13th May….

As 1978/79 was drawing to a close Hunslet were at Lawkholme Lane for a league fixture with Keighley. Hunslet were second to Hull in the table and were due to visit The Boulevard in five days time to attempt to stop Hull winning all their league games. Perhaps because of this the club tried a promising  young scrum-half called Graham King. He came off the bench for his debut as Hunslet won 20-15. A couple of games the next season was the best Graham could hope for (although he did get his first two tries) as Tony Dean was the first choice scrum-half. However in 1980/81 Tony moved on to Hull and it was Graham who got the call to step up as no.1. The next two seasons saw plenty of appearances and regular touch-downs but in it was in 1983/84 playing with loose forward Johnny Wolford that he scored 28 tries to smash the tries in a season record for the new club. He also scored four tries against Bramley which equalled the record set by Steve Lane and Kevin Olbison. In 1986 he was nominated for Second Division Player of The Year and played the last of his 242 games at the start of 1991/92, He scored the last of his 132 tries in his penultimate game at Barrow and had also chipped in with a drop goal at Workington in 1984. His tries in a career are the record for the new club and 6th overall.

2001 was the first time we faced the new North-East based team Gateshead Thunder at home but were beaten 12-40.

1963/64 ended with a match at Hull Kingston Rovers which was lost 10-25. Having been promoted the previous season they had done enough to stay up but the Rugby League pulled the three year two division experiment after two seasons. Geoff Shelton with 11 was  top try scorer and Billy Langton with125 was top goal scorer.

At the end of 1938/39 Hunslet travelled to Whitehaven in the Whitehaven Hospitals Charity Cup and beat Barrow 21-20 in what was described as a thrilling match in front of 7,000 spectators. On the same day, Prospect Inn won the Hunslet Supporters Club Seven-a-side competition at Parkside beating Hunslet Carr 28-11 in the final.

14th May….

A couple of new players were registered today. Winger Edward Bowen came North from Gloucester RU in 1913 but his career was limited to 50 appearances due to The Great War. He was also a talented amateur middle-weight boxer.

Frank Andrews, Welsh international RU forward, signed from Pontypool RU today. He played fourteen times in his year with the club.

2011 saw us visit France today to play Toulouse Olympique losing 6-28.