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

Don’t normally post much on here, but I must say you have got me posting once I saw this thread. I played for Flanshaw st michaels from under 11s so I would say 1988 ish onwards. Our coach was Bernie Smith and he played a huge part in my early rugby career. Always took part in the snapethorpe sevens and played against schools called Crigglestone, Sharlston, Sandal Endowed and Crofton to name a few. Also played in numerous les pounder trophies at half time and we’re lucky enough to win on at least one occasion against Crig I think?. Still have the photos. In our team we had a young lad playing for us called Graeme Law......! And a number of other I played against. One being a spritely skinny Chris Chester, who played for Sandal at the time. I also believe a young chap called Kurt played for us as well who is in the picture. He now sponsors the trin under the guise of Hawley plant Hire. Memories hey!

Bernie coached me when I played for the Wakefield schools side.
He still goes down to watch Trinity pretty regularly. Really good guy who brought a lot of kids in Wakefield in to rugby. Always made it fun but knew his stuff.

It was Crigg we beat, the team with John-Lee Lockwood, Ryan Holy and Kevin Waterby(?) in. I've got a photo somewhere of us sat on that wall outside the changing rooms....
Smithy was all about RL when I look back the amount of games we played at St. Micks after school for the various age groups (both football and rugby) he must've been working late after school must nights running the teams.
Chester was a good kicker if I remember, as was G Law for that matter

John-Lee Lockwood now there is another young player touted for great things, where did he end up?

Ryan’s brother Damien was also a cracking player at The All Blacks.

Me and the missus seem to think that he went to Aus for a while (could be wrong though) but he then played at Hunslet in '03 and '04 according to Google but I'm fairly sure that he then went to play 'kick-and-clap' possibly for Sandal ??

Played in the Burmah Oil 7s at Snapethorpe about 4 times for St Michael's between 1972-1976 and actually won our year group in 1977 or 1978 for Thornes House against a St John Fisher team that we had narrowly lost to in the Yorkshire Gup Final at Batley. Only played in the Les Pounder Trophy at Belle Vue once, half time in their game against Workington, I think. We were beaten 9-0 by a Snapethorpe team, with a tiny, whippet half back called Nigel Bell scoring a hat trick against us.

I was at Snapethorpe in the early 80's, playing a game of soccer in pe,I took a penalty and didn't score, he shouted at me, placed the ball and fired it at the keeper who put his hands up and it broke his arm, so that's 2 broken arms attributed to him! Any more for any more?

The teachers were such good sorts back then. Also remember Mr Hollis, I liked him, if you ever annoyed him to the point he shouted at you, he would apologise after.

Hey. I've tried to reply to your PM but it just goes to my outbox and won't send, is your inbox full?