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!

The '79 Wembley team was dismantled quicker than it was assembled and the players coming in were simply not as good, so the decline of the club was inevitable.
Dark days followed and looking back I don't know why I bothered turning out to watch some of the players. They wouldn't have got into the 'A' team in the 60's but there we were stuck with them.
Going back to the subject, Juliff was a good winger, not blessed with tremendous pace but very strong. Hard to compare wingers of then with now, as the game is totally different.

H ha...yes we did; ain't that just typical

Yes he did. I think it was over the sacking of his assistant, Keith Hepworth as I recall. We've had more idiots on our boards over the years than a Village Idiot Convention

Corr, Hardisty as above poster states...and had forgotten we managed to get Batten to resign twice.....unbelievable