Quote: pk "Still interested to hear when this golden period was...'"
Probably around 1983 to 1988. We came 3rd, 11th, 4th plus Premiership champions, 3rd and 6th. In the last three seasons we had things like Wigan going through the year only losing twice - to us home and away, and we had the famous WW3 game.
After 1988 things tailed off: between 1988 and 1993 we then finished 11th, 8th (with the Lancashire Cup and making Wembley), 9th (with the Regal Trophy), 4th and 8th before the Jonathan Davies season. I started in 1989, so I missed the better times, but I know what Wires71 says about those being enjoyable days at Wilderspool. I really loved RL back then. The memories feel better than the league positions suggest.
One reason for this could be the general selective memory bias when you think back to being a kid/teenager where you remember the highlights (like the excitement of Christmas morning and getting your presents) and forget a lot of the realities (like being forced to sit through boring family Christmas events getting told off by adults) and probably a lot of the forum members who like this era were kids or teenagers at the time. There were days where there were great atmospheres in the derbies and also more cup competitions back then so more semi finals and finals. One of my favourite early memories was that Lancashire Cup semi final when we beat Widnes who had just won the WCC against Canberra. A lot of the rest of the time, Wilderspool had poor crowds with not much away support and we had an annoying tendency to lose against weaker sides at home, which persisted right through the rest of Wilderspool's life. Some people talk about the Wilderspool fortress, the zoo, I never saw that, it must have been pre-1989.
Another reason that era gets remembered more fondly than the results imply was that we had a lot of P&B legends/cult heroes around at that time who the crowd identified with. Unfortunately, we also probably carried a lot of other players who weren't that good, or certainly weren't up to the standard of the teams at the top, which is why we were in the shadow of the likes of Wigan, Widnes, Leeds and Saints. That 88/89 season I mentioned on the first page, where we finished one place above relegation, had a team including Lyon, Blake, Drummond, Woods, Boyd, Roach, Roberts and Mike Gregory, which probably tells you the rest weren't great.
There was no internet back then and so people seemed less angry, or at least were less likely to be influenced to the constant views of the grumpy crowd/negatives. I can think of some players who would have had a hard time from this forum: Rocky Turner, Chris O'Sullivan, Paul Darbyshire, Forster. There was less demanding of success and this thing of "if we finish second we are bottlers/its a failed season". I think if the forum had been around, there would have been a lot more pressure on Brian Johnson.