As the new seasons were approaching,  new players were being signed and registered. today in 1930 saw winger William Adams signing from Outwood. He made his debut on the 30th August at home against Batley. He played in the following season’s Yorkshire Cup Final and was with the club for four seasons, playing 83 times and scoring 30 tries.

William Adams

Registering in 1923, George Chapman was a long serving back-rower, with the club until 1931 when he moved to Batley. He played in the 1929 Yorkshire Cup final and represented Yorkshire as he made 203 appearances and scoring 45 tries.

George Chapman

Another back-rower signing today was Colin Stansfield in 1934 from Barnsley RU. Colin was with the Parksiders through WW2 making his last appearance in 1946/47. He played in the 1938 Championship final and both legs of the 1944/45 Yorkshire Cup final (scoring a try). He played 175 games and scored 13 tries. In the war he played internationals for England and a Rugby League XIII.

Colin Stansfield

Prop Neil Lean made his debut today in 1981 at York in a Yorkshire Cup tie. He had signed at the end of last season from Leeds ( where he had played 25 games over three seasons) and played 77 games for Hunslet.

Neil Lean

The York programme for Neil’s debut had a full page of changes to the Laws Of The Game as the Rugby League brought our domestic game into line with Australia.

Three Lazenby Cups were played today. 1947 at Parkside was  a home win, 1963 a Leeds win at Headingley and in 1965, also at Headingley, a 5-5 draw.

For the 1947/48 season Hunslet had signed Australian half-back Don Graham from St George in Sydney for £1,000. He was in attendance today to watch his new team-mates in the Lazenby Cup tie. It’s reported that trainer Billy Hannah greeted him in the changing room with “Ah’m reight glad to meet thee, lad, and I hope tha’s happy here”. It’s not reported whether Don understood him! Trialist winger J J O’Sullivan played as A N Other but this was to be his only game. There was a crowd of 8,000 to see Hunslet play in red shirts and Leeds in tangerine. The match was played in four quarters due to the 80 + degree heat.

The 1963 match was Hunslet’s with two minutes remaining. Leading 16-15 they heeled from a scrum and instead of holding on, Gunney threw a wild pass towards Billy Walker which was intercepted by Wrigglesworth who secured the win for Leeds.

The 1965 game was Hunslet’s first after the Wembley final and four players from that game were missing. Ray Abbey was taken to hospital with a chest injury at the start of the second half. On a miserable wet, dark evening the sides struggled to hold the greasy ball. Leeds should have had the match won as they had missed 7 out eight goal attempts before Tommy Thompson’s equalising try in the 65th minute.