Appointed chairman of Wales Rugby League www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague ... ml&BID=480 Some great memories of him as a player for us in what was a very, very good Wakefield Trinity team. Hope it goes well for him, and that he manages to develop the game further in Wales. But 60 years old.... ouch... I'm feeling my age now too.

Appointed chairman of Wales Rugby League www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague ... ml&BID=480 Some great memories of him as a player for us in what was a very, very good Wakefield Trinity team. Hope it goes well for him, and that he manages to develop the game further in Wales. But 60 years old.... ouch... I'm feeling my age now too.

What a great side that was. Fletcher, Diamond, Smith, Julliff, Topliss, Lampkowski, Skerrett, Mccurrie, et al...how did we not win loads with those players? Utter mystery to me. The Wakey curse

I remember 1980/81 season, when we missed out on Championship by a whisker, beating Leeds 44-4 or something very like that, the season Leeds were nearly relegated, Keith Smith was utterly majestic. I really thought we were back to the 60's ...all downhill from there sadly. We know the story eh!!!

43 10 at BV and 16 8 at Leeds but we lost home and away to Barrow and the 5 2 loss away at Bradford lost us the league.

Great season with some very good players the rayne twins Andy Kelly Terry Day Harrold Box Allan Agar

We went down the season after

Remember seeing him run over George Fairburn at Central Park three times for his hat trick during the season Wigan got relegated.

I only starting watching Wakey after we'd gone down. My first game was a home victory over Huddersfield (with I think Lindsey Rotherforth flying down the wing) and it may have been a couple of years (?) before Len Casey coached us.

I didn't realise we'd been so close only a few years earlier to the Championship. What went wrong to make the team fall apart and us to be relegated within a season? I suspect Topliss going to Hull was a significant factor?

I think we fired the coach? Ray Batten?

Oh dear, firing a coach for nearly winning the Championship? We didn't have a Board like Saints or Wigan did we?

Brian is still a big fan of all his old clubs, but I think Wakey comes out tops! His Twitter feed shows that he keeps up to date with Wakey / Fax / Wigan as well as supporting the cause of RL for Wales.

Top bloke as well!

Toppo went to Hull Agar called it a day Lampowski & Tinker spent most of the season injured and I think Keith Smith called it a day John Lyons replaced Toppo we then sold the family silver Day to Hull Rayne to Leeds first Keith followed by Kevin then Kelly to HKR
and McCurrie in came Pickerill Derek Parker Graham Walters Bill Harris and Heslop with Ashurst as coach and down we went dark days

Juliff was the best of the 3 welshmen that came up in the late 70's & was the perfect foil for Fletch on the other wing.

& we also lost Idle to Northern. Didn't Ray Batten fall out with the board & resign? Can't for the life of me remember who took over?

If I remember correctly, although we weren't far off winning the league we lost quite a bit of money and fired assistant coach Alan Hardisty as a cost cutting measure. Ray Batten resigned in protest and Bill Ashurst was appointed.
When we got relegated Ashurst was sacked and Batten re-appointed only to resign again after we won promotion.

I was a junior player at the time (signed on as a professional). As I remember the then Board managed to fall out with the only Board member with money (Trevor Woodward) and conspired to get rid of him. It was the biggest mistake the club has ever made and the crook who took over as Chairman ( I won't name him but is first name was John and his second name began with Sc and ended in e) began the decline of Trinity that has so far lasted 31 years. The 3rd grade s who were brought in the season after were unbelievable!