Dad played 24 games for the Wire back in the day and was born in Marsh Street...never really had the chance to be an avid fan growing up as we had moved to London by then: played kick and clap at school and university but always used to watch the RL on the BBC on Saturday afternoons and admired the skill compared to what I was playing. By the time I was more mobile after university I had moved out of the country so couldn't get to matches. Of the choice between Warrington, Halifax and Salford (my dad's teams), Wire was the only one, being dad's hometown club. Discovering family in Warrington a couple of years ago just cemented the conviction.

On the Kevin tamiti theme. I bought a raffle ticket off Paul Cullen in his playing days in golden square. A couple of days later Kevin tamiti rang me to tell me I'd won a 3 litre bottle of vladivar vodka. I picked it up from wilderspool and put it on the back seat of my car and set off to Ainsdale as it was a hot day. Got back to my car after an afternoon in the dunes and was greeted by a burning smell. The sun had been magnified through the bottle onto my back seat and left a 3 inch scorched line.
I got a tenner from the landlord of the greenwood for the vodka.

I presume you weren't confronted by what Private Eye referred to as the "Chief Constable's lycra clad lovelies" on the trip? A group of male officers deployed in the dunes to arrest "unclad" males. Knowing some of the officers involved the thought of them in lycra was enough to turn the strongest stomach. You could always tell when they had been on patrol, the custody area resembled a small sand dune. Apologies for the diversion from topic.

I was born and bred in Warrington, though growing up I didn't know much about RL, my sport was football. Plus in high school and college I was actually a RU fan, though as part of a project in High School we actually went to Wilderspool to interview some of the players. It was at the time when they had the joint set up of Alex Murphy and John Dorahy. Murphy was really welcoming, and we spoke to players such as Scully and Iestyn Harris. Dorahy was a bit more withdrawn, wouldn't say too much.

However, back in 2002 one of my best mates (who is the sister of a famous Wire fan) asked me if I wanted to go to a game at Wilderspool. I didn't have anything on that weekend so I said yeah, why not. We did the walk down to the Fletcher end and my first thoughts were "wow, what an absolute s***hole this place is". Got in, stood in the Fletcher End with all the hardcore fans and absolutely loved it. We lost the game, think it was 46-34 against Saints, but after that, I wanted to go week in, week out.

It was quite an eventful season anyway as we almost got relegated but I went to all the remaining home games, any time they were on TV i would watch and also went to Halifax when Briers ran the show and we won 19-16 and Widnes when we lost 19-18. Obviously the greatest relief was when I went to Wilderspool and we beat Castleford 29-14 and stayed up. Didn't put me off though as the following season i got a season ticket and that began my 14 year stint as a ST holder until having to give it up at the beginning of the 2017 as we were moving up to Scotland. I've not been to a game for nearly 4 years and I miss it dearly so hopefully this season I might actually be able to get down to one.

Thanks to the Wire I've met some really good people, and a few s as well, and a few mates back then are still good mates of mine to this day. Had some great days and nights out (Perpignan 2006 certainly springs to mind!!!) My only regret is not becoming a fan sooner.

That's put me right off my sausage butty! What was your reason for being in them there dunes, Captain, doing a bit of plundering, perhaps?

X marks the spot me hearty!