I couldn't let my old club go to the wall

I’M Hartlepool born and bred and grew up on a council estate three-quarters of a mile from West’s old ground, Brierton Lane.

- JOHN STABLER

We had a strong colts team, and about three or four of us school mates went up into the first team together and had the time of our lives. It was a great place to be, like a family, yet we used to play in the Premiership. I know you’d see lads in Richmond and they’d go to The Sun for a beer and have a night together, but you never got the impression they were mates like we were. They wouldn’t ring each other the next day after the game to see if they were going up the club for a pint. That’s what we did, every Sunday we’d all be at the club cracking on about the day before.

In the early years we had very little outside help – until a local scrap metal merchant got three players over from New Zealand: the Whetton twins, Gary and Alan, and a really good fly-half called David Stead. Gary was already an All Black and Alan was on the fringes. It was massive for us and the touch paper as to what was to come really: West Hartlepool becoming a powerhouse of northern rugby.

After Steady left, I got into the first team on a regular basis and we won the Northern Merit table. However, when the leagues started in 1987 they put us in Division 3. We won Division 3, won Division 2, and then won Division 1. Because rugby in the North East had become so big there would be a fair bit of coverage on a local TV sports magazine show called The Back Page. Me mam used to record them all and there was this particular game I always remember. We were first and Newcastle were second and both of us were beating everyone and there must have been about 7-8,000 people at the game. We won and we had something like three games to go and we only needed a point, so we were up.