Who is this directed at?

He was a quality player for us, we should have signed him up, but with 20/20 hindsight, it was actually a good deal as other players came along, like prescott and Newlove.

People who want someone to blame for Connolly leaving should blame the board of the time. They wanted the transfer fee money and he was essentially sold while in Aus. Remember this is pre bosman so the power was most certainly with the clubs not the players.

Saints needed the money and sold him, that's what I've always been told.

The sad thing was instead of just saying that the board decided to make Gary a St Helens lad a villain.

People point to the fact he got a big pay rise... so what, he was told he was being sold to at the time the best team in the country and he negotiated a nice deal for himself, I fail to see the problem with that.

SOme people seem to think this is a profesionel game or something

If you remenber we got in trouble over Adrian Shelford. One of the Directors signed him on the back of a fag packet and the Connolly money paid some court costs

Thought the Andy Platt transfer paid for the Shelford affair?Maybe the Connolly money was for something else.
Ahh the Saints board of the 1980s,never a dull moment!

Platt monies were to cover the "Shelford Affair". Those were the days a massive board made up of the
great and not so good business men of St.Helens with Geoff Sutcliffe as what would now be Chief Exec.

Murphy (coach at the time) claimed that the saints board had a signed contract from Shelford in the club safe.

Remember reading the Echo reporting of the High Court Case in Liverpool with the judge describing
the Saints director responsible for signing Shelford as a "most unreliable witness". Ironically the Saints
director was a sitting magistrate in StHelens at the time.
Saints were left with costs of £140Kish. Platt was sold to Wigan for £140K.

Also remember going to Naughton Park for a pre season friendly and a flag being unfurled "Splash Out or Get Out" in front of the saints directors in the away directors box to endless chants throughout the match of "Sack the Board".

Think they sold Paul Round when he was on holiday Connolly was similar.

Happy Days.

Hands up I was involved in that along with a certain Steve Ganson and our local ' Saints' press reporter.

The saints board at the time was not the worlds most professional, however, the fact they actually sold players to balance the books was far better than the Wigan board who bankrupted their club to buy the likes of Connolly.

It's not selling players that that was the problem it was the sneaky way in which they did business. The Goon board is a different kettle of fish , they were reckless but I suspect had the right intentions

years to wait before we stepped out of that smelly, rancid, retard-accented shadow and took Super League and summer rugby by storm.

Just a pity we've been on the decline again since Anderson left.

On Super League Supermen he gave the full account of the transfer to Wigan:

He was in Australia and then got told he was getting sold to Wigan he then told them he would play for Saints for half the money Wigan offered him. But they sold him to get a fee.

I was told that years ago, he didnt really want to leave but as Th'ump said he was offered a pathetic contract by Saints.

- like Gaskell allegedly (£12K).

I really wish I hadn't read that, Ganson's actually gone up in my estimation

Hence why St Helens fans attacks on an innocent player have been nothing short of contemptable.

To a previous poster, your Wigan history is totally incorrect.

You should be grateful for Wigan throwing your club a lifeline.

Whilst the stick Connolly got was a bit over the top, you should remember the abuse Sean Long suffered for years and years off Wigan fans before throwing stones in glasshouses.

And that wasn't even a direct transfer between the clubs.

I don't know the ins and outs but lets face it he has had a couple of decades to concoct a good story!

Lol , actually a decent lad Ste and he was a home and away regular at that point.

I know for a fact that Gaskell is on much better than that.

He told me that exact story when having a beer with him after the Wigan heritage day in 2011 when I'd been in the exec box and managed to get into the players bar.

At the end of season dinner a few weeks later, he remembered I'd bought him a pint at last orders and bought me one back

You have to remember that Wigan were a lot more professional in every sense than Saints in those days, not just in monetary terms. I remember the likes of Andy Platt and Paul Loughlin hanging around the town centre with nothing to do, Saints were the happy amateurs who could beat Wigan every so often but not consistently. To improve yourself you were looking for a move to Wigan.

I reckon that Paul Loughlin could have been a absolute world class centre if he had been handled correctly, he was a good un, imagine how good he would have been if he took it seriously. Similarly Andy Platt wouldn't have scaled the heights if he had stayed at Saints.

People often underestimate the impact of a professional full time environment on players. Connolly and other players visibly bulked up shortly after joining wigan for starters

that said player like Andy Platt used to take there own fitness and conditioning seriously despite the lack of direction from the club