It was an amazing season.

My eldest was born that night we beat Leeds, Thursday 4th July 2002. I'll never forget being sat in The 'Borough, with a GP's loaned radio, she's conked on the gas & air, and I've yelped as Westwood has scored, i'm borderling shaking her trying to tell her but she couldn't give a monkeys, barely reacted. We've won 23-22, I feel like i'm on gas & air. At 2307, my lads born [after three scans telling us he was a girl], on the spot, what you calling him, "Err, Ben ..."

Awesome.

I'll aso never forget Fax away. We'd both got new coaches, Tony Anderson was paraded there. It was an insane game, so many moments of madness, Alstead sin binned. Burns scoring under the posts, it felt like teh whole team chased after him to ground the ball with him, by the time he was under the posts, at least ten must have caught up, but the games was defined by Tom O'Reilly. With minutes left, us barely in front, they made a break, through the middle. I'm pretty certain it was Jim Gannon, it was like 6 on 1, the whole team were in support, and somehow O'Reilly made the tackle, I haven't a clue how to this day, but he did, and we won, and we stayed up.

I'm with PY, I hated it, but I was enthraled with it. I can remember tears, after games, being in the car, upset thinking we were going to get relegated. When Burns kicked the ball in the crowd against Cas, he didn't just kick a ball into a crowd, he kicked the past into the crowd and allowed us to welcome the dawn of a whole new Warrington Wolves.

Some great posts here. Yes it was the first year of Squadbuilder and there were some animated meetings.

I remember feeling disappointed that the Turley deal didn't come through. For ages I'd thought we needed a running fullback with a bit of pace and Turley's try record in the NFP and playing in the Origin game the year before he looked like he was going to be big news, plus a goalkicker. I was pretty underwhelmed when we ended up spending the money on Ben Westwood instead and I thought at the time we'd got done, panic buying and paying over the odds for an average player. Looking back now how well has that worked out, getting Westwood instead of Turley!

After the Turley deal hadn't come through I used to harp on all the time about us needing a new fullback and the one I always wanted us to sign was Cardiss at Halifax. When we got Mathers in, the England Academy fullback (this was the year when Mike Gregory was coach and they beat the Aussie Schoolboys) I thought that was our man, especially as Plange said in a Squadbuilder meeting that a fee had already been agreed in principle with Leeds if we wanted to make the deal permanent. Unfortunately Mathers played quite well for us and Leeds offered him a new deal, and we hadn't got anything firmly in writing about a fee clause, so I was back to wanting Cardiss. Then at the end of the year Stuart Reardon went on loan to Salford and looked really good, I thought he was just the type of young upcoming centre/fullback that we needed and we should have gone for him rather than Westwood. Cullen was assistant on the England A tour that winter where Reardon was on it, and some of the RL papers linked us with signing him, I got hopeful again but it didn't come off. Ironic after all that that in the end I got what I wanted with Cardiss, Reardon and Mathers all signing for us in recent years, and in Cardiss and Reardon's cases they were never what I had expected.

Another arrival that season worth mentioning was Dean Gaskell who signed from Wigan Academy and made his debut in the hammering at Knowsley Road, I think he got injured and missed the rest of the season.

That, my friend, is one of the best things i have seen written on here. It does not surprise me that it came from you.

I remember being close to tears walking out of Knowsley road the day they put 72 on us i thought that we were down that day...
I think there were 6 games left and couldn't see how we'd recover...I have to give thanks to the board and acting but bringing Paul Cullen in, that decison saved us...

The board saw relegation as not an option and took action i applaud them for that...

The Cas game sticks in my mind for 2 reasons the first one is obvious we secured our Super League status for another year..

Reason two is i was on antibiotics and was off the drink so decided to drive to the game when i returned to my car parked on the blue bridge near the Village some scumbag broke into my motor and robbed my stereo.....

The day of the hammering at Saints I was at my (ex) sister-in-law's wedding, at the St Helens Hilton. I kept getting updates from the bar & clearly remember sitting alone at the table feeling utterly dejected.

I heard of the departure of Plange & the replacement by Cullen while welded to a toilet in a hotel in Rome suffering the worst food poisoning of my life.

I seem to recall we also tried to sign the other centre from Wakefield around the same time as Westwood/Wood - a certain Gareth Ellis.

One thing I always wondered about Matt Rodwell was how he would have fared if fit & playing the way he wanted to rather than sticking to Anderson's flat attack. I always felt Rodwell was unduly criticised and tried his best within the limitations he was under at the time. I also feel had we employed Anderson in a behind the scenes developmental role as he had at Leeds then on the field success would have come about quicker - never forget the impact he had at Leeds working with their youth setup...

I agree with that but not the last sentence, we can't credit Anderson with much impact at Leeds, he was only there a few months as Performance Director. They had already got a good junior set up in place.

On Rodwell I have always thought he got hard done by from our supporters, the biggest mistake he made was coming on the official club forum and making himself answerable to people, he was an accessible target for everyones fury. It was disturbing though to see the level of spewing hatred directed at him when he was with his family, the Rodwells must have a terrible impression of Warrington.

One aside about Rodwell, anybody that met him when he was here would agree with this, he had star quality as a person. Everybody liked him, he made everybody feel special no matter who they were, club staff, fans, journalists, cleaners whoever, seeing him round people was like a lesson in how to be sociable and relate to people well. Frank Endacott was also like that and Mike Gregory.

Halifax away about 4 games from the end of the season. This was the game I believe that kept us up. A 19-16 victory.

The 2 memories from that game were

Jim Gannon making a break in the last minute and had a 2 on 1 on Lee Penny. If he had drawn Penny and passed Halifax would have scored under the sticks and we would have lost. He chose to dummy, Penny tackled him and Warrington won.

When the final hooter went Darren Burns going down on one knee pumping the air like a madman. One of the very few players that season to shine.

Someone fancy posting this thread on the Virtual Terrace as an argument in favour of promotion and relegation?

Sally - I thought the Turley saga was all drawn out during the off-season? Not sure it was connected to the rumour that we had a deal to sign Briers at the end of the 2001 season had we not lost to Oldham and then Widnes in the play-offs?

Halifax clarification: It was Paul Davidson running at Tommy O'Reiily.

Despite swathes of paper, I have never worked out how he brought Davidson down, subsequently keeping us up.

Hey ho, crazy days!

The conga round The Shay, the win at Hull after we got tonked by London on the tuesday night and Darren Burns kicking the ball dead were the highlights

All came from a Tommy O'Reily knock on with 3 minutes on the clock if i remember rightly

I always think of that season as being the one that started it all pretty sure I did most homes and aways as it was around the time I had a wolfpack season ticket (£20 bargain) main things that sitck out.

- Cullen coming in after chanting "we want Cullen" you just knew he would save us well I did at 13 anyway.

- Waiting for the scores after our match against Cas had finished

- Danny Halliwell's scoring form think he got 4 in his first 3 games or something.

- That try by Cardoza

- Super Sid and Darren Burns

This was also my first year watching the Wire too. I remember sitting in the car on the way back from Halifax after that win. My uncle turns me to me and goes "Well, that was some baptism into watching the Wire. You gonna come back next year?" And i just remember myself thinking that there really was nowhere else id rather be on a Sunday afternoon, despite us loosing alot of games!!

I remember Cullen's first game in charge was against Widnes and we lost 19-18 i think. Westwood got sent off towards the end if i remember rightly. I was very very gutted when we lost, but thought under Cullen that we were gonna stay up. But i have so many memories from that season and i really do appricate the good times that we have now. But my overriding memory from the season was thinking that Burns and Domic had kept us up. Two quality players that gave 100%!!

Great Post Sally Ive watched the Wire for many years and that was the worst i can remember for many of the reasons mentioned.

I really felt sorry for Mat Rodwell he really took the brunt from the wire fans, he came on the official site, he got loads of stick off our fans after Widnes beat us at home, he stayed on the pich after the game, think thats when some fans gave him and his family some grief after the game. That must have been the lowest point of his career.

We must have played Fax away twice that year as i remember us getting beat late on in the game, Briers must have dropped about 6 goal then near the end kicked straight into touch. Plange was incharge then.
The wire fans still went to the front of the stand and clapped the team off i remember being close to tears then.