By Oopnorth
July 7 2002

In the 1970s a raw boned second row joined Headingley RU from Castleford RU and trundled around quite successfully at Kirkstall for a few seasons. The people he met helped shape his view of business, & now he is a successful developer. His name is Paul Caddick, Chairman & owner of Leeds Rugby. In the 60s and 70s an Evening Post reporter could be seen at all the home matches phoning his commentary into the Green Un sports paper. He was an old, stooped, softly spoken grey haired man. He bowled at Bradman from the other end to Harold Larwood on the infamous Aussie Bodyline Tour in the 1930s and his name was Bill Bowes.

Headingley RU was well known for adventurous back play. In the 70s the club could field internationals like John Spencer, Chris Rea, Chris Williams, Ian McGeechan, Mike Lampkowski and David Caplan. Roundhay also had two great centres in Keith Smith and Richard Cardus. Fortunately for RU in the rest of England the packs were never dominant and Peter Winterbottom was the only top international forward produced.

Links to RL are not new. Lampkowski, who I believe helps out with the Tykes squad, after his England caps went to RL and Wakefield Trinity. He was an immensely powerful scrum half who could take on opposing packs whatever the size. Later Simon Irving and Neil Summers also went on to try their hand at RL.

Leeds have amazed rugby fans twice.

Firstly by the far sighted move in merging Headingley and Roundhay RU in the early 1990s. To understand the significance of this to the supporters of the time this was like the Bulls and Rhinos or Liverpool and Everton agreeing to merge. Headingley generally had the better fixture list and attracted any star players who moved to Leeds for work purposes. Roundhay were highly successful and won most of their games every season. Each club would say though that they did not mind who they lost to each year as long as they beat their Leeds rivals.

The second time was the forging the Leeds Rugby partnership playing both codes at Headingley, and ultimately led to Leeds Tykes and the Premiership.

What will be Leeds's third move I wonder?