Quote: BrianBradyHandOff "You lot are too young to have seen Saints player Duggie Greenall....He was seriously disturbed...I once saw him push Wire player Bill McFarlane(some would say he too had mental health issues)at Knowsley Road head first into the wall when he was well in touch....Wire never even got a penalty I suppose it was considered to be on off-pitch incident.....Years late Duggie pulled me a pint at his St Helens pub...You wouldn't have thought it was the same bloke.
Off topic...Can whoever runs the site put the clock right ? I THANK YOU !!'"
We must have started to watch the Wire around the same time. Greenall was the complete nutter. Vinty told the tale of how Greenall, then a senior professional, led a post match delegation into the Oldham dressing room to continue hostilities. He loved inflicting pain and was the ringleader of the dirtiest team I have ever seen but he also took it. As i have said before Ray Price handed out some real pastings to him and Greenall used to boast that he had broken nearly every bone in his body.
My favourite Greenall moment was when we were playing towards the cop end and Bev got the ball and went round the Saints winger, Brian Howard, whose son, Harvey, later played for Widnes. Anyway Howard dived and managed to get hold of Bev's ankle, Bev was trying to yank his ankle free when Greenall came charging across and launched himself at Bev from about six foot away. If he had connected God only knows what would the consequences would have been, However Bev had the finely tuned instincts of a flight animal and crouched to the ground. Greenall went flying over him on to the cinder track and into the wall. After some time, Greenall staggered off with his shoulder beneath his waist and that is my earliest recall of thinking that there is a God in Heaven after all.
Bill McFarlane was yet another example of someone wasting their god given talent. IMO he was immensely talented and, if he had half the application of Vinty Karalius, he would have been the stuff of folk lore. Instead he used to go out round Wigan on a Friday night, get popped up, start trouble and get locked up and have to be bailed out to play on the Saturday. A life style that would only end one way.