Just been doing some reminiscing in last few days, as my late father coached at schools level, during the 70’s & 80’s, and were talking about these fondly.

Did anyone on here take part in these at all, could well have played against some of you, over time.

I played for Ledger Lane 1980-83

I played there. Great tournament. I'm a couple of years younger than you but we'd have probably been on neighbouring pitches at some stage.

Yes, they were. Out of curiosity, who did you play for

Do schools still play rugby league, especially at primary schools.
I really hope that they do and that Wakefield Trinity encourage the schools to play.
Personally I went a a small school Methodist J and I so had to play for the school from the age of 7.

Remember playing against St John's, Heath View, Lawefield Lane, Sharlston, Kettlethorpe and Sandal Endowed.

As I went to grammar school it wasn't until I played open age that I played league again but still managed to play for Ripon and Huddesfield YMCA union clubs under assumed names.

I played for St Thomas a Beckets. Think it was played at a younger age for the middle schools but we played at High School age.
Think I broke my foot in the first tournament I played.
We never won as there were much better schools than us for League but we did ok.
Actually now that I think about it I would have played 81 to 84 and I played for the year above as well in 83 so maybe we did play against each other. Small world. I was a prop or hooker but hooked sometimes for the year above.

Burma (Oils) 7's IIRC.

What was your old man's surname ?

I was at Snapethorpe in the late 70's and IIRC our "games teachers were Mr Mallard and Mr Hollis, who was a science teacher in disguise ?

The Wakey legend, Nigel Bell was in the year above me, although his younger brother Kev was in our year.
Mind you, they moved over to Eastmoor before we finished at Snapethorpe

Jennings.

Some of the players he coached, went on to play for Wakefield in the 90’s, Simon Hicks, Mark Colbeck And Warren Jowitt.

Yes, I can remember him, although, I dont think he ever took games with our lot.
I'm glad you didn't say your old man was called Mallard though, he was like the games master in Kes.
I remember him tripping Kev Bell in a game of football, shouting "nice dive", only to find that the lad had broken his arm.
He used to swap sides if his lot were getting beaten. Happy days.

I went to Becket's but left in '81 and despite being sports mad and giving it my best was never good enough for the school soccer team (I ran into the softest kid in our year and broke my collar bone ) and was the wrong shape to play rugby - a 6ft 4ins beanpole when I was 15 !! But I remember one sports day we were playing a rugby match against another 'house' who had a lad called Simon Leary in their team who was also playing for Yorkshire schoolboys at the time, he got the ball and I thought "right Leary, you're going down"...I ran in to tackle him but he just swatted me off like a fly then jogged 50 yards and touched down under the posts...it was at that very moment that I decided spectating was going to be much less embarrassing !!!
We also had a very nasty individual in our year who hailed from a well-known Sharlston family (who I won't name but definitely NOT the Fox family) and he also played in the school rugby team, but the team weren't very good in our year either and after yet another defeat he made the whole team line up then went along and punched each one of them in the face - their punishment for losing !!!

Don't recall Lyman...did he go to Becket's ??
I do remember that the boys P.E. teacher was George Pinyajak (definitely not spelt right but can't find him on Google !) and IIRC he went on to coach either Featherstone or Dewsbury for a short while ??
Leary joined the police
I got told that the 'bully' from Sharlston got into the drugs taking and supply scene but the drugs eventually got to him and killed him...don't know if that was true or not ??

Played for lawefield lane a few times there in the 70s each school had a classroom as the changing rooms if i remember correctly

I edited the bit about Leary as that isn't really fair on him. He was a good rugby player, I think he represented England Schools. Lyman was at Fev High I think. They played similar position so came up against each other a lot and both selected for representative games. Lyman went on to play for Fev and Hull KR and was selected for Aussie tour in the 80s. So just shows how close it is between normal life and great rugby career.

George Pieniazek was the PE teacher. He played a couple of games for Wakefield. Was a powerful winger. Coached at Batley and Fev after his playing career.

I think I heard the same about the other guy.


In terms of Snapethorpe, my memories are that it was always sunny in that tournament. Didn't they have a tannoy system set up next to a car in the middle of the fields to tell everyone what the scores were? I might have mixed that up with somewhere else.

So that's how it was spelt
I knew he'd gone into coaching but must have forgotten about him playing for Trin