THERE are some teams you grow particularly attached to over the decades and I make no apologies in numbering Rotherham Titans among those. Having risen at great pace from the anonymity of the lower leagues, I loved the way they tried to break up the Premiership cartel and their brave fight against overwhelming odds to be accepted. They refused to be cowed and belittled and kept knocking on the door of those who, frankly, wished they didn't exist.
Three times they were 'promoted' to the very top tier via the torturous play-off system although only twice were they allowed to take their place. Both times they were relegated but, against huge odds, they fought the good fight and there were also moments in Europe to remember.
In the 2000/2001 season they won four of their six games in the European Shield including the double over Grenoble and a famous 20-19 win at Perpignan. Just for a while they dined at rugby's top table.
You sensed it couldn't last but wished them well nonetheless and when, having perhaps flown too close to the sun, they suddenly crashed and burned, some wondered for their very existence as they started to descend the leagues and fight for their very survival.
Not me, I should add. The Rotherham of my acquaintance were always a proper community-based rugby club, brim-full of enthusiastic volunteers and rugby tragics, who among other things served the best grub and ale on the circuit and afforded the warmest of Yorkshire welcomes to visiting media and supporters.
There was always something going on at Roth - club quiz nights, rock and roll evenings, charity fundraisers, walking rugby mornings, karaoke parties and comedy nights while Clifton Lane is in huge demand locally as a function venue. There was no question in my mind that, with that esprit de corps, they would prevail.
Well, the good news is they are currently doing rather more than just prevailing. In fact, to mark the end of their centenary season in suitable style, they only went and clinched the National League Two North title last week when they won 40-26 at Billingham in the final round of games to pip Leeds in a brilliant season arm wrestle against their old rivals.
The only downside is that it came just too late to be included in the club's splendid century history; When Men became Titans, which had already been printed.
After rocketing up the leagues in the early years - seven promotions in 14 seasons between 1986 and 1999 - it was Rotherham's first promotion in 21 seasons since they won the old Allied Dunbar National Division Two in 2003.
They lost just one of their 26 games - 26-20 away to Leeds in November - and with the two teams seemingly a class apart it was inevitably going to be nip and tuck for the solitary promotion spot with Rotherham always having to match high flying Leeds or fall away.
Neither side could lose concentration and intensity at any stage. Rotherham clocked up 22 try bonus wins in their 26 games with Leeds logging up 23 try bonus victories as the season built to a crescendo. In March, Leeds lost at Rotherham in a hell of game but managed to garner two bonus points in their 32-26 defeat.
Still advantage Leeds, just, but rugby is nothing if not unpredictable and in their next but one game Leeds slipped to an unexpected 18-15 defeat at Fylde - doughty at home - while Titans walloped Preston Grasshoppers 67-20 at Clifton Lane.
Advantage Titans going into the last round but still no room for an upset. They needed a win at Billingham, who were scrapping hard to avoid relegation, to claim the silverware and that they duly accomplished with tries for Jack Bergmanas, Laurence Cowan-Leak, John Okafor, Jack Taylor and Lloyd Hayes, the team's main goal kicker who finished the season with a league topping 327 points.
Lots of redemption and karma you sense at Roth, not least for a newcomer to the scene Harvey Biljon who arrived at the club in October when there was a reshuffle of the coaching set-up. Biljon, the former Wasps scrum-half, has achieved good things at Black-heath and Cornish Pirates and had become a permanent fixture at Jersey Reds when, seemingly from nowhere, they suddenly went bust at the start of this season. Biljon was smart and anxious to work off his frustration by masterminding a successful campaign with Rotherham.
"It's a bit of a fairy tale," mused Biljon after their win at Billing-ham. "A promotion in a centenary season is something special and in 10, 15 or 20 years' time people will look back and remember a team that had to stick with it for so long in second place and then go and win a real pressure game (against Leeds) and manage to stay undefeated in the second half of the season and see it out away from home. In the huddle afterwards, I thanked the players for their effort and told them they deserved it. They're champions. No-one can ever take that away from them."
Indeed, the irony of a title actually earning a guaranteed promotion won't be lost on Biljon having spent so long in the Championship where promotion is purely at the behest and largess of those in the Premiership.
