Last Friday saw the last ever game played at Knowsley Road, home of the Saints for the last 120 years. I can't say I'm all that sad to see the back of the scruffy old hovel myself, but despite the crap views, muddy paths and decaying stands the place still brings back so many outstanding memories.
Since the dawn of Super League in 1996 Saints have enjoyed outstanding success. They have been crowned Super League champions five times, won the Challenge Cup a further seven times, and secured the World Club Challenge twice. Yet it hasn't always been about glory and accolades. During my time visiting the old ground there has been a Tony Kaye for every Jamie Lyon, and a Paul Round for every Keiron Cunningham.
My earliest memory goes back to about 1984 when my Dad first took me. I'd be about 8 at the time and I remember we were playing Leeds. In those days there wasn't a Rhino in sight as Roy Haggerty, playing at centre, helped himself to a hat-trick of tries in a pretty routine win. Haggerty is a great reminder of those early days watching Saints, when the players were mostly just blokes from the town who had a day job aswell.
Roy in particular was very accessible to fans in a way that the modern Super League player never will be. His idea of extra training was to go for a run around the streets of Thatto Heath. While we'd be out using the neighbours' drive as a goalpost he'd pass through in the kind of tatty grey tracksuit made famous by Sylvester Stallone in the Rocky films.
"'Right Roy." we'd say as if we were his nearest and dearest;
"'Right lads." he'd reply, never breaking stride or even turning his head.
So we never really knew Roy, but as you get older, so the chances increase of someone you know turning up on the wing wearing a Red Vee. Ste Prescott was the first person I recognised from elsewhere to make his debut, but then there was Andy Haigh (who used to throw things at me in maths class) and Joey Hayes, both of whom were colleagues at Carmel College.
Preckie was a mainstay of the team for years at full-back, winning the very first Super League in 1996 aswell as two Challenge Cup winners medals. Never will I forget his first try at Wembley in '96, when my always over-exhuberant cousin Alex physically lifted me out of my chair and took me for an impromptu sprint down the greyhound track. He was significantly slower than Preckie, it has to be said, although to be fair I'm not sure how even a Saints legend would would fare with a 10-stone biff on his back.
After that I never really knew anyone in the team, but the damage was done and I'd somehow managed to get myself hooked on going to Knowsley Road. It was a great time to be a Saints fan, with players of the calibre of Cunningham, Bobbie Goulding, Sean Long, Tommy Martyn and Paul Newlove gracing the turf. The trophies which followed were glorious, but it is some of the smaller moments which stand out. Everyone seems to know where they were during the famous 'Wide to West' moment, when on the last play of a 2001 play-off game against the then formidable Bradford Bulls a combination of Long's outrageous kicking, Kevin Iro's handling and even an unusually useful contribution from Ste Hall led to the aforementioned Dwayne West making a break down the left before passing inside to the talismanic Chris Joynt who touched down for the win. I was there so it wasn't until I got home and watched the re-run that I was aware of Eddie Hemmings now famous commentary, during which it seems likely that he will spontaneously combust.
A less well known but no less memorable piece of commentary came during a mid-80's match-up with Hull. Saints were 10-8 down late in the game, when the otherwise unheralded winger Les Quirke took off on a majestic gallop down the left sideline in front of the popular stand. The club's local commentator, working on the official club video of the game, described the late match-winner as a 'try of orgasmic proportions'. It's doubtful whether commentary comes any better than that, and extremely doubtful whether that particular commentator has ever enjoyed a try more than he did that night.
Other highlights that stick out for me are Alan Hunte head-butting Martin Offiah in an otherwise depressing early 90's loss to the evil empire from across Billinge Lump, Jarrod McCracken knocking Dean Bell off his feet during the 1993 Lancashire Cup Final (another agonising defeat, this time 5-4 in a try-less classic), and Sonny Nickle realising the ambition of every self-respecting Saints fan by jawing Gary Connolly during the fabulous 41-6 demolition of the pies on Boxing Day of 1992. I don't know why, but there is something about random acts of violence which seems to excite rugby league fans, and in particular Saints fans if the random act of violence happens to be committed on a Wigan player. Even more so if we're losing, as we were for much of the late 80's and early 90's when they had those robotic sides featuring the likes of Offiah, Shaun Edwards, Andy Gregory, Ellery Hanley, Dennis Betts, Jason Robinson and Sky Sports buffoon and one-time rugby league superstar Philip Clarke.
Towards the end of my piece it is confession time. I haven't been to see Saints at Knowsley Road for about three years, maybe longer. My last memory of actually being there is when myself and a friend took my nephew to his first game. We were playing Wakefield and I think he might have been a little young to appreciate the real nuances of the game. What I do remember is that he danced whenever we scored, which you have to blame entirely on the club's insistence on playing crap chart dance music after every score. They do that these days, now that it is all about marketing and razamatazz.
The reasons I haven't been back are there for all to see. The very fact that the club is moving to a new stadium shows that even they realise that the old ground is no longer fit for purpose. Quite apart from the ground level views and the mud, there's the issue of total inaccessibility to all refreshment kiosks and bars and the fact that the newly franchised-based Super League keep threatening to kick us out if we don't literally get our house in order. I hate to say it, but we're miles behind the likes of Wigan (spits), Warrington and even Hull who have had brand and indeed spanking new homes built in recent years. Having visited them all I can safely say that watching Saints at home will be an altogether more comfortable, pleasant experience from the 2012 season onwards
And so to the last ever game, the Qualifying Final against Huddersfield. Winner moves to the Grand Final, loser packs a case. Keiron Cunningham's last season. Who should come up with the last ever try on the ground but the man who, in my opinion, is the greatest player to have worn the Red Vee during my time watching at Knowsley Road. Seventeen exhausting years at the top, many of which saw him revered as the best number 9 in the world by the proverbial country mile. The word legend is over-used. Not in his case.
But he has one more game. I've never been more desperate to win a game of rugby league as I am for Saints to triumph in the 2010 Grand Final at Old Trafford this weekend. That Wigan provide the opposition is probably the driving force behind that, but it would also be a fitting way to move on from Knowsley Road and all that, and look forward to more success, Wides To West, Tries Of Orgasmic Proportions and Random Acts Of Violence in our new abode.
No comments:
Post a Comment