Derby Classics - Saints Storm Back In 1987

This won’t be a popular view but I quite liked Central Park.

I mean, I’m all for progress and I would hate to think that Saints or Wigan or any modern top flight club that has moved into a more modern facility would go back to their old homes. They were squalid, had poor and in some cases no facilities and if you happened to have the temerity to turn up using a wheelchair you had to do so early. The concept of charging disabled people to watch hadn’t occurred to Saints or Wigan at that time, during the 80s and 90s. Which might sound good, but the reality is that it was a free-for-all in the limited space available in those old grounds. I haven’t left many Saints games before the final hooter, but I can recall seeing the 1996 Good Friday classic in The Bird I’Th Hand because getting in a position where you could actually see the pitch inside the ground had become impossible some two hours before kick-off.

So why then did I quite like Central Park? Well partly because I didn’t have a Langtree Park or a DW Stadium to compare it to. But mainly because my best friend, who is now sadly no longer with us, was a huge Wigan fan. When Saints were playing away I would go with him to Central Park to noisily cheer on the opposition, and he would come to Knowsley Road if Wigan were playing away. He once won a McEwans Lager sponsored Saints sweater for being the face in the crowd in a match day programme, which was just hilarious. He wore it too, though mostly only for wheelchair basketball training during the week.

I liked the location of Central Park, the atmosphere, the push to the ground from some God Awful town centre watering hole of the day like Harry’s Bar or The Bees Knees. The current stadium might have much better facilities inside, but nearby your only real choice is the Red Robin and if it’s derby day you have probably got about as much chance of pushing your way to the bar and actually being seen at wheelchair height by the bar staff as you had of seeing any rugby league inside the wheelchair area on that memorable day back in 1996. I mention this because this week’s nostalgia comes from Central Park. Specifically it is December 27 1987 and a mud-soaked classic between the two old foes.

That’s one thing I don’t miss in the summer era, in this age of good drainage. Mud. You imagine trying to push through it using your hands rather than just having to step through it in your Wellies. Then you had the problem, which became very real during the second half of this one, of trying to figure out exactly who was on which team when all players appeared to be dressed head to toe in brown. If Wigan had had Sir Alex Ferguson in charge perhaps he would have defended their second half collapse by explaining that his players could not identify each other.

It all started well enough. Both sides strode out from the tunnel behind the posts with great purpose and confidence, Saints somehow allowed to get away with white with a blue ‘v’ as a change of strip to avoid a clash with Wigan’s cherry and white hoops. The visitors lined up with Phil Veivers at full-back, a three-quarter line of Kevin McCormack, Les Quirk, Paul Loughlin and Mark Elia with Shane Cooper and Neil Holding in the halves. In the front row were Tony Burke, Paul Groves and Peter Souto. Souto made just six appearances for Saints between 1986 and 1988. His last would come just a month after this one against Bradford. Saints back row consisted of local products Paul Forber and Roy Haggerty with future Wigan and Auckland Warriors man Andy Platt at loose forward. This was Platt’s last derby on the right side of the boundary before he moved to Wigan in 1988. Saints bench that day, which remember had room enough only for two players under the rules at the time, was occupied by David Tanner and Welsh rugby union convert Stuart Evans.

Wigan lined up with the ever reliable Steve Hampson at fullback. Ahead of him were Dave Marshall, father of current Wigan winger Liam, opposite another man who would make the switch between the two sides but this time in the other direction in Kevin Iro on the other wing. The great Ellery Hanley lined up in the centres alongside the speedy former Widnes man Joe Lydon. Shaun Edwards and Andy Gregory was perhaps one of the greatest halfback partnerships the British game has every seen while in front of them in the pack were Ian Lucas, Martin Dermott and Brian Case. Ian Potter and Graeme West made up the second row while Andy Goodway locked the scrum. On the bench were Richard Russell and Adrian Shelford, the latter having been involved in controversial transfer saga which culminated in him joining Wigan despite having earlier agreed to sign for Saints.

Saints went into this one having already suffered five league defeats from their first 10 league outings. They’d also crashed out of the Lancashire Cup, losing 27-21 to Leigh at Hilton Park in a game which saw the side coached by former Saints player and boss Billy Benyon outscore Saints five tries to four. All five of Saints’ league defeats to that point had come away from Knowsley Road with the travel sickness taking its toll at Castleford, Warrington, Halifax, Leeds and Hull KR.

By contrast Wigan had opened their campaign with nine successive victories in all competitions. They had made it through to the Lancashire Cup Final in which they beat Warrington 28-16 at Knowsley Road. Their first defeat of the 1987/88 season came at home to Halifax in October when they went down 17-14. That was followed by an unhelpful 18-18 draw with Leeds a week later and when they emulated Saints in losing at Castleford they found themselves floundering behind early season pace-setters Widnes whose only league loss before Christmas was a surprising 21-20 reverse at home to Swinton. Yet Wigan had beaten Widnes 20-12 in late September on their way to the Lancashire Cup success and so perhaps held a psychological advantage over their title rivals.

In the event it was Saints who would get closest to the Cheshire side as they wrapped up the first of what would be three titles in a row. All a far cry from the yo-yo-ing of the Vikings, administration and Dennis Betts that have characterised the Widnes club during the summer era. For Widnes the late 1980s was the era of Martin Offiah, who scored 41 tries in 1987, and later of Jonathans Davies and Devereux who came across from Welsh rugby union to light up the rival code.

Back to Central Park, where Saints took the lead through McCormack. Witness the way Holding receives the ball from hooker Groves before doing a full-scale pirouette to enable him to pass right handed out to Cooper. The New Zealand international hands on to Veivers who ups the pace to slice between the Wigan defenders and put McCormack away down the right hand touchline. The pacey winger easily has enough speed to enable him to trot around to dot the ball down under the sticks for the first try of the afternoon.

That was as good as the afternoon got for McCormack. Later in the first half Edwards, showing a good deal more decisiveness than he can currently muster when pondering his next coaching job, kicked the ball through the Saints defensive line at speed before following it up to put the boot in for the second time. McCormack was easily winning the race for the loose ball as he came around to cover, Edwards having been sent tumbling to the ground in Premier League footballer fashion by the slightest of brushes from a panicked, on-rushing Veivers. As McCormack approached the loose ball to pick it up the twang of his hamstring was almost audible. He crashed to the ground in what used to be referred to as instalments, grabbing the affected area in pain yet still managing to fall on top of the ball. He played no further part in the game and did not feature again for Saints until a 16-6 loss to Widnes in early April.

Edwards was instrumental in Wigan’s reply. He took a pass from Gregory before handing on to Shelford whose bullet pass was too hot for even Hanley to handle. Hampson reacted first as the ball bobbled along the ground, scooping up for Edwards who had continued his run to put Iro over in the left hand corner. It is remarkable to think that this happened fully 12 years before Iro joined Saints and helped them win the epic 1999 Super League Grand Final, and that after spells at Manly, Leeds, Hunter Mariners and Auckland Warriors. As Iro gets up from touching the ball down in this one you can recognise his familiar gate, though the hair on both his head and face are specifically of their time.

Wigan’s next try was classic Saints 1980s pantomime. Holding failed to gather the ball from a scrum that he himself had fed, allowing Goodway to get a foot to the ball ahead of Quirk. The Wigan forward won the race to touch down with opposite number Platt to put the home side ahead. It’s difficult enough playing against a late 1980s Wigan side you would imagine without providing tries for them straight off the production line at the clown factory, but that’s where we were with Saints in that period. They could be brilliant, as we would see later in this game, but they could also be absurdly bad.

Things got worse before they got better. Again it originated from Saints possession. Holding’s long ball out wide was gathered by Loughlin on the bounce but as he ran back inside from right to left he inexplicably decided on a wild pass which floated across the Saints attacking line to nobody in particular. Nobody that is except Lydon, who jutted out of the Wigan defensive line to hack the ball forward. Lydon could shift, and he looked like an athlete playing against drunk pub-goers as he raced on to his kick, wafting his boot at it again as he caught up with it some 40 metres from the Saints try-line. His second kick took him to within about 15 metres and his final touch sent it dribbling over the try-line from where he touched down. Holding is the nearest Saint to Lydon as he scores the try but that is only because Lydon has had to slow down considerably to stay behind the ball which had lost pace owing to its unpredictable bounce and the boggy surface.

That left Saints 22-6 down at half-time, a position from which few would have given them any hope of a recovery. Even when Platt drew two Wigan defenders towards him and neatly slipped the ball to Veivers for an easy walk-in try hopes were not high. Not as high as the shot with which Graeme West clouted Veivers after he scored that try in any case. That stoked the fire even further, and with the game now back in the melting pot Saints closed the gap to just two points at 22-20 when Veivers scored again soon after. Cooper’s delicate kick close to the line squirmed just out of his reach as two Wigan defenders converged on him but there was Saints’ Aussie fullback to pick up the pieces to touch down for his second of the game.

Veivers was involved again as Saints took the lead. He took Cooper’s pass out wide on the right before bringing Tanner back on the inside. Tanner had come on to replace the stricken McCormack in the first half and kept his nerve to just about reach the line and get the ball down. Just a minute or so later Quirk added his name to the list of scorers as he took Holding’s basketball-style hook pass, the kind of thing that would be deeply frowned upon in the age of staying in the grind, to squeeze over in the corner to give Saints a barely credible 30-22 lead. Loughlin added a late penalty, helpfully aided by Holding’s first audition to be a groundsman as he helped dig a suitable hole in the turf from where the Great Britain centre could tee up the ball for the shot at goal. These were the days before kicking tees when the sight of players digging up chunks of turf with the heel of their boot was as common as obstruction is now.

When the whistle blew to signal Saints victory there were fans on the pitch, notably those surrounding coach Alex Murphy as he jogged down the tunnel in triumph. This sort of thing would also get the thumbs down today, and quite rightly so in light of Jack Grealish’s recent unwanted encounter with an opposition fan. Yet it was easy to forgive the exuberance of the Saints fans who had witnessed their local rivals winning the title the season before for the first time since 1959/60. After Widnes’ hat-trick Wigan would go on to win the title six times in a row before the advent of Super League and full-time professionalism across the competition. Saints, who had not won a title themselves since 1975 and would not do so again until that first Super League season of 1996.

That they did not do it in 1987/88 was largely down to that early season away form. They did finish runners-up to Widnes, so ending the campaign looking down on Wigan who finished third, even if only points difference separated those two as well as fourth placed Bradford Northern. The Christmas derby win was the third of 11 straight victories in all competitions for Saints, two of which came in the John Player Trophy which the red vee pocketed by beating Oldham 18-8 in the semi-final before edging Leeds 15-14 in the final at Central Park. There was a certain symmetry about the fact that both Saints and Wigan had now won silverware at the home of their deadliest rivals.

Saints’ good run was ended by a 22-18 reverse at Salford before that 16-6 loss at Widnes was sandwiched between rare home defeats by Leeds and, crucially, Wigan. Two Hanley tries proved vital in that win and it would be a brutal blow to Saints hopes of ending their 13-year wait for a top flight title. The defeat at Widnes finally killed Saints hopes, while Wigan’s challenge was derailed by a three-game losing streak as Warrington, Hull FC and Hull KR all got the better of Graham Lowe’s side in the run-in.
Central Park was finally turned into a supermarket in 1999, the same year that my best mate passed away from this world. It may have been the home of the enemy for 97 years but it holds some poignant memories for me, in particular what was arguably the most thrilling game of the 1987/88 season.