boycott would have fared in modern-day cricket.

Believe it or not, there is evidence to suggest even Boycott would have revelled in a world of Twenty20.

The former Yorkshire and England opener has a not entirely undeserved reputation as an obdurate blocker, so it might seem strange to imagine he would have any impact in the shortest format.

It is easy to forget Boycott played in the early days of limited overs cricket though, scoring over 1,000 runs at what was then a respectable average of 36.06 in one-day internationals.

You could even see him slotting in lower down the order and playing as a batting all-rounder, with Boycott's right-arm medium pacers proving handy in stemming runs and picking up the occasional victim.

One wonders though, would he still insist on bowling wearing his cap?