Former Hunslet scrum half Jeff Stevenson descibed Fred Ward and his impact on the club the early 1960's as follows (taken from Hunslet News, 1980)

MEMORY LANE

My first two columns have been about local boys who made good, my next one is about an "Outsider" who came to Hunslet to change the fortune of the Club.

In the season 1962 we were going through a bad spell, although we had not a bad team we just could not seem to get things right, something was missing and the more we talked about it the more puzzling it got. At that time I was mine host at the Anchor Inn which was a popular calling spot for the Directors, Players and Supporters, this particular evening Hector Rawson the Chair-man and Mr. Sid Wolfson a fellow director were discussing the team when suddenly a player who I had played with both at Leeds and York came to mind. "What about Fred Ward" I said.

"Fred who?" enquired Hector.

"Fred Ward the best uncapped loose forward playing today" I replied. I knew some board members at York thought I know that from the Fred should have been but Tommy Harris had been brought in from Hull. I also knew Fred had set his sights on a coaching job, so I knew he would be interested if I could get Hunslet to agree because we wanted a coach at Parkside. Whether it was to stop me talking or they were genuinely interested after two hours they promised to make enquiries.

As I said some York directors thought a great deal about Fred and would not dream about letting him go. He must have heard about Hunslet's interest because one night after training at York he called in at the Anchor to see me. I told him York would not transfer him as a player. "What about the coaching job?" he enquired.

"I'll see what the board say about that" I replied. Anyway to cut a long story short we got him first as coach then as a player.

I have had the honour to play with some of the best loose forwards ever, such as Ken Traill, Derek Turner, Johny Whitely, Vince Karlius and would not hesitate to mention Fred Ward in that scbool of Players, for a Scrum Half he was a dream to play with Nobody ever got to you when "Wardy" was around that scrum. Although you would never call Fred fast it was amazing how much ground he used to cover and the times when with two or three players hanging on to him he used to manage to get that ball away.

I knew from the moment Fred started playing for Hunslet we never looked back. win- ning the Second Division Championship, the Yorkshire Cup, then taking Hunslet to Wembley. At the beginning of this story I said that something was missing from our team, well as his record shows it was Fred Ward!

I saw Fred not long ago, as we were talking about old times he reminded me of a true story involving himself and me. As I have said we played together for York and a certain referee used to train with us. One match while we were playing for Hunslet this referee from York had the pleasure- of our match, well you can imagine where I was putting the ball when feeding the scrum!! Halfway through the second half the' ref went over to Fred and said "Tell Stevie to play the game with me" to which Fred replied "OK I'll go scrum half". After another couple of scrums the Ref went back and said "Your worse than him, move him back". So it shows you not all referees are straight.

by Jeff Stevenson