Jez Litten knows it is Hull derby week when he hears FC fans taunt him
JEZ Litten hears the taunts and comments when he goes to the shops behind enemy lines – and he cannot get enough.
The Hull KR star lives in west Hull, Hull FC territory, and when derby day comes it is all on.
And while the family – including cousin Davy, who plays for the Black and Whites – is pretty much silent, the same cannot be said for others.
Litten, who started his career on the other side of the city, said: “If I’m at a shop, I might get a comment or two from a cheeky FC fan.
“You get the odd thing. It’s just banter really, nothing malicious or anything like that.
“It’s just something to laugh about and I think you need something like that, it’s a derby, isn’t it? You don’t want them to like us in derby week and we don’t want to like them.
“That’s how it should be.
“But out of respect, Davy and I won’t ask each other if we’re playing or what the team is. That hasn’t changed this week and I’ll speak to him after the game today.”
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The Litten family divide means a quandary for his grandfather, over who to back.
He plays it straight down the line, with the only sign being his socks as hooker Litten added: “After the first derby this season, he walked out of the ground with his KR sock a bit higher – hopefully he can do that today.”
If he is pulling up his Hull FC sock, Tony Smith’s men will have pulled off a shock win as fans call for the coach’s head after leaking 50 points in consecutive weeks.
But he has been backed by opposite number Willie Peters, who said: “If you’re a decent human and you’ve got respect, which we all do, you never want to see coaches lose their job.
“It’s not nice. Every coach is going to be in that position one day. Tony’s been in it before but there’s no more experienced coach to help FC and get them out of it.
“At the end of the day, though, we want to win.”