Quote: the flying biscuit "Les Boyd...
I can remember seeing the photo of him in a matchday program and we all looked at it and said "wow imagine that running at you .."
We had no idea how good he was going to be, or what he was going to do to a struggling wire side....
We knew about his two long term bans.... and still to this day I have never read anything about his gouging ban (which can never be good) but i saw the elbow on Darryl Browman and I've seen much worse go unpunished since. It was widely regarded he was victim of a crusade to rid the game of "players like him".
Even in the 82 invincible's tour, John Dalgreen, after being tackled lay on the floor and kicked Boyd with both feet, Boyd reacted with a boot of his own and was red carded Dalgreen got off Scott free.
But in a wire shirt Boyd was something else, aggressive to levels I've never seen but never an idiot. he was often targeted by players not fit to lace his boots, but they never put him off his game.
He was an incredibly skillful player and worked astonishingly hard for a player of his physique. He was a superb leader, I can remember a game at wilderspool and Blocker Roach was being his usual idiotic non Challenge cup game self, and was picking fights and Boyd gave him a proper clip on the back of the head to tell him to calm down it worked ...you can bet no one ever did that to Roach before or after.
Boyd was a player I was totally in awe of ...my saddest moment as a wire fan was watching him trudge off the main road pitch with his shirt off, draped over his shoulders.....he deserved to play at wembley....
and Blake... I liked Phil Blake lots...'"
I remember a game at Wilderspool when we were playing Leeds. I recall watching from the railway end (God only knows why i was up there when were attacking the Fletcher Street end), anyhow the Leeds pack was trying to rough Les up all day. I think Les was getting a bit cheesed off and decided to start dishing it back. I recall Warrington were given a penalty on the 20m line roughly 5-10m in from the nightclub touch line. The Leeds defence was set when Sir Les came crashing onto a ball like nothing I had ever seen from a prop before. The startled Leeds defence went flying in all directions as the big man hit the defensive line. There was no stopping him as he crashed over the whitwash. This man was everything i wanted in a Wire. Class act on and off the field, a true gentleman.