A total of 770 players have pulled on a Workington Town jersey since the club formed in 1945. But only one man can claim to have an accurate record of them all, as DANIEL BAKER finds out.

JOE Holliday, 72, of Northumberland Street, Workington, is well known as a town and district councillor for St John’s ward, a county councillor for the same area and the Great Clifton and Distington parish councils clerk.

He has been watching his beloved rugby league side for more than six decades.

Such was his passion, he offered to sell half-time scores in order to get into the ground for free when he was young.

He has been collecting player records for almost 40 years and was inspired to do so after helping his daughter Patricia with a school project about the club.

Joe decided to write his Workington Town RLFC Hall of Fame book after receiving a phone call.

He says: “There was a man called Keith Nutter who writes books on Barrow and he rang me up looking for a picture of John Lister.

“Finding photographs from 1901 would be difficult and it gave me the idea of doing our team.

“At first I started with the idea of all the players, their details and records and maybe a write-up on 100 of them.

“But as I went down with the research, I got so much information about all the players, their birthdays and who they played before they came to Town and it just grew and grew.”

Joe has used a combination of books, newspapers, teamsheets and records held by the now defunct Rugby League Record Club to pull his book together.

His computer holds records of over 50,000 players who have played rugby league for teams in the United Kingdom.

He’s made several trips to libraries in the north of England and to the British Library to fill in the gaps.

Joe knows many of the stars that have entries in his hall of fame and his research has enabled him to meet past and present players.

Each player featured in the book comes complete with the clubs they played for, the number of games they’ve played and number of tries, points and goals kicked.

All but four of the players have a head and shoulders photograph to go in their profiles.

Joe adds: “It’s been interesting. I’ve met a lot of interesting people, including rugby players and people involved in rugby league and rugby union.

“A lot of them are local lads so we just know them and I’ve gone to presentation nights many times.

“Hundreds of hours have gone into the project and every time something cropped up about a player I always noted that down.

“They’re all fascinating like the ones who played international rugby, like Brian Edgar and Ike Southward, and there’s such a lot of interesting statistics about them.

“Last season there were 95 players in the league who had at some point played for Workington Town.”

Joe is still a regular at the Zebra Claims Stadium for home games.

He wrote a book about Town’s 50-year history in 1996 and a second one about a group of Town players who were selected for a Lions tour in the late 1950s.

Joe says: “I think people will enjoy every minute of it. It will bring back memories of players.

“If they’re interested in the team they will enjoy reading about the players.”

The Hall of Fame will officially go on sale in July with a launch event set to take place at the Helena Thompson Museum.