Leyther_Matt

True enough. Looking at the picture, the Willows end might have actually been enlarged at some point as there was certainly a dozen or so steps of terracing at that end in it’s later years, albeit not running the full width of the pitch.

Amazing how many births there were in Wigan in such an era 😉 (not that I’m bitter having been born in Billinge in 1986 so having the dubious pleasure of growing up with Leigh at their lowest ebb while Wigan were winning everything in sight)

As a side note, I attended the last game at Hilton Park against Whitehaven in the play offs, went to what I think was the final game at Knowsley Road (Huddersfield in the play offs?), ‘one of’ the last games at Wilderspool when Leigh played Warrington in Mark Hilton’s testimonial about a month before the HJ opened, and the final game at the Willows was one of only two or three Salford home games that I missed that particular season.

A little harsh to consider the Willows to be three-sided. Granted, there wasn’t a huge amount of terracing at the variety club end but it was there all the same. Even when considering Wilderspool, wasn’t there some seating in use beneath Snookers for quite a period?

That was the ‘away’ end, wasn’t it? From a personal point of view, it stems back from the days of being able to switch ends at half-time at Hilton Park. It was a right of passage to start off at the bottom of the terrace as a kid and work your way further back as you got older. For what it’s worth, I prefer to watch RL from behind the posts as you have a much greater awareness of the patterns of play, gaps in the defence and the like. And of course over time you develop the unique talent of spotting offsides when you aren’t even side-on (I’d put forward passes in the same category, but in fairness the referee has to judge them from a similar angle so there’s nothing stopping the fans doing the same if they are acquainted in the shape of a player’s hand movements when delivering a forward pass)

I went to the first England game there against NZ and have since been there for football (watching Bolton against West Ham in the League Cup last season). Based on the experience of those two visits, it might be nice when they get round to finishing it.

A French World Cup would have the potential to be huge. So it'll be a condensed tournament in Oz. If it happens at all.

It all ends up the same. (Must admit I didn’t fancy the look of poutine one bit until I was finally brave enough to try it in the airport before we flew home and instantly wished I’d tried it days earlier!)

No chance, Batley were serving chips, cheese and gravy before Canada was even a country!

I think it's based on the celebratory team photo at the end of that game where every(?) Widnes player has swapped shirts with the Canberra team.

U18s for both - Australian compulsory education continues to 18, I believe, and the 'Schoolboys' title carries significant prestige in Aussie circles

We had the blinding idea of flying Girona-Manchester at 10am the morning after the game....! Actually worked out better than you'd think, as we were back home by the time the hangovers kicked in!

It doesn't seem to be a problem with private cars, but similarly to Bleep we were in a taxi and got pulled over at border control. Our driver said it was quite a frequent occurence with taxis.

In 2017 we flew Manchester-Girona but stayed in Perpignan. We prebooked a taxi online straight from the airport to our accomodation that was very reasonable between the four of us, though we did get pulled over for a minute at the Spanish-French border! As above there is the option to fly to Barcelona, Caracassonne, Nimes and Toulouse and get a train from there.

I was going to make a joke along those lines but thought I’d see how the thread goes. Take a bow for managing it on the first reply!