I had just started 6th form at Leigh G.S. when the most succesful season in the club’s history started with a bang with 18 wins out of the first 21 matches. My first memory was a midweek home match against Leeds on September 9th, when Alex switched to stand off from his normal scrum half position in order to mark Leeds star player Mick Shoebottom. What transpired was a Murphy first half masterclass with a Suberin hat trick and a 36-8 thrashing!! The Lancashire Cup meanwhile included a superb win at Wire 21-9, followed my a tight 12-8 victory over Workington, followed by an even closer match at Widnes, with the only try by Chrissy and an assortment of goals, 3 by Ferguson and drops by Eckersley sand Ashcroft. This led to a final at Swinton against table topping Saints. But being on a run of 11 straight games we were not short of confidence. However, when the day dawned it was pouring with rain which affected the game throughout. The game was very jiggly with 3 men sent off with both our Chisnalls (Les and Dave) gone. So there we were with about 5 minutes left, 4-2 behind,and I can still remember it as if it was yesterday. About 30 yards out Alex puts up a massive up and under that Frankie Barrow totally misjudges,hits his body and bounces back towards his own line where Dave Eckersley dives to touch down for the first Lancs. Cup for 14 years!!!

Attention now turned to the Challenge Cup and a first round home tie against Bradford Northern. They had only been reformed for about 4 years and were not expected to cause too many problems. However, in a sign of times to come, only a try from battling Joe Walsh in the left corner got us home 9-2.2nd round saw a tricky away draw at Widnes a renowned cup side. For the 2nd time this season the side won despite scoring fewer tries, by 14-11 in front of 12,500, Ashcroft and Eckersley getting over with 2 drops from Alex. Amazingly.these were the last tries scored before the final!! The 3rd round saw a Ann enticing home tie with Hull (without the fc) and in a tough tackling typical cup tie, we prevailed by 8-4. Guess who kicked 3 drop goals?!! A massive crowd of 15,538 turned up 3 days later by a 15-3 home win against Wigan,with a try by Alex and a mixture of 6 goals by Ferguson and Murphy. Another crowd of over 13,000 making nearly 30,000 at H.P. in 72 hours!! The Hull match set up another 7 game winning run before the semi final at Wigan against Huddersfield. Now being expected to win is not really suited to Leigh, son you can’t blame Alex for making it a forward dominated game, no frills, no tries and 2 more drop goals in a 10-4 victory. Critics were not impressed, but who cares? I was 17, we had just won the Lancs cup and reached Wembley for the first time. What could be better?
In the league we closed the season out in 4th place out of 30 with 26 wins pupfish 34 league matches. This qualified us for two home matches winning against Hull KR 10-5 (no tries), but then understandably losing 8-5 to Wakefield just two weeks before the final.
Now I have never proscribed to the myth that Leigh were massive underdogs that day on 15 May 1971, this was a very good team with a brilliant pack of Forwards. This was the team for the final:- 1 Eckersley 2 Ferguson 3 Dorrington 4 Collins 5 Walsh 6 Barrow 7 Murphy 8 Watts 9 Ashcroft 10 Fiddler 11 Grimes 12 Clarkson 13 Smethurst. What a team that would be with the 1-6 of the 81/2 side!! As for my memories of the final, it was an early start catching the coach to Wembley with my dad, reading the 4 page pullout that was always produced at the time on Cup final day by the Daily Express. We had tickets on the half way line on the side where Alex sent the peach of a pass for Stan Dorrington to squeeze over in the right hand corner, and then were in prime position to watch the start of Eckersley’s run as he glided through the Leeds defence to dive over in front of most of the delirious 35,000 Leigh fans behind the posts out of a crowd of over 85,000, thinking would this ever happen again. Sadly this now seems unlikely. As to other aspects of the match I still do not know if Alex was faking his injury and no I don not believe it was a penalty try. What Indo know was that the plethora of drop goals confirmed the reduction to one point for subsequent seasons!!
Leigh were now one of the most respected sides in the game. What could possibly go wrong. l’ll give you a clue - my next missive will cover 4 seasons!!