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.

Rob Myler - good player - winger.
Moved to full back and made a promising start before getting wiped out by a late tackle on an up-and-under by some opposiiton thug (forward) with a very late shot.
Might have been Skerrett from Wigan.
Rob was never the same again and (i think) went to union - Worcester.

I always liked Rob. Underrated imo.

Michael Shenton.

A joy to watch with ball in hand. Very easy on the eye, a la Gleeson. Just a pity (for him and England) that he couldn't take his quality to the next level.

harsh to judge shenton on a short stint in this saints side....

I think he is a brilliant centre. Great defense and superb with the ball.

Based on his performances this season, I would welcome him to us with open arms.

Yes, i know he was still at the club at the dawn of SL but the full-time aspect was the key point. Being full or part time in itself isn't wholly the answer anyway, it's about being part of a club 24/7 which is utterly professional in everything it does and provides an environment for individuals to flourish. Unfortunately, Wires didn't provide that environment until well into the SL journey but I'd have loved to have seen Chris' developmnent had he signed in 2008 not 1988.

Phil Blake. His ability to chip a short ball over defenders (usually full backs) heads, and catch the ball was fantastic to watch.

oooh yes, paticularly impressive since he invariably lost one of his boots during the process.

Reckon he was past it by 08.

Allan Bateman. Came over with Kevin Ellis and Rowland Philips from the Wales RU international side as part of a big triple scoop for Wire. A great centre with amazing acceleration, pace and balance who could glide round opposing players. He was also an amazing tackler with perfect technique.

Allan was my hero and many years back when I worked at Morrisons behind the cooked chicken counter, I used to pack the bag with many different pieces of chicken and label it '2 wings' when I was working and when he came over. Looking back I think he was probably a bit embarrassed, but at the time I wanted to do my bit to show my appreciation for his performances and do my bit for the Wire by increasing the protein intake.