Liles was at the helm of the south Leeds outfit from the late 1980s to January 2012 after having previously served the south Leeds outfit for several years as a director. He remained on the board until October 2012 when, with typical generosity, he gifted the club to the Hunslet Independent Supporters’ Trust and was appointed Club President.
A benign and supportive figure, he not only backed Hunslet with singular wisdom; he also dug deep into his finances to not only sustain the club’s drive for a place in Rugby League’s top flight, but to ensure it’s very survival.
A bookmaker by trade, he brought the innate honesty of that profession (in which a man’s word is his bond and a handshake is enough to seal an agreement) to Hunslet’s cause and felt badly let down when promises allegedly made to persuade the club to move to the South Leeds Stadium in the mid-nineties, to help facilitate soccer’s Euros at Elland Road, failed to materialise. He felt similarly wronged when his club – then known as Hunslet Hawks – was denied entry (by the Rugby Football League’s Independent Franchise Panel) to Super League in 1999, despite having beaten Dewsbury Rams in the qualifying Northern Ford Premiership Final. An undoubted highlight of his tenure, however, was Hunslet’s appearance in the only Plate Final, at Wembley, in 1997, against eventual winners Hull KR.
Grahame Liles, who leaves his beloved wife Margaret and an adoring family, was brought up in Wakefield and was a keen Trinity fan as a youngster. His services to his sport were formally recognised in 2007/8, when he proudly served as President of the Rugby Football League.
