8 if your being precise. But I did/do own a wonderful device called a Video Player/Recorder.......some of the games I recorded featured him and I occasionally watch them from time to time. I have no prejudices against players unless they are damn right dirty. Unfortunately Sampson was back then, had his great moments but then messed it up with unnecessary dirty play. Aww you've just ruined Christmas

I assume you held the same limited views over Karl Fairbank, Jimmy Lowes & Kelvin Skerrett after watching those videos?

Karl was never dirty, just misunderstood..mind you, in his day there were many more misunderstood players about..

I had the misfortune to come up against Karl & 3 of his brothers when they all played for Elland. I think they missed the H off the front of that town.

Not a B?

Hope you didn't do anything to wind them up? Though no, silly question, you obviously didn't...

I would have suggested that to them, but it might have made them even angrier.

Never saw Skerrett play. Hardly saw any of Fairbank but from what I saw he was more of a hardcase than a dirty ......more of a Radford than a Ryan Bailey.

Jimmy was a dirty little git, the difference is he actually had class......

Ah, I see you limited your education to the Classy Cas teams of the 80s & 90s, rather than the dour Northern & Bulls teams, sensible. Was this part of the curriculum?

Type "Yorkshire Cup Final" into Youtube for some great Northern vs Cas action.

Your typo corrected.

Pffft! Cas could only beat us when half our pack was missing.

Ah Kelvin Skerret, I remember him welcoming a young Leon Pryce to SL at Odsal by grabbing his nadgers and giving a good squeeze, Leon yelled out in agony but no one on the field took a blind bit of notice, not his Team Mates nor the Officials, I think probably this incident was reponsible for his own indiscretions of a similar nature when at Stains!

Ah, Classy Cas - Hardisty and Hepworth are the two words which epitomise 'Classy Cas' for me, they were class personified. For the record I wouldn't really put Diesel down as [iexactly[/i classy, but he was a cracking prop who played the game as it was meant to be played. Dirty? Nah, hard, tough and uncompromising but not dirty.

Exactly. I fear that in today's sanitised world where faux hysteria is all, generated by a pair of clueless Murdoch muppets, he wouldn't last 2 minutes.

The 1973 Fev Cup team that spanked us. No surprise, a very decent team. Was a b&W image so the colouring effort is mine.

That is one scary team & I don't mean the photo.

Have you really just coloured a photo in?


Hope you not billing some poor client for that...

Some old favourites here. I always liked Bill Pattinson - think we signed him from Workington. To see how the game has changed since those days have a search for "Billy Pattinson Workington" on the usual site.

In those days you didn't have to wait till November to see some dodgy facial hair!

I went to a game at Featherstone last season and can report the town is still black and white - the european grant for colour regeneration was all used up on Grimthorpe

If you think Bailey is more of a "dirty lover" than ANY Rugby League forward of the 80s, let alone Karl Fairbank, then you're watching the game wrong.

By the way, from the original photograph, Mike Lamb used to teach me geography and PE. A good man, died very young, sadly.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeell the posh name for it is "image processing" but, er, yes I suppose ultimately I did!

Ryan Bailey has been mentioned a couple of times but really he would have been eaten alive by the likes for Konkrete, Len Casey, Geoff Grayshon etc etc. No room (or protection) for the cheap shot merchants in those days.

That "spanking" was the first RL game I ever went to. I remember it well. . . .

Albert Fearnley walking down the touchline to the dug out with two bottles of Websters in his hand.

Lord Peter of Fox looking . . . . . as the Great man can only look



Bitten on day one. Converted to The Greatest Game for life.

John Newlove would be Paul's Dad.