Random rugby stories. : Mon Mar 23, 2020 7:02 pm  

With not much rugby to talk about, how about a selection of stories from the game. Here's mine.

2018, It was the Monday morning after our play off semi win against Saints and tickets were on sale for the final against Wigan. I got down to the HJ early and managed to get inside the shop as the tickets went on sale, with a massive queue behind stretching to the Red Lion corner.

I noticed a taxi pull up outside and an elderly couple plus the driver got out and came into the shop. It was obvious from the accents that the couple were from the US. They went around the shop picking out various items of merchandise, and eventually they had armfuls of sweat shirts, hoodies, caps, flags and the like, with value running well into three figures. They then looked at the queue, wondering what to do and where to join it. Myself and a couple of others offered to let them in front of us, and someone suggested they just went to the front.

I don't know exactly what happened, whether the girls serving told them they would have to get to the back of the queue or the people at the front wouldn't let them in but they were turned away. Those around me were dismayed and embarrassed, and a fella behind me asked me to mind his place and he nipped outside and returned with a club official, who took them out of the shop with all their gear.

I got my tickets and was just walking out to my car as they were also walking back to their taxi, empty handed. I asked them if they got sorted. They told me that they were from Las Vegas and were on a cruise ship that had docked into Liverpool. Their surname was Warrington, and had heard about a town by that name nearby. They had hired a taxi to bring them for a quick tour and had called into the club shop on possibly the worst day possible. They wanted a selection of wares with Warrington on for their kids and Grandkids. The official had taken them into the club offices where Richie Mathers had given them a tour of the stadium and was forwarding their souvenirs free of charge to their home address plus a few goodies.

So what could have been a sour occasion with a very poor opinion of our town turned out well.

Re: Random rugby stories. : Mon Mar 23, 2020 8:30 pm  

That's awesome

Re: Random rugby stories. : Mon Mar 23, 2020 8:58 pm  

What a great story

Re: Random rugby stories. : Mon Mar 23, 2020 10:52 pm  

Fantastic gesture.

I had a similar experience at Newcastle Knights in 2017. I was in Aus for a few weeks for the Ashes and World Cup, spent a couple of days in Newcastle, it's a lovely place, very underrated. I went to the stadium just to have a look at the ground from the outside and take a few pictures with my phone, then I wandered in to the club shop to get a bit of memorabilia. When the staff there saw I had a Wire cap on it was an immediate conversation starter, "that's where Kurt and Joey went". I was impressed they knew a fair bit about the Wire, then they phoned the stadium manager to come over and meet me, and he gave me an unplanned tour of the whole stadium, round the exec boxes, in to the changing rooms, showing me where Andrew Johns used to sit, and had an hour of great chat about the NRL, Warrington, Kurt Gidley, the Knights Grand Final wins, then I went back to the shop to pick up my gear and they let me have the discount usually applied to Knights members. What a great day and an unexpected and really generous gesture from the Knights staff.

Re: Random rugby stories. : Tue Mar 24, 2020 7:13 am  

My name is Dave South-Sydney-Rabbitoh but I wasn't successful in getting any preferential treatment from the club

I’ll get my coat......

Re: Random rugby stories. : Thu Mar 26, 2020 11:21 am  

Great stories!

Re: Random rugby stories. : Fri Mar 27, 2020 9:43 am  

About 25 years ago, I worked in a factory in Warrington with a fella who was a semi pro RL player as a prop. He was hard as nails but a belting bloke. His highest profile club was Huddersfield but spent most of his rugby career at clubs like Swinton. I used to be fascinated with his stories from inside the game.

He was telling me once about his next game against a club whose star player was a very nippy and elusive half back who was very good at squeezing through gaps and getting a ball away to supporting players. His coach had told everyone around the centre of the park who received the ball to run straight at this player forcing him into making the tackle. They did this for all the first half and well into the second, by which time he was knackered and unable to have any influence on the game. Bit like the tactic we used in the 2009 semi with Feka.

Another was when his club played one of the Cumbria clubs, Workington or Whitehaven. There had been a mass brawl the season before where an opposition player had punched him across the head from behind leading to them being dragged apart and his attacker being sent off. They were due to play for the first time since the incident the coming weekend and he was determined to get his revenge on the said player. His coach knew what was simmering and warned him about getting involved. On the Monday I asked him how the game went. He said that the player kept moving across the park to avoid him but late into the game he ran into the line with the ball and our fella took his chance to lay him out with an horrific forearm to the face, screaming at him on the floor ala Keane/Harland and walking off before the ref even got his red card out. Don't think he played for them after that.

He had a very low opinion of a coach who spent a couple of years at the Wire. He had played under this coach a few years earlier at a club in Yorkshire and had been frustrated at his lack of playing opportunities and had asked to see him in his office to discuss. He walked in, expressed his frustrations at the coach who had barely looked up from his paperwork. When he'd finished the coach reached in his pocket, pulled out 10p, tossed it to him and said "go and call someone who cares".

Re: Random rugby stories. : Sun Mar 29, 2020 11:07 am  

I have a mildly amusing RL tale to tell. It involves a chap, some of you may know, Phil Chadwick with whom I used to work. He was a trainer of the Wire in the 1980's...The Chad was the finest company anybody could keep and had a thousand and one tales to tell. One of those tales involved himself, Daryl van de Velde and Rocky Turner. The Wire were playing at Odsal and Rocky Turner was preparing a kick at goal. DVD sent The Chad on with the kicking tee along with instructions to pass on to Rocky a change of tactics....The Chad dashed on to the pitch but when he reached Rocky he'd completely forgotten what the instructions were. The Chad explained this to Rocky and told him to keep nodding his head as though the instructions were being told. The Chad whispered total gobble-de-gook in Rocky's ear and Rocky duly obliged by nodding his head as per requested. I've not seen the Chad for a number of years but he was the topmost bloke I've ever met.

Re: Random rugby stories. : Sun Mar 29, 2020 11:31 am  

Phil Chadwick stories are gold.

I remember there was one about when we played Cronulla Sharks in the World Club Championship 1997 where he greased up the ball before kick off and Briers kicked to Andrew Ettingshausen who dropped the kick-off and the evidence was rapidly removed while Ettingshausen went ranting to the referee.

Another when the patch of land that he used for training Wire players was ear marked for development so he went collecting newts to put in the pond on the land and then got the development blocked by the council on the grounds that it was a habitat for newts who were a protected species.

Think he was on one of those dirtbuster documentaries after he left us when he worked for the council's refuse collection department and then saw him in the Warrington Guardian a few times doing recycling campaigns. Lee Briers filmed a video of him a few years back working out....in his 60s and still built like granite.

Re: Random rugby stories. : Sun Mar 29, 2020 12:31 pm  

BrianBradyHandOff wrote: I have a mildly amusing RL tale to tell. It involves a chap, some of you may know, Phil Chadwick with whom I used to work. He was a trainer of the Wire in the 1980's...The Chad was the finest company anybody could keep and had a thousand and one tales to tell. One of those tales involved himself, Daryl van de Velde and Rocky Turner. The Wire were playing at Odsal and Rocky Turner was preparing a kick at goal. DVD sent The Chad on with the kicking tee along with instructions to pass on to Rocky a change of tactics....The Chad dashed on to the pitch but when he reached Rocky he'd completely forgotten what the instructions were. The Chad explained this to Rocky and told him to keep nodding his head as though the instructions were being told. The Chad whispered total gobble-de-gook in Rocky's ear and Rocky duly obliged by nodding his head as per requested. I've not seen the Chad for a number of years but he was the topmost bloke I've ever met. Epic Chaddy interview on Rugby AM :- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imBu0ozeOSM

BrianBradyHandOff wrote: I have a mildly amusing RL tale to tell. It involves a chap, some of you may know, Phil Chadwick with whom I used to work. He was a trainer of the Wire in the 1980's...The Chad was the finest company anybody could keep and had a thousand and one tales to tell. One of those tales involved himself, Daryl van de Velde and Rocky Turner. The Wire were playing at Odsal and Rocky Turner was preparing a kick at goal. DVD sent The Chad on with the kicking tee along with instructions to pass on to Rocky a change of tactics....The Chad dashed on to the pitch but when he reached Rocky he'd completely forgotten what the instructions were. The Chad explained this to Rocky and told him to keep nodding his head as though the instructions were being told. The Chad whispered total gobble-de-gook in Rocky's ear and Rocky duly obliged by nodding his head as per requested. I've not seen the Chad for a number of years but he was the topmost bloke I've ever met. Epic Chaddy interview on Rugby AM :- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imBu0ozeOSM