1952-1953

During the summer months Headingley was a hive of ceaseless and fruitful activity with the accent on youth. First, a series of Trial Matches, held early in May, resulted in several young players signing for the club as amateurs. Amongst them was Clifford Last, loose forward from the Middleton area, who was destined to make his first team debut within twelve months whilst still only seventeen years of age. Equally beneficial was a ?Summer School? which extended over a period of ten weeks to give valuable practical and theoretical instruction to more than forty talented juniors.

But those supporters who had learned over the years to automatically expect news of big close season signings by the Leeds club must surely have been puzzled by the apparent lack of enterprise on the part of the management as there had been no announcement regarding a successor to Bob Bartlett who had already left these shores for Australia. In point of fact the search for a centre replacement had gone on unremittingly but without immediate success, and there were no new faces in the Leeds ranks for the opening of the season.

The campaign opened badly, so that by the end of September we had lost five of the first nine engagements, and had been eliminated from the Yorkshire Cup Competition by Hull in the 1st Round, after winning the first leg at the Boulevard. In fairness it must be recorded that the team had been severely handicapped by injuries: Keith McLellan sustained a fractured cheek-bone in the Lazenby Cup match, which rendered him unavailable for eight weeks; ?Drew? Turnbull, Bert Cook, and Bill Hopper all suffered with injuries of a less serious nature; whilst Dicky Williams, still feeling the effects of the cartilage operation, was unable to do himself justice.

Team selection problems were made more acute when Johnny Feather, who some two years later was to meet his death in a tragic motoring accident, was transferred to Oldham at his own request. In addition, owing to ?Military Service?, the club were unable to call regularly on such players as Dunn, Brown and Pratt, and the management were therefore obliged to take emergency action to plug the gaps through the signing of two established players: Ralph Morgan, international full back from Swinton, and Elwyn Gwyther, Test blind-side prop forward from Belle Vue Rangers. These two players, who made their debut at Barrow along with T. Lynn from the ?A? Team, were to reveal such skill that one could only regret they had not come to Headingley as younger men.

Although the team got on the winning track against Hull K.R. at Headingley and showed greatly improved form in subsequent matches the Club officials were by no means complacent. Approaches were made in many quarters in an attempt to sign a class centre, but all without success. A special meeting which was convened to discuss the matter at length and to explore every possible avenue was equally unproductive and was adjourned with the solution as far off as ever. Then out of the blue, and within two hours of that adjournment, a telegram arrived at Headingley to the effect that Lewis Jones, ?target? for many clubs for almost three years, was willing to ?turn?. The source and the content of that telegram were carefully checked, and then the decision was made to ?sign him at all cost?. Travelling by car through the night, two club officials arrived at Gorseinon the following afternoon, after making calls on two other famous Welsh R.U. stars en route. Warrington, also in the chase, were beaten on the post and negotiations were completed within an hour. The officials travelled back to Leeds that same night and arrived at six in the morning carrying the forms of a signing which created a sensation. Leeds had certainly lived up to its reputation for being first in the field, and had given a tremendous boost to the rugby league game in general.

Two days later Jones made his first appearance in Leeds colours against Keighley at Headingley. The team celebrated with a grand display whilst Jones marked the occasion by kicking seven goals.

Apart from a heavy defeat sustained at the hands of the Australian Touring Team, Leeds kept on the winning track, the victory at Fartown on a frostbound ground being particularly meritorious. A week later there was yet another addition to the ranks with the acquisition of George Broughton from Castleford, to whom H. Oddy and A. Staniland were transferred in part exchange. Broughton, treading the turf on which his father scored many fine tries, turned out for the first time in the team which gained a convincing win over Warrington.

Although a defeat at the Boulevard followed, by the end of the year the team had an outsider?s chance of gaining a place in the first four as a result of four consecutive victories. January, however, brought tragedy in the shape of four defeats, and a serious injury to Lewis Jones who sustained a compound fracture of the arm at Mount Pleasant. This bitter blow, causing grave concern to officials, incapacitated Jones for more than six months. With no hope of any major success in the league, the team braced itself for a R.L. Cup triumph. Called upon to meet Wakefield Trinity in the 1st Round they wiped off one or two old scores with a magnificent 1st Leg victory at Belle Vue, and ?rubbed it in? at Headingley ten days later. Widnes, 2nd Round opponents, provided far stiffer opposition than anticipated and Leeds would certainly have been in trouble had it not been for Drew Turnbull who showed brilliant form and bewildering speed in scoring five tries.

The road to the semi-final was a hard one as Leeds were called upon to visit Warrington in the 3rd Round. During the 1st quarter of the game Leeds did everything but score and then, with Verrenkamp developing leg trouble, the initiative gradually went to the Wirepullers. Our fate was sealed when Brian Bevan scored two typically brilliant tries. The Leeds team was: Cook; Turnbull, McLellan, Ward, Broughton; Verrenkamp, Stevenson; McMaster, Wood, Gwyther, Poole, Moore, Clues.

Although we finished the League programme with a flourish winning seven matches out of eight, we had to settle for sixth place in the table, well behind the leaders. Records cannot possibly reveal, however, the progress in team-building which had undoubtedly been made: four established players, two of them young, had thrown in their lot with the club; one young local player, Jeff Stevenson, had gained a season?s valuable experience and had become established; and, equally important was the fact the calendar revealed the passage of time, valuable time, time in which all those other promising youngsters were twelve months nearer football maturity, and those in the Forces were twelve months nearer release.