Co-author of the Rugby League Yearbook and former Rugby League World editor TIM BUTCHER re-lives the most infamous final in Rugby League history.
I WATCHED it again. And I really thought that Don would kick it this time.
Poor lad. Eighty minutes of mistake-ridden football on rugby league’s biggest day of the year. That skewed conversion was the last of a hundred errors.
I’d seen the whole BBC broadcast of the game before on YouTube about the time that David Hinchliffe brought out his lovely book ‘They Walked on Water’, over ten years ago. Before then I had to rely on the increasingly unreliable memory of a then 11-year-old boy.
A boy steeped in rugby league. Wakefield Trinity were the centre of my universe for the first eleven years. I didn’t know that soccer was by that time bigger than my favourite game. How could it be? Which sport had formed the backdrop to a big-time movie? If you haven’t seen it, Lindsay Anderson’s ‘This Sporting Life’ of 1963 still stands the test of time, all kinds of different themes which were too grown-up for me then. All I was interested in was the rugby league action and the scenes involving my favourite players, on the field, in local bars and clubs and in the communal bath at Belle Vue alongside superstar actor Richard Harris.
The year 1963 was the apogee of Wakefield Trinity Football Club. Just about everything they touched seemed to turn to gold. As well as being immortalised in cinematic history, they had won the Challenge Cup three times in four years, breaking the points record in 1960 with a 38-5 win over Hull (my only memory was my mam and dad going away for the night); edging Huddersfield two years later (no memory at all) and in ’63, beating our biggest foe, Wigan.
That 25-10 win on a sunlit dry turf cost my folks a few bob, even though we watched it in our front room. When Malcolm Sampson strode over for Wakefield’s first try my dad leapt into the air in celebration. Alas the armchair wasn’t strong enough to handle his landing and the frame inside it smashed. He was the only one who had ever sat in it and struggled on for a month or two until the inevitable, when a new three-piece suite eventually arrived.
1968 marked the end of a longing to go to Wembley. Trinity saw the bulk of their early ‘sixties side leave or retire but there was a re-building that culminated in the club’s first Championship in 1967 when they beat St Helens in a Wednesday-night replay at Swinton’s Station Road.
That historic game would probably have been a shoo-in as the Match of my Years but I was only able to view the top quarter of the pitch, with 33,536 other people crammed into the great old ground. And that was only possible after some creative thinker turned a lottery hut on its side for kids to stand on. Otherwise I’d have had no view at all. Still, the 21-9 victory was the greatest thing that had ever happened in the world as far as I was concerned.
Twelve months later things got even better as Wakefield fought their way to the Cup Final – and secured a second consecutive Championship a week before the trip down south with a 17-10 win over Hull KR at Headingley.
The Wembley trail was thrilling. A long trip to Barrow, then in the second round a shorter haul to Salford, both 8-4 wins; then Castleford at home, an 18-5 victory despite, according to Mike Rylance in his fine book about the history of the club, Don Fox having three teeth knocked out in the first minute.
Bogey side Huddersfield were drawn in the semi-final and an Odsal mudbath produced a nil-all draw, before we beat them on the Wednesday by 15-10.
Going to Wembley was to me the equivalent of flying to the moon. If I’d have been offered a choice between the two I would probably have gone for the four-hour trip down the M1 in my uncle Les’s car, even if Neil Fox wasn’t playing because of injury.
It didn’t turn out that well. We were in a Wimpy Bar somewhere near the ground when the first big, black cloud burst over NW6. But as we left to walk to the stadium, the sun came out. The famous legendary turf would soon soak up that rain the adults thought.
Far from it. When the players came out they were already splashing about. Leeds winger Alan Smith fell into a puddle when he peeled off from the presentation to raucous acclaim from the Trinity end. Bev Risman’s skidded kick-off set the tone as Wakefield winger Ken Batty knocked on, though referee Mr Hebblethwaite chose to play on.
It was the first of what seemed a few thousand handling errors, some of them ruled as knock ons, some not. Scrums for knock-ons in those days and also after four tackles (a rule tweak which didn’t quite work out (too many scrums) and was succeeded by six tackles in 1972.
Watching it again, it’s amazing how both sides threw the ball around with no allowance for the impossible conditions. What a game this would have been on a dry day, between two magnificent teams.
We were in the lead at half-time 7-4, left winger Ken Hirst hacking on and diving on the ball after John Atkinson had knocked the ball in-field from Don Fox’s kick to touch. But Leeds hooker Tony Crosby was winning just about every scrum and we weren’t too confident.
Just before the break an even bigger storm made a pitch that had been barely playable totally unfit for any sporting contest, let alone rugby league’s biggest game. It should have been abandoned, although 87,100 supporters would have felt short-changed.
I would anyway. Until Don Fox missed that goal. The referee’s unpredictable approach had continued and culminated in the ‘penalty try’ that gave Leeds the lead. A penalty goal from Bev Risman a minute from time put us 11-7 behind and it was all over…until Ken Hirst hacked on Don Fox’s re-start into Leeds’ in-goal and dived on the ball under the posts. Just the simple conversion to win the game…..
First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 494 (March 2024)
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