Saw about 9 of the games wally Lewis played in probably the best player I've ever seen along with bill ashurst both great players although different positions.I can remember going to the cas match and the cas fans shouting kill him kill him and one of the Wakey fans turned round and said kill him he's filled the effing ground for you.cas gave us a good hiding that day with ward , Joyner and co too good for us .also went to Leigh on New Year's Day when I think Nigel bell made is debut at scrum half to wally great times but still a struggling team.

I also went to that Leigh game, rover, when Belly made his debut. can you imagine the pride that Belly must have had playing alongside the acknowledged "Greatest player in the World". I remember Wally's debut also, Peter Sterling made his debut for Hull that day also. Two "Greats" on display on the same pitch on the same day. Alas Sterling's side were successful that day.



As for professionalism, we mustn't lose trace of the fact that Rugby League came about not as a means of earning a living but to cover the wages lost when players took time of their jobs in order to play The players of the day were miners, builders, labourers etc not from priviledged backgrounds like those that played "That other game".They couldn't afford to be out of pocket. I think there was as much commitment from players in the sixties and seventies as there is now.

Remember the Hull fans having a banner "No Wally's in our team".

I remember the home game against Oldham where took a real clout to the head which resulted in a cut to the forehead. He came back on to win us the game.

I can only comment from around 1988 onwards. I played junior RL for 2 local teams in Wakefield. Played RL for school (middle and high as it was then) represented Wakefield city schools at every age group from u11s upwards, along with a certain MR C. From this we were selected for Wakefield and district schools and the yorkshire schools and England rep schools. This was repeated for club levels as well. We were training and playing as juniors 7 days a week. No community teams were involved back in those days, however, we got invited by the districts and counties to goto training, in order to be selected for more representative teams. As club players we also got asked to attend city of excellence days at Wakefield Trinity where we got trained for the day in age groups. Our coaches were players like John Joyner, Tony Marchant and even a very young Alan Hunte and Chris Chester was there ! Many clubs used to hold open training days, I went along to one at Hunslet Hawks and was selected from there by a certain Steve Ferres and Roy Sampson playing numerous games in a day. I played for their academy for 3 years. We started playing games as curtain raisers for Hunslets main game. Bearing in mind summer rugby had just started. As a junior it was valuable experience as we all trained together at that time. Players at that time were Warren jowitt and Jamie Thackeray, along with Steve Pryce. Academy rugby was a good experience, huge learning curve, however, I ended up playing for an amateur team in Wakefield until I retired 5 years ago. The main issue I believe we have in recruiting young players is summer rugby. Young players from 11-16 participating in RL has declined by 40% in the last ten years. In my opinion summer rugby is to blame. Amateur club bs do not have the facilities pitch wise to accommodate harder grounds( hard grounds in winter make games to be called off). Summer is holiday season, good to watch rl but not to play it! Even professionals don’t like it! Why is the NRL still playing winter ? The rugby which is increasing participation is RU (hate to say) more money available at grass roots and still play in English wintertime.