Like you , I was told the same story by my owd Dad , I never saw Pawsey play for me Tony Cottrell was the Hardest player ive ever seen , I was watching a game a Cas and Leigh were losing a Leigh fan shouted "Send the Yard Dog on ", on came Tony and changed the game straight away .

Tony was and Still is a True Gent off the field , ive known him all my life ,sat next to him at Pennington Cof E ,and Mank Road , and feel Priviliged to call him a Friend , wish we had a prop as hard as him now .

'Most revered'
This is a title which is reserved for a very special player and, there has been a lot already mentioned in this topic!
For my part John Woods would be the number one, he would figure in any team of my choice whatever nationalilty! Alex Murph is the best player I have ever seen however, to be 'revered' you need to respect the person and sadly, I've not always been able to do that with Alex!
Mick Martyn is one player the title certainly fits! not only was he a world class player his loyalty to Leigh was unqestioned! he could have left Leigh on many occasions to join a 'bigger' club and accept the rewards that would have brought but, he chose to stay and, as a supporter since 1954, i'd like to thank him for all the wonderful trys he scored in Leigh colours. On the GB tour of 1958 he scored 24 tries a record for a forward which has never been surpassed to this day!!
Of course Dessie is revered by all, everone respected Dessie, none more than his opponents!! His try scoring runs were sensational and his tackling was worth your entrance money!!

Jim Humble joned Leigh in 1960 from Oldham RU Club. I'm sure he only played for a couple of seasons and certainly never played with Mick Collins who, signed in 1963! Humble was also a very good Weights & Measures inspector too!
Fred Hewitt was a stockly built player as brave as they come. I too remember him tackling Billy Boston and knocking him into touch just as he was going to score in the corner, it was a mighty collision and I dont know who was more stunned, Fred or Billy!! It was played on a Wednesday night in 1959 in front of a large crowd the match ended in a 22 all draw, a great entertaining 'Derby' I do miss those games

Of course, none are more revered than 'Sir' Tommy a man who has served our club with distinction for eight decades! I cant think of a more worthy recipient than good old Mr Sale!!

Gets my vote for 'Post of the Thread'. Certainly makes some of the names previously suggested relatively less revered.

Does anyone remember Dave Smith ?A forward we signed from Huddersfield along with Andy Pucill ,we played a game at Rochdale and with a few minutes to go we were losing by 9 points , we were pressing of the Rochdale line , Dave got the ball and attempted a Drop Goal so Bizarre .

Good post kirkhall, you certainly know your stuff.

I think Jim Humble played more than a couple of seasons for us, as I said before I hero-worshipped the guy (used to imagine I was him when running for the bus or errands for my mam, side-stepping lampposts as I went).

P.S. Can't believe nobody's mentioned Mick Stacey

So, can I take that as a mention for Mick, then?

OK - I think this one has run its course now.

To have the final say, my best were - (in no particular order) Woods, Drummond, Turley, Risman, Mick Martyn, Murphy, Owen, Lewis, Kindon and Ledgard.

I'm sure the likes of Pawsey, Allan, Mossop etc would also have been on there, but I can't remember that far back!

I'll collate the results now, and post them on here, and LeighLife, later this weekend, as well as passing them on to the club. If their idea on using this information comes to fruition, the club will, of course, let us know.

Many thanks to almost 50 people, who contributed, via the two websites.

Voting, across the two websites, for the most popular 23 players, was:-

27 – John Woods.
22 – Des Drummond.
17 – Alex Murphy.
12 – Mick Martyn.
11 – Tim Street; Neil Turley.
10 – Stan Owen.
7 – Joe Walsh; Chris Hill; Alf Wilkinson.
6 – Jim Ledgard.
5 – Trevor Allan; Charlie Pawsey; Steve Donlan; Adam Bristow.
4 – Bill Robinson; Walt Tabern; Paul Rowley; Peter Smethurst; Gordon Lewis.
3 – Tommy Sale; Chris Johnson; Dave Eckersley.

It's a good list but I think Murphy is way too high and I doubt that Chris Hill will like the 'yesteryear' tag.

Personally I am not sure what Adam Bristow really achieved in the game or in a Leigh shirt for that matter other than failing to bend his back and allowing Barry Eaton to dart underneath him and thus cost us the 2000 NFP GF and a guaranteed place in the following year's Super League.

I am sure someone of superior knowledge will be able to correct me.

Fans 'revere' players for all sorts of personal reasons. Personally, I wouldn't include Adam in this kind of list either, but the idea was to collect peoples' individual ideas, and Adam is someone's personal choice.

As far as a 'guaranteed' place in SL that year, we definitely wouldn't have got in - for the same reasons that Dewsbury didn't. The RFL had decided that our stadium wasn't up to it, (at least they recognised we had one that year! ) and our plan to play some games at the Reebok was also rejected.

However Alan if you speak to Mike Nolan, He will tell you that we had indeed been given the nod to enter SL if we had gone on to have beaten Dewsbury in the Grand Final.

He once said to me, having been given that decision it then made listening to Bob McDermot's victory speech post match even more painful than it should have been.