To appreciate the absolute highs, you perhaps have to first experience the ultimate lows: when Hull KR walk out in Thursday’s historic World Club Challenge, few will be better placed to say that have done that quite like their long-standing owner, Neil Hudgell.

The Super League champions will aim to be crowned the world’s best club rugby league side for the first time when they take on NRL kings Brisbane Broncos. To satisfy the unprecedented demand, they have taken ownership of the venue of their great rivals, Hull FC, for one night only – with 25,000 supporters, double the capacity of their Craven Park home, buying tickets in record time.

It is a far cry from the many nadirs Hudgell has experienced during his 25-year ownership of the club. Rovers have languished in the sport’s second tier for lengthy periods during that time, even coming close to financial ruin on more than one occasion. But of late, they have risen as a Super League force, culminating with the historic treble last year, their first trophies for 40 years.

Hudgell, more than most given the millions he has invested into his boyhood club, will take pride at how far they have come on Thursday – and specifically where they have come from. “I vividly remember the old Craven Park, crowds of barely more than 1,000 – people just weren’t really interested in Hull KR for long periods of time,” he recalls.

“The old ground had a greyhound track running around it, we’d all be mucking in to get the pitch playable. There was one food kiosk, everyone knew each other by name because it was more akin to a religion of habit rather than any sense of belief you could go on and achieve something. We’ve waited a hell of a long time for this.”

Hudgell was also in the crowd as a young boy the last time Hull KR faced Australian opposition more than 40 years ago, when the last great Rovers side defeated a touring Queensland team 8-6 in 1983 at the height of their rugby league: until now, at least. By the time the 1990s arrived, financial problems emerged and Rovers began the Super League era in the third tier.

“I’ve seen 10 years of absolutely everything and 30 years of nothing,” he smiles. “The moral of the story here is to take nothing for granted. I grew up with Hull KR being a great team. Thursday is the moment of a return to those nights and those days but I’m very conscious nothing lasts forever, and I hope people embrace the moment like I’m going to.”

The people of Hull – one side of it, at least – appear to have certainly done that. Hull KR’s decision to move the game across the city owing to Craven Park not being big enough raised eyebrows, but it is a switch that has been firmly vindicated. Rovers’ crowds have flirted around the 7,000 mark in recent history but last year, more than 11,000 attended every week.

Thursday represents a moment to solidify Hull KR’s position at the top of the sport and attract a whole new generation of supporters to the club. It is also a mouthwatering occasion, with Hull KR’s clutch of Super League stars such as the England half-back, Mikey Lewis, going toe-to-toe with Brisbane and Kangaroos superstar Reece Walsh.

“We probably could get over 15,000 people in at Craven Park,” he says. “There’s thousands on a waiting list and that job has been done quietly in the background. A few years ago the demographic was basically me: older, middle-aged white males. But we’ve worked to get young kids invested and I suppose that’s what you’re going to see when it’s full on Thursday.”

Brisbane are undoubted favourites, with Hull KR still reeling from a surprise defeat in last week’s Super League opener against newly-promoted York Knights. But the odds have been stacked against English sides before, and the opportunity to join the great sides such as Leeds, Wigan and St Helens by being crowned world champions is one Hudgell is acutely aware of.

“I’m always asked whether it’s been worth it; the blood, sweat, tears and investment,” Hudgell says. “I would have always said no right up until the day we completed that treble. We now have a legacy in the history of the sport and the city of Hull. That made it a yes for me.

“To lay a World Club Challenge on top of that, for Hull KR to be champions of the rugby league world … well that’s immortality stuff isn’t it? There has never been a world champion team in Hull. To be the first, that’s pretty much what you dream of.”