At the game last Sunday I noticed Ian Blease going into the reception and it got me thinking about local lads from within the city who have actually played for Salford over the years.

Testing my memory from watching Salford since the 70’s I’ve come up with the following:- Ian Blease, Nathon McAvoy, Paul Groves, Paul Fletcher, Sammy Turnbull, David Harris, Chris McGreal, Chris Preece, Paul Brownville, Ged Jamieson, Nigel Lamb, Phil Cousins, Kevin Fox, Andy Burgess, Mark Barrett, Darren Betts, Ian Potts.

Can anyone add any names to this list that I may have forgot?

Chris Morley

Carlo napolitano

I've just remembered Michael Platt.

Phil Waring
Paul Smith
Bryn Hartley 1950-1961
Frank Boardman
Bob Preece
Ken Brunt
Dave Preston 1902-1913
Jack Muir 1920-1933
Jack Brown 1945-1951
W.(Billy) Brown 1895-1908 & 1918
Jimmy Burgess 1915-1928
Walter Clegg 1913-1927
George Currie 1910-1922
William Manwaring 1886-1897
Frank Miles 1889-1894, 1897-1899
Peter Smethhurst 1967-1970
Sam Williams 1881-1890
Stewart Williams 1977-1984
Ernie Woods 1914-1925

Michael Platt was of course from Prestwich but that's close enough - lives in Salford now.

Jack Spencer

Paul Southern
Paul Brownbill

To my reckoning thats say 25 players in 40 years. Deduct from that list the number who have made fewer than 50 top flight games and what are you left with? OK add to that the likes of Adrian Morley & Denis Betts and it's still minimal.

Surely this is a huge part of Salford's problem, but why? Is it that not enough local kids are playing at junior level or is the standard of coaching at junior level lagging way behind other areas? Or is it a combination of both? What are the answers to get more local kids breaking through? Let's be honest I think most Salford fans would prefer more local lads in the team if they are good enough.

you only have to look down Trafford Road to see the problem, but over the last 40 years i have played with some brilliant players at school who could have made a career out of rugby league but were not interested in rugby league. Salford has never had the rugby league community that the pits brought to a City or town, locally just look at Swinton more rugby league heritage than Salford, then look at Leigh, Wigan St Helens all pit towns, with large active miners welfare clubs in the past that fed the rugby league appetite.
The schools all played rugby league in my day and the PE teachers were very keen on Rugby league and many played or came from Rugby League areas, today that is not the case in many schools and rugby league is not coached as enthusiastically as it was then in my humble opinion with many other different sports being tried at many schools which have less injury risk.

What Bigpev put. Salford isn't, and I doubt ever will be a rugby league city. Whereas the likes of Wigan, St Helens etc are. When there's United, and not too much further, City down the road, it's going to be hard to generate any sort of major interest in rugby league here.

Dennis Simcox
John Moore
Arthur Openshaw

Ian Watson