Played alongside Liam Kent, Danny Nicklas, Scott Taylor, Jack Aldous among others knocking around the Championship. Also played against plenty of the players coming through at Leeds, Bradford, Wigan etc. through service area in the past.
Although must say not that many seem to have made the leap to pro from my age group of players.

Quite a lot at youth,open age and in tourneys

Was in a tourney against Sheffield all stars where i f*cked up my knee.

Playing that day was Mark Aston, Lee Jackson, Bright Sodje, Paul Broadbent and a few others

Broadbent nearly smashed my rib cage in a bear hug tackle

I also beat Sodje for pace twice that game

Played against Richard Gay (school level) and played along side and coached by Keith Boxall (Van Leer) who could still run rings around us even at his later stages of his career. Played with Mike Fletcher (red and white git) also at school level.

Its going back a few years but played against. Mick Crane , Tony Banham , Jim Macklin it was like tackling a tank.
Played along side Shaun Patrick & Ian Patrick.
Happy Days.

When my brother played for Ship against Van Leer he stuck one on Keith Boxall (his best shot) and Keith just looked at him and said "I don't think your going to do that again son are you"

Played against Andy Dannatt, Tony Banham, Charlie Stone....some others but my memory fails me.

Played rugby with Billy Mallinson, Steve Dennison and John Lydiat (good lad even tho he signed for the scummers).

Been refereed by the great Fred Lindop (was still useless at stopping head high tackles).

And dare I mention.....that I put the ex England rugby union captain Billy Beaumont on his .....

And even got my refs badge alongside Phil Hogan.....

Where's my walking stick......

Played against Joel Tomkins and Chris Ashton for school who played in the same St Johns Fisher side who were unbelievable

With/Against Danny Washbrook, Karl Pryce and Tommy Lee

Played against Jonny Lomax, Owen Farrell, Stefan Marsh...played with Scott Leatherbarrow (still in Wigans reserves)...

Played for Deanery High school in Wigan, we had one of the top team in the country at the time, I'm sure I will have played against many more but just didn't realise who they were at the time.

Played against him when he played for shire horse, hard to put down

Played against Dave Hostle?...ex dobbins player,for Abbey against Wolds.....nearly took my head off after i smacked him in a 3-man tackle.

Two entries from our family.

My Dad played in a trial match for Hull in the 1950's and scored a try from a Colin Hutton pass.

Slightly different, but I set up Rugby Raiders in the RL Conference in 2004, our first game was played at Rugby School. I got onto Red Hall and asked if we could have Russell Smith to referee it. A week later they came back and said that he'd love to and they'd given him a Friday night game that week so that he would be free to come down to Rugby on the Saturday.

Russell is an absolute top bloke and a rugby league nut.

He'd refereed the Anztec Test the week before in NZ, did Hudds v Hull on the Friday night and travelled down to Rugby at his own expense on the Saturday. He was really happy to be asked and saw it as a historic venue to add to his games at Wembley, Old Trafford and the Internationals.

I had a good chat to him about the Hull match the night before. Hull had won at Hudds 20-0 and our first try looked forward. I mentioned this to him and Russell just said that he couldn't see it at the time and therefore looked at his touchjudge who said it was OK and awarded the try. He said he had watched the game back on Sky at midnight (he always reviewed his performances) and thought it was ok. He said Stevo was spouting the Momentum Rule, and pointed out that Stevo didn't actually know the rule properly. He also said that all referee's are reviewed each week and have to answer to any bad decisions made.

After the game, Russell stayed over with his wife and they both went out with the Rugby Raiders team around Rugby that night.

Many years ago I played the 11 a side game for the Civil Service. We used to have our indoor training sessions at the old Hull Boys Club in Ropery Street and on many occasions Albert Tripp would come and run our sessions for us. Although he had retired from playing he was still super fit and really put us through it. I'm still aching now and I'm turned 70.

A non-playing example, but Steve Portz used to run our Youth Club. Top Bloke!