Briers signed in 97, Anderson (I assume you mean Steve Anderson) was coach in 2001.

good post some points that people would never have realised i remember langer coming in and boosting the crowds and like yourself got people that were on the fringes of watching rugby league just come to see him play and have stayed ever since and yes he was right in the youth system that he put in place in that it wouldnt bear fruit straight away and will need to wait a number of years personally think it is still just starting to produce now after it has grown and been developed from an extremely raw vision but i enjoyed watching some of the rugby of this period and put us in good stead for the current

DVDV had already been coach for 2 or 3 games before we signed Briers, he needed to sign a halfback because we had none, Willie Swann had been sacked, Jon Duffy had been promoted from the academy (he was about 16 at the time) and then he broke his leg anyway. When DVDV arrived it was Nigel Vagana and Kelly Shelford in the halves for the first few games.

As for his biggest mistake being playing Briers at fullback...? That was about 2 games. I can think of bigger mistakes DVDV made, signing Adam Doyle, letting Michael Eagar go after one season....

DVDV made some good signings though, Danny Farrar was a good player when he was here, and Danny Nutley was another good find. DVDV was often criticised for signing older Aussie players, people said he didn't care about young players, but he was not afraid to make bold decisions about giving young players a chance - he had a 17 year old Warren Stevens as starting prop in the first team, he picked a 19 year old Paul Wood out of the Academy, put him in the team and never dropped him, he gave Jamie Stenhouse a chance to be starting winger for a full season, he gave Dave Highton a chance to replace Farrar as first choice but Highton then failed a drugs test, he gave quite a few other young lads first team exposure - Alstead, Campbell, Cowell, Noone, some of them weren't up to it but DVDV was not afraid to give a young lad a crack.

As I was only 6 in 2001, I don't remember him.
I only remember the chant 'van der Velde's barmy army'
But from what I have read in Sallys post, he's set us up for the future with the youth set up.
Briers joined in 98 so it was DVDV who brought him here. Thank-you DVDV

you, go away, scour wikipedia, and get the centenary book the club released in year thingy, and the book warrington rlfc 1970-2000 and do your homework.

1998 indeed.

As sally says, we went with john duffy for a couple of games who then cracked his ankle, against, oldham down here i think adn we signed briers the week of the saints game at kr that year.

I'm too young to remember any of this....
I've scoured wiki and from what i've read DVDV joined in March '97 and Briers joined in '98

yeah, there was a 'frantic rush' to get him signed in time to register him to play Saints, and Saints panned us anyway by 60

Was Murphy still involved with the club when DVD was coach?

"B0LLOCKS"

Stood at a bus stop in Grappenhall with three mates waitng for a bus to Wilderspool. DVDV drives past and sees two young lads in Wire shirts (the rest of us weren't in wire shirts) and offers them a lift. Gets a big surprise when a few more people than expected pile into his BMW convertible. It was a bit a snug in the back.

Van de Velde was both very good and very bad for the club. He got the junior set-up going again after John Smith's cost-cutting exercise, which, when you think the core of our side was brought through from the reserves. On the flip side, he had a definite favouritism towards the Australian imports, which appeared to create a fractious squad, which showed in our highly consistent, inconsistent results.

Some very dark days a mere ten plus years ago, which makes you appreciate the strides we have made, both on, and off the field.

What's your evidence for this?
Sounds to me like another of those myths that fans make up with no basis.

I don't think a fractious squad was the problem in those days it was that we had a very unbalanced team, a lot of attacking threat but no real solidity especially in the backline (which is why losing Eagar was a bad move). We were lacking in defensive nous and structure and that wasn't available on the coaching staff at the time.

I reckon a lot of myths about coaches start on these forums and you wonder what basis people have for them, like people say Cullen ruined Kevin Penny.

My evidence was one of the players at the time. No myth, no rumour.

I perversely enjoyed the DVDV era, loved the rollercoaster you genuinely didn't know what we would do from one game to the next

Like the Dorahy era then, or the Cullen era.