DEREK WHITEHEAD (February 14, 1944 – April 5, 2025)
DEREK WHITEHEAD was a dependable goal-kicking fullback who anchored the Warrington side that won four trophies in one memorable mid-seventies season.
Three times a Great Britain representative, he started his professional career, which he combined with his job as a butcher, with his local club Swinton, before then playing for Oldham.
But it was with Warrington that he achieved his most notable success, with the side of 1973-74, steered from the halves by inspirational player-coach Alex Murphy, being Wembley winners at the expense of Featherstone Rovers.
While Murphy kicked two field-goals in the 24-9 triumph, Whitehead, who has died aged 81, landed seven goals with his right-foot ‘toe-enders’ – one of them from the halfway line – during a match punctuated by penalties, and he was awarded the Lance Todd Trophy.
During that campaign he had already helped Warrington lift the Captain Morgan Trophy and Player’s No.6 Trophy, and a week after Wembley, they won the Club Championship, a tournament introduced to replace the former play-offs after the reintroduction of two divisions.
The Captain Morgan Trophy, which like the Club Championship lasted just that season, involved the 16 winners of the first-round ties in the Lancashire and Yorkshire Cups.
While Warrington, having beaten Leigh, went out to Whitehaven in round two of the red-rose competition, they defeated Wigan, Castleford and Leeds to make the Captain Morgan final, in which Featherstone were seen off 4-0 at Salford by man-of-the-match Whitehead’s two goals.
In the Player’s Trophy, which was in its third season, Oldham, Castleford, Dewsbury and St Helens were beaten before a 27-16 victory over Rochdale Hornets in the final at Wigan, where he scored a try and slotted six goals.
Six days earlier, Warrington had started their Challenge Cup campaign by defeating Huddersfield, after which Huyton, Wigan and Dewsbury were overcome before the Twin Towers win against Featherstone.
And in the 16-team Club Championship, there were victories against Hull, Bradford Northern, Wakefield Trinity, then in the final, St Helens, with Whitehead kicking two goals as a hotly-contested clash at Wigan was edged 13-12.
Warrington, who finished fifth in the league, played 51 times in all that season, and he featured in 46 of those games, more than any other player.
Whitehead’s 162 goals equalled Australian Harry Bath’s club record in one campaign (achieved in 1952-53), a figure later broken by Steve Hesford with 170 in 1978-79.
Between September 1969, when he was signed amid a cash crisis at Oldham, and the end of the 1978-79 season, he made 279 Warrington appearances, totting up 17 tries, and with his steel-capped boot, 713 goals and 21 field-goals, and he underlined his reputation as a strong defender who attacked with pace and a trademark sidestep.
He also helped Warrington win the League Leaders’ Trophy in 1972-73 and, at Salford’s expense, the BBC2 Floodlit Trophy in 1974-75, when he also played in the 14-7 Challenge Cup final defeat by Widnes.
Born in Pendlebury, near Salford, Whitehead attended Cromwell Road Secondary Modern School, where games teacher Don Clarke spotted his talent and alerted Folly Lane, the amateur feeder team for Swinton, a club that was among the strongest around in the early sixties.
He was central to the success of Swinton’s ‘A’ team in 1962-63, when they won the Lancashire Combination as the firsts claimed the league title.
Whitehead made his senior debut in 1964 and went on to make 99 appearances, many of them on the wing (with the legendary Ken Gowers at fullback), registering 22 tries and 260 goals.
He played in Swinton’s Floodlit Trophy final defeat by Castleford in 1966-67.
Whitehead’s transfer to Oldham came ahead of 1968-69, and he appeared in that season’s Lancashire Cup final loss to St Helens, one of 49 matches (two tries and 139 goals) for the Roughyeds.
All his Lions caps came in 1971, an away loss and home victory over France (he scored a try and three goals in the 24-2 success at St Helens), and a first Test defeat by the New Zealand tourists. There were also five appearances for Lancashire across 1973 and 1974.
After playing his final match as a substitute in Warrington’s 33-6 win at Rochdale in May 1979, he joined the club’s coaching staff (on which he remained until 1985) and also enjoyed a testimonial, with former team-mate turned club coach Billy Benyon writing in the brochure: “Derek was a truly thinking footballer, capable of turning a match.
“His ability has always been unquestioned in the professional rugby game, a great competitor and one of the finest goal-kicking fullbacks that Rugby League has known.”
Whitehead was inducted into Warrington’s club Hall of Fame in 2008.
A keen angler and music lover, his favourite artists being Little Richard, Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis, he was a regular and popular spectator at Warrington matches until illness took hold in recent years.
He died in a Swinton nursing home, having been admitted a few days before Christmas, and leaves wife Ann, twin daughters Jayne and Joanne, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
The details of his funeral have yet to be announced.