: Tue Feb 17, 2009 1:46 pm
Johnny Woods engineering a late try from nothing to put himself within a conversion of breaking the club points record... then hitting the post with the last kick of the game and missing out by one... Ronnie Duane got injured in that game for Wire, and missed the Ozzie tour...
...taking Leeds apart as the last game of Peter Smethurst's reign as coach, Beasant and Westhead being brilliant as we scored 51 points (in the days of three point tries)
...Eric Chisnall setting up the win over HKR in 82, that gave us the title-shot against already-relegated Whitehaven...
....Hull fans fighting each other in the shadow of the mill, which all stopped when a brilliant game started (ending in a draw... was either 81/2 or 82/3 season)...
..full time being called with Halliwell on his way to his 50th try of the season... the ball wasn't dead, but the referee ended the game anyway...
...watching the colts against wigan... sean hodgekiss' nose got broken from a punch in the scrum... the scrum collapsed and he came up from hooker looking like Mike Gatting after the West Indies tour...
...playing for colts against Cas with blisters from a new pair of boots. We got stuffed. Then, with the A team lads also having played, and all the first team coaching staff in the main stand bar, my dad picking me up after a church fete dressed as a clown. Thanks, Dad....
...bumping into AJM carrying the Lancashire cup behind the main stand, sometime in spring 1982...
..and listening to him b0llock the lads at half time, from behind the dressing room at the scoreboard end of the main stand...
...Andy Collier, already a first-teamer, borrowing my comb after a colts game...
...running in endless tries in the second division record breaking season...
...walking up through the stairs in the middle of B stand, and coming out into the atmosphere of a night match, like walking onto the stage at the London Palladium..
..the smell of pipe tobacco in the stand...
...meeting Eddie Waring, climbing down from a commentary gantry near the scoreboard...
...the stargate!! And beating London in Superleague...
...green wooden bench seats in the main stand...
...the die-hard blonde lad, such a committed fan my wire-supporting ex bro-in-law christened him 'Leigh lad' as the epitome of the passion and deidcation that our supporters have... this may be you, WOLRAB... he used to sit at the top of C stand, with a dapper fella with a Branson-eqqsue tidybeard, and he never ever missed a match... now he's a strapping six-foot-plus bloke, but he was always at games from when he was a kid...
...always bumping into Kath (never knew her surname), a fabulously one-eyed middle aged Leyth lass... also saw her in the queues at Wembley in 1982... she was telling everyone who'd listen 'It'l be Leigh and Wigan next year, mark my words...' The only bit that seemed unlikely, then, was Wigan making it to Wembley...
..my dad running the line against someone (Cas, I think, but not sure), when John Kerr had his jaw broken and my dad missed it (he was unsighted by players, but from high above in the stand, we saw it clearly..
...beating Saints in a humdinger as the last match of the season (possibly the year we went down and Des and Woody broke limbs)... I think it ended 36-30, there was never more than a couple of tries in it, and another mate's dad, Dave Knight, was the touchjudge..
...the disabled toilet sign which someone had graffitied 'Brian Potter' onto...
...buying old programmes from the old shop at the glebe street end....
...being able to see The Victoria, the traffic lights on Kirkhall lane, and Rivvy Pike in the distance, from our season-ticket seats in C stand...
...the Dark, Satanic Mill and the Pit winding gear at parsonage...
...those old scaffolding-tube crash barriers...
...Brian shouting '' 'erf time draw tickets, cmon the more we sell the more we pay out' "
...winning the half time draw in our 'first last match' against whitehaven...
...looking out for uncle Mick at the back of the Tommy Sale stand... beerbottle glasses, a sling on his arm in recent years, rheumy eyes and a hilarious sarcastic wit (Culcheth? it's not a village, it's an urban sprawl...)
..cousin Phil (his brother, but younger, hence cousin and not uncle!)... last seen in the queue at the last game, but another of those people you don't really keep in touch with, just bump into at weddings, funerals and the occasional rugby match..
...looking out for my best mate Phil, who sat exactly opposite us in the TS stand when we were in the main stand.
...and so, so much more.
Of all the places in the world, I was happiest and most at home at Hilton Park. If there is a heaven, it will be Hilton Park, in the main stand, just before kickoff at a night match... AJM is the coach, the ground is full, and the team is Hogan, Drummond, Bilsbury, Donlan, Fox, Woods, Green, Wilkinson, Tabern, Cooke, Martyn, Potter and Pinner [I know! But this isn't real, remember...]..... Steve Grimshaw and Roy Howarth on the bench... Phil Johnson, Tony Cottrell and Derek Pyke are promising youngsters.... Phil Clarke is a Leyth supporting teenager... Stevo is 12,000 miles away, and Wigan, our cup-match opponents are in division 2 and expecting a thrashing....
P
