In no particular order
Bruce Ryan 59 tries in 84 app, try every 1.43 games
Alf Francis Hulls other pre WWI winger 166 in 247, 1 in 1.49
W Stone 149 in 222, 1 in 1.49
J. Harrison 91 in 101 (FC 150 website shows 101 in 106, these extra 1915 games are not recognised by the RL Record Keepers Club nor the RFL as to be included in official stats. 1 in 1.11 (or 1.05 for the 101 tries)
C. Sullivan 250 in 352, 1 in 1.41

Firstly there's no place for sentimentality,
I. Watts (214/413/1.93) great servant, great winger, brave & on the scoresheet plenty but just not the very very best.
Super Taff (98/215/2.2) weakish defense (okay he was 11st wet through), best step in the business and a decent touch finding boot, just couldn't do it at the top level enough.
Briscoe (90/147/1.63) whilst a beast in attack again frail defensively far too often and positionally STILL naive., amazing try scoring considering he had Yeaman inside of him!
Raynor (106/199/1.8icon_cool.gif, all the skills and I'd have nominated him but can we have a convicted felon on the list?
O'Hara (110/232/2.11), pace to burn, real quality, scored tries aplenty early on for us but just a little short in the very highest company
Best (41/63/1.53), no thanks, again too weak defensively for my liking and always looked off the boil despite his great pace and finishing, he had R.Barnett inside of him, how couldn't you score!
Eastwood (118/293/2.4icon_cool.gif discount his goal scoring & points haul, as a winger he was very good but not top 10 material

I can only give you the stats
Debut 7/4/56 against Wakefield at home.
Scored 11 tries in 21 appearances

O'Hara
Taffy

Only saw Sullivan in the 82 replay so difficult to say how good he was though possibly the best. Best not in the same league as the two ive mentioned imo

Well it is hard to pass to yourself.

Actually I find this a good well argued list. Regarding Raynor, though he obviously will never win any citizen of the year awards, should that count against his actual playing performance? After all if you were picking the best British player of the last 30 years would the most obvious candidate be excluded for their extra curricular activities?

Yeah, the crab was definitely one of your best wingers, as a fan of an opposing team.

Thanks for that. Although very fit and a speedster he was very lightly built and was not as strong defensively as the other right wingers of that great period viz: Keith Bowman and Stan Cowan. Ivor Watts of course ruled the roost on the left and pound for pound and inch for inch was one of the the best tackling wingers I have ever seen. Whether it was Billy Boston, Wilf Rosenburg, Lionel Cooper or Tom Van Vollenhoven little Ivor could handle them all. Brian Bevan did give him a few tricky moments though!

i'll sort out the list of nominees tomorrow, so if you think of any more candidates, get them in

Do you not think you should keep it to 6 nominees..8 is too many and would slant the voting against the less obvious choices..(fewer votes due to votes being spread over more players)
TBH it's a foregone conclusion in any case

ok we'll go with 6 and see how it goes

OK here is the list of nominees. As before i have tried to go with the flow of the thread but the list of nominees is not intended to be the final one. if you feel a player should make the list or be removed please speak up, but remember you must fight your corner and give some good reasons. i would like to make clear at this point that players are to be included on playing ability and sporting achievement only, and off field activities shouldn't come into play unless connected with issues that impinge on performance (i'm talking substance use here). i know this might be controversial and arguments and scenarios can be presented in either way, but a line in the sand needs to be drawn before we get too far into team selection. That said if there is a large majority who feel the other way (ooeer missus), i'll change it.

so without any more ado

1. Jack Harrison VC. Leaving his war heroics on one side, Harrison had a remarkable FC career. He signed from York in 1912 and went on to score 106 tries in 116 games. in 1913/14 Harrison scored 52 tries in one season, a club record which still stands. Harrison was denied further glory by his call to arms in 1916, and also international honours as the great war prevented GB going on tour to Australia

2. Bruce Ryan. The Australian was the supreme entertainer of his day, and his signing in 1947 was a huge coup for a club in somewhat of a rut at the time. Such was the interest in his signing he was met by a crowd of 4000 at Paragon station. Ryan, a champion sprinter, went on to score 60 tries in 84 games from 1947 to 1950, before going on to perform similar feats for some small club in west yorks i've forgotten the name of

3. Ivor Watts. Hailing from the Welsh valleys, Watts is second on Hull's all time try scoring list with 216 in 413 games. he had a long career running from 1945 to 1960. his last game was in the challenge cup final when Hull lost to Wakefield 5 - 38

4. Clive Sullivan MBE. FC seem to find excellent welsh wingers and Sullivan was no exception. the Cardiffian is hull's all time record try scorer with 250, scored in just 352 games. he also hold the record for tries in a game with 7. his career spanned 1961 to 1973, with a further short spell in 1982 when he played in Hull's challenge cup final replay victory over Widnes. Sullivan also played 17 times for GB winning the world cup, and 15 times for Wales. he was also the first black captain of any major British sporting team, and is one of a select number of FC players to be awarded an MBE.

5. Dane O'Hara. O'Hara was one of 3 major imports signed off the back of the 1981 kiwi tour of the UK. the right winger had a long and successful FC career winning most major trophies and scored 110 tries in 232 games. he holds the record as Hull's longest serving overseas player, representing the club from 1981 to 1990. he also won 36 New Zealand test caps scoring 15 tries.

6. Gareth Raynor. Raynor signed for Hull as something of an unknown quantity from Leeds in 2001, but soon became a favourite on the left wing. he played for the club from 2001 to 2009 broken only with a short spell in rugby union for Leicester Tigers. he scored 101 tries in 185 games winning the challenge cup in 2005, scoring a try in the final. he also won 3 caps for Great Britian, scoring the winning try in the Sydney tri nations game in 2006

so there we go. a very strong list spanning many eras of FC's history. i'll leave this thread for a few days for comments on the nominees, and then create the voting thread once the list is finalised (please also point out any errors i may have made in the brief biogs above)

Raynor?

Good winger but wouldn't even make my best team of the Superleague era. Not as good as Briscoe imo and well behind Best.

Watts in front of Francis or Stone? whilst I understand it's hard to put players in that 0% of fans have any living memory of scoring ratio is a pretty good indicator of ability. Stone particularly..he was way ahead of his contemporary's, started in the centres alternating to wing. great passer, great step, tenacious tackler and a GB winger that held the record for most tries on a tour down under for years 24 in 17 games) and had only switched codes 6 months previously. Had it not being for back problems that curtailed him to only 6 seasons and early retirement he would have surpassed Sullivan's tally imo.
For me Stone has to be in front of Watts both on all around ability, try scoring record and representative stats too.

Behind Best..oh come on..Best had some talent but was one dimensional and couldn't defend for . plenty of pace and a big lump but not a chance. id say briscoe due to his consistently poor positioning and dropsies brings him back to just a hair behind Raynor. Raynor had bags of ability, plenty in attack (not as much as Briscoe) but was much better in the air on D and his positioning as a winger far superior both in attack and defence. IMO of course.

I also think that Stone is a bad omission from this list. Granted we only have his scoring stats but another indication of a players quality are representative honours and how they compared with their contemporaries. Stone was an international and a GB tourist so even allowing for the selectors to get it wrong, some leading figures in the game must have rated him as one of the very best available. Perhaps we should expand the nomination list to 8. The problem is selecting the second winger - Clive Sullivan is miles in front of everyone else as he combines world class quality with long service to the club. Who else we pick really depends on how much emphasis you decide to give to quality of play against the length of time it was given. Is 2 years of genius better than 5 very good years or 10 above average ones?