Past or present, any team.

Jonathan Davies, I was a young lad when I saw JD in the p&b, he was the player I wanted to be, I was a quick winger myself not a full back, I was 100m runner in the athletics team and I always imagined myself stepping players and flying past them.

Why does he ruin my memories with his drone?

He is still a Wire deep down.
I picked him up along with Clarke Balding one time.
I asked Jiffy the question are you a Wire? Clare chirped up, "You bet he is, the trouble we have trying to get him to calm himself and remain neutral. We have to remind him every time we're doing a Warrington game!"
I always think of that when he commentates on our games, droning or not Yed.
In 2009 it almost killed him trying to restrict his emotions and Dave Woods touched upon it too. Jiffy couldn't hide a Cheshire cat grin in post match chat after the game.
He is a full blown Wire.

I'd like to talk about Mark Roberts, but

he's got an injunction on me mentioning him, and Mrs Goldblatt gets very jealous. DAMN.

Instead, I'll do one on Gareth Hock.

HE'S A WHOPPER. END OF.

I'd like some people's views on Andy Gregory.

Fine player, whoever he played for.

You'd find some strange spellings though, to bypass the swear filter

We already had a lengthy topic about him a few months back. I don't think anymore could be added to what was said. I don't know how to filter, sorry.

Neil Turley. Lower division points machine.

Wigan Academy fullback, unlikely to get a game because of Radlinski. Joined Leigh when he was about 20 and scored 55 tries in his debut season, world record for a fullback. He also got called up for that Lancashire v Yorkshire Origin game and scored a try in it.

That year there was a lot of hype about Turley and he was linked with a few SL clubs. He was fast and a great runner from fullback and he was also a good goalkicker, although he was unproven at SL level, you had to say he would be worth looking at.

Early the next season we were in relegation trouble, Steve Anderson moved upstairs and the board (ie probably Simon Moran) announced that new head coach David Plange would have some money to spend. Plange said he hoped to secure a 'major signing'. Turley was the target, but he ended up turning us down.

The story I heard about this was that Warrington had concluded the deal, and then Turley came back and asked for more money, and this pattern repeated itself a couple of times till we called the deal off. Possibly Turley didn't really want to join us, as we were a struggling club and he was just testing the water hoping other SL clubs came in for him.

However that could have been Turley's big chance for Super League, the other clubs didn't come in. Leigh had to contend with first Huddersfield and then Salford dropping down and being full-time, and although Turley continued to amass points at a prolific rate, he never got the call from an SL team. Eventually a few years later, Leigh got promoted and he played in SL, but he played in a weak Leigh team that was never really a contender. Also Turley by then was struggling with injuries which ultimately ended his career when he was only 26.

Did he make a bad decision when he was in talks with us? Could he have made it in SL? I remember the word at the time on why other clubs didn't go in for him was that at Wigan he'd been thought of as a talent but that was too brittle and potentially injury prone, which ended up being right. But he certainly had some ability and in a brief career albeit at the lower levels largely you have to say he achieved a lot and will be regarded as a legend in Leigh.

The postscript for us was that when the Turley deal didn't happen, we turned to another target for our 'big signing'. Wakefield centre Ben Westwood. A few eyebrows were raised at the time when we paid a biggish fee for him, people said we'd signed the wrong one and should have looked at their other young centre Gareth Ellis. Westwood looked a bit slow for a centre and Plange's quote to the media that we had signed the "next Keith Senior" looked unlikely over the next two and a half years where he was used as a centre or winger.

Then Cullen used him as a fill in in the pack and he never looked back. How history could have been different, if we had signed Neil Turley instead of Ben Westwood.

Crikey Lefty what did you do to get that.
I would say that I remember Mark being a terrific 2nd rower with good pace playing in a good side. Left the area for a spell and never really saw much of him on my return.

After Les Boyd, two of my favorites were Des Drummond and John Woods, shame we didn't get them earlier in their careers although both provided fantastic moments.

Chris Rudd. Not my favourite ever Wires player, not the best or well known, but a good example of a fine player born a few years too early, and who missed out on the SL and full-time gravy train.

Chris signed for us from Kells and was immediately burdened with the tag "the new John Woods". Tagging anyone "the new ..." is lazy and unfair, but comparing anyone to John Woods is a RL career millstone.

Nonetheless, Chris developed into a very elegant, tall, pacy, classic centre with a good pair of hands. I recall one home game at Wilderspool V Halifax whden Chris & Greg Mackey comined to totally dismantle 'Fax, with Ruddy getting on the end of a variety of kicks and ripping through the defence like a forest fire.

Chris had a good but demanding job with BNFL and this, perhaps, is one reason why he never achieved his potential. However, he is one player in particular from that era I would have dearly loved to see under full-time tutorage and training. He had an array of skills that puts most modern centres to shame and remains an untapped seam of quality from our recent past.

Neil Turley played for Leigh Rangers as an amateur, I played in the same age group, he was a gangly lad with a running style similar to carlton palmer. Before kicking tees were the rage he used to kick off a massive amount of sand. The rugby lads used to joke about it being the second biggest peak behind Rivington in our service area.

Frank Reynolds. Classy centre signed from Welsh RU in early 19070s in the days when Wire were first raiding 'the valleys'. Great defender, lovely mover in attack, always seemed to miss the few finals we got to in those days through injury ( inc 1974 Challenge Cup Final ). A great player, nonetheless, wish we had a centre of his class today.

Mark Roberts. One of the best running back rowers to wear P&B but injury prone.

Mike Kelly,the nicest bloke I ever met in Rugby league..

In fact today i was reminded of the time he told us in the changing rooms that the day before Parry Gordons wedding, Mike and Parry went scrumping Apples. It always makes me smile when I remember that story.

One of my favourite playing memories was John bevan giving him a forward pass at headingly right in front of us on the north stand wall on the ten metre line. Mike went the full length oblivious to the refs call. He put the ball down and turned round, then realised it wouldn't count, just shrugged his shoulders and smiled, John bevan was just stood there laughing and shaking his head.

He played in the side that beat the Aussie touring side as well so he'll always be a bit of a legend for that.

A lovely bloke im not sure we honoured his sad passing enough.

John Bevan. For any young lad following the Wire in the 70's, Bevan was an absolute God - I was still in my primary school days and just getting into supporting Wire... Me, my brothers and my dad would travel all over watching the side and, for me, Bevan was a hero, a Roy of The Rovers figure.

He was a superb athlete. Big, strong and fast, with the best sidestep I've ever seen, he could seemingly do anything, scoring great match winning tries, often followed by his trademark fist in the air salute, sometimes even doing it before he even grounded the ball.

I know people often talk on here about players from the pre-SL era that we would love to see in today's professional environment, well Bevan is one player who would be an absolute monster in today's game.... There isn't a winger (or even a centre) around today in SL who would be better than John Bevan.

I recall Westwood being part of a double player spend along with Nat Wood??

When I first started watching Wires, aged 8, for the first few months I assumed that John Bevan & Brian Bevan were related. I was amazed that people so physically different could both share the same DNA, try-scoring panache and devotion to the P&B. I can't remember who put me right on the matter, but I bet they were losing bladder control whilst they did it. Have I mentioned I was only 8?

When I was a kid we had a welsh stand off called Ray Price who we bought from Belle Vue Rangers. Along with Gerry Helme he formed one of the best half back pairs I have seen. He wasn't that big but one of the strongest, hardest players I have ever seen. I saw him stop Alan Prescott the Saints and GB prop in his tracks with one arm.
At that time Saints were a team of wounders and psychopaths and we never finished with thirteen men when we played them. Someone always got carried off. They were more like wars of attrition than RL games. Ray price came into his own on these occasions and repeatedly leathered Duggie Greenall one of their psychopaths and hard men who even his Saints colleagues said was a nutter.
They got so fed up with Ray that, in 1956, they bought him off us.
I remember being devastated at the time because, I might have mentioned , I hate Saints. Looking back though he was coming to the end of his career and we had signed 16 year old Jack Edwards another Wire great.

Before my time, but, great post. I can almost smell the liniment

Correct, Nat Wood signed at the same time. This caused a bit of bitterness from the Wakefield fans, the Wood bit more than Westwood, as he had started the season looking pretty good and selling him to a relegation rival was controversial.

If I remember correctly, Wakefield were in a fair bit of financial trouble at the time and so they needed the fees they collected from these players (bear in mind Nat Wood had effectively signed on a free transfer for them a few months before so they made a nice profit on him), but they played it out in public as though Warrington had done something below board by making illegal approaches, probably to appease criticism from their fans. It was noticeable that they didn't actually take legal action against Warrington though....

You do realise that Chris actually played the first 4 seasons of super league for us ?


Actually that's slightly off, he played the first 3 as a part time player, and IN 99 he went full time and suffered some sort of bad injury and didn't figure for us that year

Warrington signed Westwood on the basis of Nathan Woods personal recommendation. They hadn't shown any interest until that point.

Chris hicks . Hatrick in the 2010 final. I predicted that he would score 3 tries and Briers would get MOM(on this very board)....
Should of put a lottery on.

Not my favourite player, but when he first broke through you could feel the excitement when the ball went near him. Toa Kohe Love just had an aura about in, and was well before his time. In his first stint with the club, the way he could delay catching the ball, and step of either foot to skip back inside a ball watching defender was just brilliant, something that Matt Gidley and Martin Gleeson were experts at, but in '96 it was unseen and he could tear teams to bits. Really kicked on in 1998 and scored a bucket full.

When he left, he showed class and respect. Always saluted the Warrington crowd but not so much to offend the Hull fans.

Came back and while he didn't set the world alight , he contributed plenty. Considering everytime we got into decent field position we went right to Swann, Gleeson and Fa'afili.

Not my favourite player, but when he first broke through you could feel the excitement when the ball went near him. Toa Kohe Love just had an aura about in, and was well before his time. In his first stint with the club, the way he could delay catching the ball, and step of either foot to skip back inside a ball watching defender was just brilliant, something that Matt Gidley and Martin Gleeson were experts at, but in '96 it was unseen and he could tear teams to bits. Really kicked on in 1998 and scored a bucket full.

When he left, he showed class and respect. Always saluted the Warrington crowd but not so much to offend the Hull fans.

Came back and while he didn't set the world alight , he contributed plenty. Considering everytime we got into decent field position we went right to Swann, Gleeson and Fa'afili.

I remember watching a Wire v Saints game in the Oak Tree in Newton-l-w and shouting out, completely oblivious 'Go on Love" after he made a half break, I was getting wolf whistles for the rest of the game and camp mocking.