A guy who was MOS and England international just a few years ago to now not lasting more than few months at a Championship club.....no thanks. Both Cas and Salford look better TEAMS since he departed even if he could give you a few fancy showboat passes.

Pah!

I never bought into any of the hype surrounding Ryan Bailey. He was neither particularly dirty nor TMFMISL. He was merely a product of an unspectacular SL era of sanitised mediocrity.

Craig Izzard put in more hits and threw more meaningful punches in just one home game against Widnes than Ryan Bailey did throughout his entire career.

Remember that game, I thought Izzard was going to put Joe Grima in the South Stand at one point !! Bailey is a pussycat, no comparison with him and the Leeds and fearsome Widnes packs back in the day

fair comment, but todays players wouldn't get away with that if they tried it on with all the cameras etc.., you would be looking at double figure match bans for some of the head cases back then if they were running around doing what they did now

well yes that is true enough. I think most of us,if we are been honest,would love a return to the ' old days' . I'm not condoning out and out thuggery, but that Widnes pack scared the living daylights out of me and I was in the safety of the Southstand ! Tamati,Sorensen, Grima,Koloto etc. I feel today's game is a pale imitation and after nearly 50 years watching the game I am gradually losing interest sadly

NRL is so annoying with it at the minute, running in from 30 yards away...to grab someone's shirt or ruffle their hair.

Bailey was a solid prop who did his carries and his defence and had a knack of winning penalties in the tackle. He also managed to stay relatively fit - which as we are now seeing is a real benefit. All the other stuff around him was at best silly, at worst, well you know the word.

yep.I was watching a re run of the Roger Millward SL superstars last night and he was talking about how in the 1980 Cup final at wembley he was whacked off of the ball early on and broke his jaw, it showed the footage and the Hull player absolutely blatantly wiped him out but got nothing but a ticking off and Hull KR penalty! if that happened today it would have been Ben Flower territory. unbelievably Millward played on. In one respect, more exposure has at least wiped out a lot of that kind of cheap play,but the genuine on the pitch brawls i do miss.

This is one of the most ridiculous comments I have ever read on this board.

Street has retired. Hock, Chase and Manson have already signed pre-contract agreements with Noble to join the Toronto Weirdwolves for next season. No chance of GH doing a deal.

Millward suffered his 4th broken jaw in 12 months early in cup final which forced his retirement. Great footballer.

I seem to remember it was a broken jaw inflicted by a Batley ' A ' team player that made him decide to retire. Some thug trying to make a name for himself no doubt. Sad way to go out. RIP Roger.

Cheers. I was not aware of that. It is very sad. Thinking back to those days, I do wonder if the late tackles and thuggery handed out to the real footballers was in part to blame for the premature deaths of great players like John Holmes, Dave Topliss and now Roger Millward. All three carried the tag of stop him and you will win.

Holmes and Topliss died in their mid fifties (57/5icon_cool.gif the causes were mentioned at the time. In John's case in particular probably more attributle to a long time lifestyle choice as revealed in the Reluctant Hero book written by his brother and nephew.

There's been a spate of news in recent times regarding long term effects of playing sport. Three of the 1966 England World Cup winning side (Martin Peters, Ray Wilson and Nobby Stiles) are suffering from Alzheimers which is believed to be due to heading those old-style heavy leather footballs. Frank Worthington is another. There's several cases in American Football too.

Is it pure coincidence that Roger Millward developed cancer of the jaw having had it broken on numerous occasions during his playing days?

Actually proving causal links and liability for injuries and death is tricky, particularly in an age where financial and legal systems are stacked in favour of the interests of companies, organisations and the rich.

Brett Delaney's body is smashed and broken. If he was a horse, he'd have been shot several years ago, as Brian Clough once said of Eddie Gray. I'd be surprised if Delaney can stand up straight in 15 to 20 years time. Yet the club will get rid soon (there ends their responsibility) and the most of the fans won't give a toss.

Eddie Gray - what a a player he was, took Chelsea to the cleaners in the first game in 1970, Chelsea took him out of the early doors in the replay.