Keep the names coming folks, looks like it's going to be a hard task selecting the 8 nominees, let alone the final 2

Don't forget to vote on the fullback thread if you haven't already

Surprised no one has mentioned Tevita. I know he played for us at the lower level, but it was fun while it lasted.

Kevin James snapped his Achilles 3 times,that ended his FC career.

Mainly played centre while at Hull.

Super winger, who only started playing league when he was about 30 and became one of the best wingers in SL. If he signed for Hull or another RL team when he was 18, god knows how good he could have been.

We certainly made a big mistake not keeping him.

Another very good winger back in the 40's and 50's was an Aussie called Keith Gittoes who played on the other wing to Bruce Ryan. Below are extracts from an article he wrote a couple of years ago in Australia about memories of his Hull days.

" I played for Hull from 1948-1952 and 1956-57.

When I arrived in Hull in Sept.1948 George Watt was club captain and he came to Hull with Bruce Ryan in early 1947 after playing for Australia against Great Britain in 1946. He was a great hooker.

Also with Hull in 1948 were the great Hull stalwarts Freddie Miller and Charlie Booth who both played for England pre-war. Freddie Miller is probably the best kicker of a football I've ever seen. I'll never forget his attempt at a field goal at Batley,from his own 25 yard line which passed by the right upright with plenty of height.

It was with players of the quality of John Whiteley, Colin Hutton, Ivor Watts, Mick Scott, Tommy Harris, Bryan Cooper, Bernard Conway,the Drake boys, that Hull started to make its presence felt.

I have great memories of my time in England and every day I give a thought to Cec(Dickie) Fifield who signed me up for Hull."

The one against Fev was bad either .

Best & Sullivan get my vote .

I would go for Sullivan and Best.

Next choices would be from Prendiville, O'Hara, Firth, Eastwood and Solal.

I feel sorry for Eastwood in a way being overshadowed by so many other classy wingers and if you look at his statistics he remained in the top 10 of try, goal and points scorers - nationally - for years after he finished playing.

Another goal scoring winger worthy of consideration is Matt Crowther, career finished early by injury.

Patrick solal. Are you having a laugh.

On the subject of wingers a guy called Brian Darlington is listed as playing from 1955-1959 but I can find little information about him. He was a sub even time sprinter who was gym master at my high school for the final 2 years I was there. I did watch him play then but can find little on him in searches. Anybody else remember him or can shed more light?

Is this a comment on my suggestion or the poster who mentioned "Solleil" earlier?

Your nominations are?

In no particular order
Bruce Ryan 59 tries in 84 app, try every 1.43 games
Alf Francis Hulls other pre WWI winger 166 in 247, 1 in 1.49
W Stone 149 in 222, 1 in 1.49
J. Harrison 91 in 101 (FC 150 website shows 101 in 106, these extra 1915 games are not recognised by the RL Record Keepers Club nor the RFL as to be included in official stats. 1 in 1.11 (or 1.05 for the 101 tries)
C. Sullivan 250 in 352, 1 in 1.41

Firstly there's no place for sentimentality,
I. Watts (214/413/1.93) great servant, great winger, brave & on the scoresheet plenty but just not the very very best.
Super Taff (98/215/2.2) weakish defense (okay he was 11st wet through), best step in the business and a decent touch finding boot, just couldn't do it at the top level enough.
Briscoe (90/147/1.63) whilst a beast in attack again frail defensively far too often and positionally STILL naive., amazing try scoring considering he had Yeaman inside of him!
Raynor (106/199/1.8icon_cool.gif, all the skills and I'd have nominated him but can we have a convicted felon on the list?
O'Hara (110/232/2.11), pace to burn, real quality, scored tries aplenty early on for us but just a little short in the very highest company
Best (41/63/1.53), no thanks, again too weak defensively for my liking and always looked off the boil despite his great pace and finishing, he had R.Barnett inside of him, how couldn't you score!
Eastwood (118/293/2.4icon_cool.gif discount his goal scoring & points haul, as a winger he was very good but not top 10 material

I can only give you the stats
Debut 7/4/56 against Wakefield at home.
Scored 11 tries in 21 appearances

O'Hara
Taffy

Only saw Sullivan in the 82 replay so difficult to say how good he was though possibly the best. Best not in the same league as the two ive mentioned imo

Well it is hard to pass to yourself.



Actually I find this a good well argued list. Regarding Raynor, though he obviously will never win any citizen of the year awards, should that count against his actual playing performance? After all if you were picking the best British player of the last 30 years would the most obvious candidate be excluded for their extra curricular activities?

OOps, probably would have scored more passing to himself though..lmao.

I was really debating as to include Raynor, on all round ability he really is up there with the best, very quick if not lightning pace, strong, good D, decent in the air, just think he let himself down a few times attitude wise but you could say that about any player. He does get an extra mark in the plus column for tw@atting rat boy tomkins in the Bradford Wigan CC game a while back, didn't hit him hard enough if I'm honest..lol (even tho I think it was a genuine attempt to dislodge the ball

)

Yeah, the crab was definitely one of your best wingers, as a fan of an opposing team.

Thanks for that. Although very fit and a speedster he was very lightly built and was not as strong defensively as the other right wingers of that great period viz: Keith Bowman and Stan Cowan. Ivor Watts of course ruled the roost on the left and pound for pound and inch for inch was one of the the best tackling wingers I have ever seen. Whether it was Billy Boston, Wilf Rosenburg, Lionel Cooper or Tom Van Vollenhoven little Ivor could handle them all. Brian Bevan did give him a few tricky moments though!

i'll sort out the list of nominees tomorrow, so if you think of any more candidates, get them in

Do you not think you should keep it to 6 nominees..8 is too many and would slant the voting against the less obvious choices..(fewer votes due to votes being spread over more players)
TBH it's a foregone conclusion in any case

ok we'll go with 6 and see how it goes

OK here is the list of nominees. As before i have tried to go with the flow of the thread but the list of nominees is not intended to be the final one. if you feel a player should make the list or be removed please speak up, but remember you must fight your corner and give some good reasons. i would like to make clear at this point that players are to be included on playing ability and sporting achievement only, and off field activities shouldn't come into play unless connected with issues that impinge on performance (i'm talking substance use here). i know this might be controversial and arguments and scenarios can be presented in either way, but a line in the sand needs to be drawn before we get too far into team selection. That said if there is a large majority who feel the other way (ooeer missus), i'll change it.

so without any more ado

1. Jack Harrison VC. Leaving his war heroics on one side, Harrison had a remarkable FC career. He signed from York in 1912 and went on to score 106 tries in 116 games. in 1913/14 Harrison scored 52 tries in one season, a club record which still stands. Harrison was denied further glory by his call to arms in 1916, and also international honours as the great war prevented GB going on tour to Australia

2. Bruce Ryan. The Australian was the supreme entertainer of his day, and his signing in 1947 was a huge coup for a club in somewhat of a rut at the time. Such was the interest in his signing he was met by a crowd of 4000 at Paragon station. Ryan, a champion sprinter, went on to score 60 tries in 84 games from 1947 to 1950, before going on to perform similar feats for some small club in west yorks i've forgotten the name of

3. Ivor Watts. Hailing from the Welsh valleys, Watts is second on Hull's all time try scoring list with 216 in 413 games. he had a long career running from 1945 to 1960. his last game was in the challenge cup final when Hull lost to Wakefield 5 - 38

4. Clive Sullivan MBE. FC seem to find excellent welsh wingers and Sullivan was no exception. the Cardiffian is hull's all time record try scorer with 250, scored in just 352 games. he also hold the record for tries in a game with 7. his career spanned 1961 to 1973, with a further short spell in 1982 when he played in Hull's challenge cup final replay victory over Widnes. Sullivan also played 17 times for GB winning the world cup, and 15 times for Wales. he was also the first black captain of any major British sporting team, and is one of a select number of FC players to be awarded an MBE.

5. Dane O'Hara. O'Hara was one of 3 major imports signed off the back of the 1981 kiwi tour of the UK. the right winger had a long and successful FC career winning most major trophies and scored 110 tries in 232 games. he holds the record as Hull's longest serving overseas player, representing the club from 1981 to 1990. he also won 36 New Zealand test caps scoring 15 tries.

6. Gareth Raynor. Raynor signed for Hull as something of an unknown quantity from Leeds in 2001, but soon became a favourite on the left wing. he played for the club from 2001 to 2009 broken only with a short spell in rugby union for Leicester Tigers. he scored 101 tries in 185 games winning the challenge cup in 2005, scoring a try in the final. he also won 3 caps for Great Britian, scoring the winning try in the Sydney tri nations game in 2006

so there we go. a very strong list spanning many eras of FC's history. i'll leave this thread for a few days for comments on the nominees, and then create the voting thread once the list is finalised (please also point out any errors i may have made in the brief biogs above)

Raynor?

Good winger but wouldn't even make my best team of the Superleague era. Not as good as Briscoe imo and well behind Best.

Watts in front of Francis or Stone? whilst I understand it's hard to put players in that 0% of fans have any living memory of scoring ratio is a pretty good indicator of ability. Stone particularly..he was way ahead of his contemporary's, started in the centres alternating to wing. great passer, great step, tenacious tackler and a GB winger that held the record for most tries on a tour down under for years 24 in 17 games) and had only switched codes 6 months previously. Had it not being for back problems that curtailed him to only 6 seasons and early retirement he would have surpassed Sullivan's tally imo.
For me Stone has to be in front of Watts both on all around ability, try scoring record and representative stats too.

Behind Best..oh come on..Best had some talent but was one dimensional and couldn't defend for . plenty of pace and a big lump but not a chance. id say briscoe due to his consistently poor positioning and dropsies brings him back to just a hair behind Raynor. Raynor had bags of ability, plenty in attack (not as much as Briscoe) but was much better in the air on D and his positioning as a winger far superior both in attack and defence. IMO of course.