Blast from the past quiz

Quote: Saxy "No pics of the 48/49 team I'm afraid FM - my dad was in the wilderness after Ryan and Featherstone were signed in 47, tried his luck at Halifax then landed at Salford 49-51 so severed his connections with his hometown club. The big changes in 47 sort of led to the foundation for the successes in the 50's I think.

Modderfontein and Sasolburg....were you a chemist, engineer or some such? Worked in Modderfontein at the explosives factory for a bit a couple of years ago, and have played gigs at the Etienne Rousseau Theatre in Sasolburg. We live in Sandton but are desperately trying to leave...sorry to mods if well off-topic
Cheers and many thanks Saxy. From your Bevan link there are 2 possible photos of the 48/49 team No's 122 and 129.
Roy Francis only played the 48/49 season with you before moving to Hull in Nov 49 so could have started the 49/50 season with you. He is in the photos.

The Francis move gave the Hull club a great decade in the 50's very similar to your clubs success in the same era.
During the 50's between us we won the championship 4 times plus 2 runners up. Also you had 2 CC wins and we were runners up twice. We never played against each other in these matches.

I went to all these CC finals which of course included your 1954 replay at Odsal with the record crowd. I came over from Aus to see the CC final between us to give us our first win at Wembley.(first time the 2 clubs have competed in a major final)

Have followed you as a second team since the 48/49 match and Brian Bevan remains one of my favourite ever RL players.

Regarding South Africa I went on a 2 year contract with ICI UK as a Plastics Chemist being initially based at Modderfontein at their AECI plastics research /development centre, before moving to their Midland Plant(next to Sasol) in Sasolburg to help commission their new plastics/chemical plant. Met my wife there and we moved after the 2 year period to Aus where I worked for ICI Aus.