Sponsored by
It wasn't love at first sight for Fax
The first glimpse that many Halifax fans had of John Bentley was a less than impressive one.
Enough to make people ask what all the fuss was about.
The former Cleckheaton and Sale rugby union player had signed for Leeds by the time that Fax turned up at Headingley on April 17th 1992.
Due to relegation, and the way that the fixtures had worked out, it was their first league match there since Boxing Day 1988.
We'll draw a veil over a visit there in the Regal Trophy in November 1990!
That resulted in a 58 point flogging.
It was Good Friday 1992 though and most people feared an easy home win.
It was Roger Millward's first season as coach and the team had been remarkably inconsistent after promotion despite plenty of money having been spent on player recruitment.
Indeed, up to a late, late victory at Wakefield at the beginning of March they had been genuine candidates for a quick return to whence they had come which would have been a disaster.
Millward had been back to the board for more money and another 50,000 was spent in buying stand-off Mark Bailey from St Helens and full-back David Cooper from Bradford.
Short term perhaps but it did the trick.
Bailey filled the boots of the disappointing Jimmy Irvine and mercurial Dave Watson (who already had that impending drugs ban hanging over his head) while Cooper provided some solidity at fullback.
Matthew Silva had been out of favour since Autumn and Steve Smith – in his benefit season – had just played his last first game for the club.
There were victories over Warrington and Castleford and the corner had been turned.
And so to Headingley.
And an amazing comeback which saw Mark Preston score two tries, Cooper one and Henry Sharp another as Fax won 24-16.
But the turning point came when Bentley and John Gallagher got in a right mess behind their own line.
Bentley tried to pass the ball, it hit Gallagher on the back and Halifax scored.
"Bentos" was really struggling to find favour with Dougie Laughton after that.
He played in the reverse fixture at Thrum Hall on Easter Monday in an amazing match where Fax lost 46-34 after being 12-0 up after ten minutes before having Gary Lord and Richard Milner sent off......
And Leeds finished the season with a right pasting at Wigan in a match where Martin Offiah scored ten tries.
Bentley came off the bench in that one so wasn't Offiah's immediate opponent throughout the 80 minutes – that dubious honour belonged to Stuart Arundel, he of the long hair and ponytail who later became a Halifax player himself.
So it could be said that the implications of that blunder on Good Friday 17 years ago this Friday were a factor in Bentley's departure from Leeds to Halifax the following August.
He was a different player at Thrum Hall though and his efforts over the next few seasons were phenomenal.
All of a sudden we had a Great Britain winger at the club who earned a spell at Aussie club Balmain as well.
Email to a friend
Print this page- A58 crash UPDATE: road now re-open after man hit by car earlier this morning
- Crash on the A58 in Halifax this morning UPDATE: Man in hospital with several broken bones
- Taxi worker dies aged 35 after finishing his shift
- Man suffers serious injuries in accident on M62
- How the new Halifax Central Library will look
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Halifax
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -2 C to 0 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 2 C to 5 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: North west
