One head scratcher for me looking at our three-quarter line up at Dewsbury over the years has been the versatility factor; wingers and centres seem to have been able to swap roles with regularity over the years.
Prior to the introduction of squad numbers, it is a fact that numbers two to five have been quite interchangeable!
With regard to number four – left centre – I am going to start with Nigel Stephenson.
A few weeks ago I did a feature on Nigel, so I don’t want to repeat that, but how classy was Nigel?
Three times a Rugby League Champion – twice with Bradford Northern but more importantly once with Dewsbury in 1973.
He represented England against Australia and was a regular in the Yorkshire team in the days of the much missed County Championship.
Significantly, he still holds the record for goals in a career at Dewsbury – an incredible figure of 863.
Nigel wore the No 4 shirt at Odsal on that incredible day when we beat Leeds to become Champions.
So what about other icons to star at centre ?
I recall Willie Walker when I first started to climb the hill to Crown Flatt. I also recall the classy Brian Firth.
Many years later, when I took up refereeing, I came across Brian when he was involved in coaching the Westgate Common amateur club in Wakefield.
What about John Hegarty – a Scotsman who hailed from Hawick on the borders? He also played for Wakefield Trinity.
In more recent eras we have enjoyed the services of plenty who have been worthy successors to the jersey.
A good local lad who is much loved on both sides of the valley is Danny Maun.
Danny started his professional career at Wigan before playing his trade at our rivals Batley.
He left the Mount to play for Featherstone Rovers before eventually seeing sense and coming to The Tetley’s Stadium to play in Red, Amber & Black!
He is still on the playing roster at Dewsbury Moor Maroons and is back at Batley in a backroom role.
He even came out of retirement from the professional game to play for Batley in Toronto back in 2019!
In our seasons as top dogs in the Northen Ford Premiership years we had guys like Brett Patterson and Paul Evans.
Paul Evans had an incredible pedigree, having played for Cronulla Sharks and Western Reds in Australia.
He also played for Paris St Germain during the launch of Super League.
An interesting character was Kane Epati, who came to us from Doncaster.
Kane was born in Samoa and represented his birth nation in Rugby Union before later playing for the Cook Islands at Rugby League.
He had also played Rugby League for Hull KR and Rugby Union for French giants Castres.
In the era when Andy Kelly was our coach we had the classy Chris Hall – another dual-code player.
Chris played union for Morley, Leeds Tykes and Sedgeley Park, and prior to coming to The Tetley’s Stadium he had played League for Hunslet.
A regular question of mine is who played in the shirt in the last ever game at Crown Flatt?
Number four on that historic day was Lee Hughes.
Lee is a Castleford lad who, over many years, has been involved with the Lock Lane club in the National Conference League.
I have spotted him round Cas Vegas a few times and he doesn’t look much different to his playing days !
So on to the current incumbent – Matt Fleming – a great signing in the close season.
In 2019 Matt appeared 13 times in Super League for London Broncos, scoring six tries in a team that were desperately unfortunate to be relegated.
He had also appeared previously in the top flight for St Helens, making his debut for Saints against Leeds Rhinos at Headingley.
Whilst at The Totally Wicked Stadium he also appeared in the colours of Leigh Centurions on loan.
Away from shirt numbers, one thing I have been doing in these strange times is keeping a regular look at what we should all have been doing.
This first weekend in July we would have been at The Tetley’s Stadium watching our lads take on Swinton Lions – wow, I am missing it!
