1962-1963
This was the season of the big freeze! Not a single game was played at Headingley between December 1st and April 3rd, a period of seventeen weeks, and Leeds finished their First Division programme with 18 games in 55 days. Never again! The Leeds Board are resolved that Headingley should have an ?electric blanket: similar to the one at Murrayfield, and pressed ahead with the installation of an under-soil heating system involving thirty miles of cable.
The season opened on a sad note, Garry Hemingway reluctantly deciding to retire from the game, with a fine record of 82 tries in 87 appearances, after breaking down again in the Lazenby Cup match. With Ratcliffe already out of action, having broken a collar-bone in pre-season training, Leeds were hard pressed for wingers in the opening matches.
In view of the inclement weather which was to persist from mid-December onwards, it was most unfortunate, if not ludicrous, that the ideal conditions prevailing during the early weeks of the season should be wasted on a meaningless and artificial Eastern Division Championship. Not that there would have been any harm in winning it, but Leeds, with a comparatively easy fixture list, paid for a drawn game at Batley and a shock defeat at lowly Doncaster by finishing in 5th place. Even so, by the time this competition ended in September, two notable Rugby Union captures had set Headingley buzzing in keen anticipation: Alan Rees, Maesteg and Welsh International stand-off and Glamorgan cricketer; and Ronnie Cowan, the 20-year-old Selkirk and Scottish International winger, who had toured with the British Lions. Of even greater significance in the long term, however, was the fact that Alan Smith, a young winger from the Wakefield area, had crowned his debut against Dewsbury with four tries.
Our interest in the Yorkshire Cup Competition did not extend beyond the 1st Round, York going through by the odd point after two tense struggles. The first, at Headingley, reduced the 12,000 spectators to a state of nervous exhaustion as Leeds rallied after conceding York an early 10-point lead. Jones lit the fuse with a try and two goals, and Leeds exploded into a frenzied onslaught, with attack after attack breaking down, until the injured Rees, playing on the right wing, produced a flickering sidestep and carried Yorke over the line with him for the equalising try. Alas, no sooner had Jones goaled in the grand manner from the touchline, than Yorke earned a replay with a mighty 44-yard penalty goal. It was just as tight at Clarence Street. With Simms dismissed before the interval for persistent feet-up, and Terry a lame passenger, Leeds fought gallantly, Thornett constantly plunging in with never-say-die defiance, but it was not to be, Jones narrowly failing to snatch victory in the very last minute with a 40-yard goal kick.
We played ten games in the First Division before the big hold-up, and won five, including a double over Oldham which was marred by unsavoury incidents: at Headingley, Holden and Fairbank were sent off, and Rees, twice felled after parting with the ball, was taken to hospital with his nose broken in two places; at Watersheddings, Evans came off even worse, with a fractured jaw. Meanwhile, activity in the transfer market had been brisk, with Derek Hallas rejoining Keighley, Abe Terry going to Featherstone Rovers, Eric Horsman to Doncaster, and Alan Jubb to Bramley; whilst Leeds recruited two more forwards, Don Devereux, from Huddersfield, making his first appearance at Widnes in October, whereas the debut of John Davies, the Welsh R.U. International from Neath, who signed in December, had to be deferred until April 10th.
The Leeds players who came away from Fartown on December 15th, can scarcely have imagined that their next game would be eight weeks later, in the 1st Round of the R.L. Cup. Nor would they have played then, had it not been for a massive de-frost operation mounted by the Castleford officials, with 150 braziers to promote a thaw and pneumatic drills to assist drainage. In an imperfect world, enterprise often goes unrewarded: Castleford had done all the work, Leeds had the luck! Just five minutes before half-time, Castleford were in possession and leading 3-2, when a pass went astray and the ball stuck in the mud whereupon Lewis Jones fly-kicked, coolly gathered the rebound off full-back Lunn and cantered under the posts, to convert with ease. Although Pickup crossed in the second half to give Leeds a match-winning lead in the conditions, Castleford battled on to the bitter end to gain a consolation try by Walker, which Lunn converted with the last kick of the match.
Five weeks were to elapse before the 2nd Round at Wigan. In similar chaotic circumstances, in 1947, Leeds had won in Central Park?s mud and slush, and gone on to Wembley, but prospects of a repetition looked bleak, with Jones, Wriglesworth and Cowan unavailable. All the more credit, then, to the heroic thirteen who, despite injuries to Walker and Neumann, almost achieved a sensational victory: Thornett; D. Davies, Pickup, Dewhurst, Ratcliffe; Rees, Evans: Robinson, Simms, Walker, Devereux, Neumann, Shaw. Drawing inspiration from a brilliant try and two goals from Dewhurst, and a drop goal by Rees, they were leading 9-5, only for the cup of triumph to be dashed from their lips in the last fifteen minutes as Ashton, Wigan?s lynch-pin, conjured victory out of seeming defeat.
Now began the gruelling, energy-sapping sprint to clear the backlog of First Division fixtures. At the end of April, with nine matches still to play, Leeds were still in touch with the leader, but could ill afford to lose the services of the lion-hearted Thornett, who returned to Australia, and Dewhurst with a fractured leg. Certainly, with playing resources stretched to the limit, we could not match the pace and stamina of Swinton who romped home with 17 successive wins, to leave us trailing in seventh place.
Other players introduced during the season included: Dennis Burke, a centre from Australia on a working holiday; Michael Creary, winger, from the Huddersfield area, M.K. Joyce, forward, from Brookhouse; Dennis Toohey, winger, from Mirfield Youth Club and Barry Seabourne, a 16-year-old scrum-half of cunning craft and guile, from the Leeds Juniors.