Gary Schofield received his Golden Boot from 1990 at the Albert Goldthorpe awards last Night.
well done.
the best reader of the game i ever saw and the most gifted footballer equal will Wally Lewis for me.
thing he his in with a shout for the award from 1992 as well. all though i thing Bradley Clyde might just edge it.

Absolutely top quality player – a well deserved award

Never good enough for Wigan to want him, most bitter man in Rugby League.

Very ungracious. He was a top quality player who deserves to be recognised for his playing achievements and not what he has done for the last decade

Unfortuately 10 years of talking gibberish and behaving like an egomaniac means many people will not remember him primarily for his playing ability. Indeed, many people who never saw him play simply view him, rightly or wrongly, as a crackpot.

Personally speaking, I saw him play and do consider him to be very bitter - not just against Wigan, but against many people and clubs in the game.

He was never bitter against Wigan, Wigan offered him a huge wage but he turned it down to stay with his home town team. He's more bitter about the fact he thinks Leeds didn't reward that loyalty

Cool. He will be able to place it alongside his Yorkshire Cup winners medal.

Or he can melt it down and use it to help his transformation into Jimmy Saville.

Didnt do much in the coaching department

Rubbish.

Brilliant player, absolutely top drawer. Unfortunately, also a top drawer A-hole.

In that case, it's probably that he's bitter about himself, then. Wigan would have paid him a huge sum of money (so he wouldn't be skint now) and would have whipped him into shape.

Big Fat Garry Schofield might never have been, in other words.

Great competitor. I remember his four tries against the Kiwis at Wigoon which is still one of the most memorable games of my youth. Also I seem to remember him scoring a couple of 90m interceptions or similar against Bradford in the cup. Is that right? I think one of them was try of the season.

Each to their own opinion. For me a pretty good player but not at all a great one. Not anywhere near the best British player of his era let alone in the history of the game.

Tony Myler was miles better.

eh?

If he'd have gone to Wigan they'd have got him into such great shape that he'd not have got fat when he stopped playing...

...how'd that work out for Andy Gregory?

Wouldn't have even got picked for Wigan. Golden boot 1991 my anus! Does anyone really think that Wigan would have dropped Gregory or Edwards for fat Gary back then?

Yes. I'd take Schofield over Edwards any day and don't you think you're being a bit unfair insulting Schofield's physique without mentioning Andy Gregory or his drinking problem? Or perhaps you think that they deserve a bit more respect and it was a slip of the typing finger.

Maybe on his day, however he was just a bit too injury prone to propel himself into the upper echelons. Very similar situation with what we had at Saints when comparing half backs with Martyn and Long. Martyn may have been the most skillful but injuries stopped us seeing him frequently at his best whereas Long managed to stay away from the knee injuries and built himself a more impressive career despite his obvious limitations. I'd pick Long over Martyn even with Martyn's superior rugby brain.

Garry wasn't fat back then.

And anyone who would pick Edwards over Schofield around that time doesn't know much about Rugby.

Yes, I really think that. I was stood on the terraces of Central Park in that era, Garry Schofield was many times better than Edwards

For me, Schofield in his prime was one of the top players in the world and alongside the likes of Newlove, Hanley and Ward was as good as anything that the Aussies could offer in an era when they were absolutely dominating the international scene

Edwards's performances at test level weren't in the same league as Schofield's.

Schofield does deserve the Golden Boot for that year. Thought Wigan offered him a deal but Leeds offered a better one. So he stayed which is fair enough.

Schofield's performances at domestic level weren't in the same league as Edwards's.

Pretty broad statement that one

Edwards was a good player in a very very good Wigan side that dominated the domestic scene. It’s quite difficult in those situations to extract the player from the team when measuring quality

What is a good indication is the that Schofield went down under to play for Balmain and then Wests for three seasons and was hugely successful whereas when Edwards went to Balmain he struggled to make an impression

As I have said earlier in this thread, I watched Wigan week in week out throughout the mid to late 80’s and 90’s and there is no way that Edwards was in the same class as Schofield

Schoey and Edwards were different sorts of players though. As he said in his 'Supermen' interview, he was a loose cannon, who thrived off his individual skills and off-the-cuff plays, whereas Edwards was a distributor and organiser, and a born winner and team motivator. The only similarity was they they were both lethal support players.

Both great players in their own ways.