Geoffrey Clarkson
Encyclopedia
Geoffrey "Geoff" Clarkson (12 August 1943 in Wakefield
— in Huddersfield
) was an English
rugby union
and professional rugby league
footballer of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s who at representative level played rugby union (RU) for Yorkshire, and at club level for Wakefield RFC
, and at representative level played rugby league (RL) for Yorkshire, and at club level for Wakefield Trinity
(twice), Bradford Northern
(twice), Leigh
(twice), Warrington
, Leeds
, York
, Bramley
, Hull Kingston Rovers
, Oldham
and Featherstone Rovers
, playing at , i.e. number 11 or 12, during the era of contested scrums.
Geoff Clarkson extended his record number of transfers to 12 when he left Leigh for Featherstone Rovers on 27 October 1983. He played for 10 different English clubs, and also had a brief spell in Australia.
Clarkson was 40 years old when he finished playing regular first team rugby in 1983-84. He turned professional with Wakefield Trinity in 1966 after gaining Yorkshire County rugby union forward honours while at Wakefield RFC
.
There has never been a rugby league player who has lived up as handsomely as Geoff Clarkson to the aphorism coined for Tommy Docherty in football – that he had more clubs than Jack Nicklaus.
By the time he retired in 1983 at the age of 40, Clarkson had been transferred 12 times – more than any player in the history of the game. There are those who believe that, if he had stayed in one place long enough, he would have won International honours to go with his Yorkshire caps but, as the game was structured in his day, the best way to make money from it was to keep on the move.
Clarkson also represented Yorkshire at rugby union before signing for his first professional club, Wakefield Trinity, in 1966. He played in the final and replay as Trinity, then a major force in the game, won their first Championship in 1967 and was a substitute when they won the trophy again the following season.
It was then that his travels began, initially to Bradford Northern and then in 1970 across the Pennines to Leigh. If there is one club with whom this restless player should be most closely associated, then it is Leigh.
As a Leigh player, he won the Lancashire Cup and, most memorably, the Challenge Cup in 1971, producing a strong performance in the second row as the club engineered one of the biggest Wembley upsets of all time by beating the unbackable favourites, Leeds, 24-7.
When the Leigh player-coach, Alex Murphy, moved to Warrington later that year, he soon took Clarkson with him. It was the way coaches worked in those days; they liked to bring in familiar faces, men like Clarkson, whose abilities they knew and trusted. A year later, however, he returned to Yorkshire to join Leeds, where he became one of the few players to win both Lancashire and Yorkshire Cup-winners' medals.
York, Bramley – whom he helped to promotion – and a second stint at Wakefield were his next ports of call, but another of his career highlights came at Hull Kingston Rovers, a club he joined in 1978 and did much to steer to the Championship the following year.
He was by now playing in the front row and his Rovers team-mate Phil Lowe
believes his uncompromising approach made all the difference to their prospects that season. "He changed Hull KR from a team that got beaten every time we went across the Pennines to one that commanded respect," Lowe says – but there was, of course, no question of Clarkson's settling down there on a long-term basis.
Short stints back at Bradford and at Oldham followed, but any theories that Clarkson, in his late thirties, was playing on borrowed time, were disproved when Murphy, back at Leigh for the second of his four spells as coach, sent again for his tried and tested work-horse – a decade after they had shared in the Wembley triumph.
The talisman had the desired effect once more, Clarkson making 24 appearances as Leigh won the First Division title for the only time in their history. It would have been a good time to retire, but Clarkson tried out another new club at Featherstone, becoming one of the few players to soldier on beyond their 40th birthday.
A surveyor by profession, Clarkson later headed his own construction company.
Lowe is one of those who believes Clarkson would have played for Great Britain if the selectors had known where to find him from month to month. But that was not his way, because he was always on the lookout for a chance to turn his abilities into another pay-day somewhere else. Lowe recalls: "He used to say to me, 'Phil, the whole of Cumbria's untapped.' " Amazingly, he never signed for a club in that county, although he did have a short time in Australia.
No player has been more entitled to the motto that should have been on his locker: "Have boots, will travel."
Wakefield
Wakefield is the main settlement and administrative centre of the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district of West Yorkshire, England. Located by the River Calder on the eastern edge of the Pennines, the urban area is and had a population of 76,886 in 2001....
— in Huddersfield
Huddersfield
Huddersfield is a large market town within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England, situated halfway between Leeds and Manchester. It lies north of London, and south of Bradford, the nearest city....
) was an English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
and professional rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
footballer of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s who at representative level played rugby union (RU) for Yorkshire, and at club level for Wakefield RFC
Wakefield RFC
Wakefield RFC was an English rugby union club, founded in 1901, and which dropped out of the English leagues in 2004 as a result of the effects of professionalism...
, and at representative level played rugby league (RL) for Yorkshire, and at club level for Wakefield Trinity
Wakefield Trinity Wildcats
Wakefield Trinity Wildcats are a professional rugby league club that plays in the European Super League and is based in Wakefield. They achieved promotion in 1999 and have remained in the League since. They are known to their fans as Wakey, Trinity, Wildcats, or historically The Dreadnoughts...
(twice), Bradford Northern
Bradford Bulls
Bradford Bulls is a professional rugby league club based in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. They play in the European Super League and are currently joint 10th in the league....
(twice), Leigh
Leigh Centurions
Leigh Centurions is an English professional rugby league club based in Leigh, Greater Manchester who play in the Co-operative Championship.The club was founded in 1878 as Leigh Rugby Football Club and is one of the original twenty-two clubs that formed the Northern Rugby Football Union in...
(twice), Warrington
Warrington Wolves
Warrington Wolves are a professional rugby league football club based in Warrington, England that competes in Super League. They play at the Halliwell Jones Stadium, having moved there from Wilderspool in 2003....
, Leeds
Leeds Rhinos
Leeds Rhinos is an English professional rugby league football club based in Leeds, West Yorkshire. The club won the 2011 Super League and became the most successful club in the Super League era, beating St Helens 32-16 on 8th October 2011. Formed in 1890, Leeds competes in Europe's Super League...
, York
York City Knights
York City Knights Rugby League Club is a British professional rugby league club hailing from York. They play at the Huntington Stadium, situated to the north of York city centre...
, Bramley
Bramley Buffaloes
Bramley Buffaloes is a rugby league club from the Bramley area of West Leeds in West Yorkshire, England. Previously known simply as Bramley RLFC, the club is a famous name in rugby league, having existed prior to the formation of the Northern Union in 1895...
, Hull Kingston Rovers
Hull Kingston Rovers
Hull Kingston Rovers or Hull KR is an English professional rugby league football club based in Hull, England. The club formed in 1882 and currently competes in Super League, having won promotion from National League One in 2006...
, Oldham
Oldham Roughyeds
Oldham Roughyeds is an English professional rugby league club based in Oldham, Greater Manchester. They currently play in the Championship One. Oldham is one of the original twenty-two rugby clubs that formed the Northern Rugby Football Union in 1895....
and Featherstone Rovers
Featherstone Rovers
Featherstone Rovers are a semi-professional rugby league club, based in Featherstone, West Yorkshire, England. They currently play in the Championship. The Rovers are one of the last vestiges of "small town teams" that were once common in rugby league during the early twentieth century...
, playing at , i.e. number 11 or 12, during the era of contested scrums.
Playing career
Geoff Clarkson played second-row forward in Wakefield Trinity’s 21–9 victory over St. Helens in the 1966-67 Rugby Football League Championship final at Station Road, Swinton on 10 May 1967.Geoff Clarkson extended his record number of transfers to 12 when he left Leigh for Featherstone Rovers on 27 October 1983. He played for 10 different English clubs, and also had a brief spell in Australia.
Clarkson was 40 years old when he finished playing regular first team rugby in 1983-84. He turned professional with Wakefield Trinity in 1966 after gaining Yorkshire County rugby union forward honours while at Wakefield RFC
Wakefield RFC
Wakefield RFC was an English rugby union club, founded in 1901, and which dropped out of the English leagues in 2004 as a result of the effects of professionalism...
.
The Independent - Geoff Clarkson Obituary
Geoff Clarkson, rugby league player: born Wakefield, Yorkshire 12 August 1943; married (two daughters); died Huddersfield, West Yorkshire 10 July 2001.There has never been a rugby league player who has lived up as handsomely as Geoff Clarkson to the aphorism coined for Tommy Docherty in football – that he had more clubs than Jack Nicklaus.
By the time he retired in 1983 at the age of 40, Clarkson had been transferred 12 times – more than any player in the history of the game. There are those who believe that, if he had stayed in one place long enough, he would have won International honours to go with his Yorkshire caps but, as the game was structured in his day, the best way to make money from it was to keep on the move.
Clarkson also represented Yorkshire at rugby union before signing for his first professional club, Wakefield Trinity, in 1966. He played in the final and replay as Trinity, then a major force in the game, won their first Championship in 1967 and was a substitute when they won the trophy again the following season.
It was then that his travels began, initially to Bradford Northern and then in 1970 across the Pennines to Leigh. If there is one club with whom this restless player should be most closely associated, then it is Leigh.
As a Leigh player, he won the Lancashire Cup and, most memorably, the Challenge Cup in 1971, producing a strong performance in the second row as the club engineered one of the biggest Wembley upsets of all time by beating the unbackable favourites, Leeds, 24-7.
When the Leigh player-coach, Alex Murphy, moved to Warrington later that year, he soon took Clarkson with him. It was the way coaches worked in those days; they liked to bring in familiar faces, men like Clarkson, whose abilities they knew and trusted. A year later, however, he returned to Yorkshire to join Leeds, where he became one of the few players to win both Lancashire and Yorkshire Cup-winners' medals.
York, Bramley – whom he helped to promotion – and a second stint at Wakefield were his next ports of call, but another of his career highlights came at Hull Kingston Rovers, a club he joined in 1978 and did much to steer to the Championship the following year.
He was by now playing in the front row and his Rovers team-mate Phil Lowe
Phil Lowe
Phil Lowe is an English former Rugby League World Cup winning footballer of the 1960s, '70s and '80s. A Great Britain and England international representative second-row forward, he played club football in England for Hull Kingston Rovers and in Australia with Manly-Warringah, whom he helped to...
believes his uncompromising approach made all the difference to their prospects that season. "He changed Hull KR from a team that got beaten every time we went across the Pennines to one that commanded respect," Lowe says – but there was, of course, no question of Clarkson's settling down there on a long-term basis.
Short stints back at Bradford and at Oldham followed, but any theories that Clarkson, in his late thirties, was playing on borrowed time, were disproved when Murphy, back at Leigh for the second of his four spells as coach, sent again for his tried and tested work-horse – a decade after they had shared in the Wembley triumph.
The talisman had the desired effect once more, Clarkson making 24 appearances as Leigh won the First Division title for the only time in their history. It would have been a good time to retire, but Clarkson tried out another new club at Featherstone, becoming one of the few players to soldier on beyond their 40th birthday.
A surveyor by profession, Clarkson later headed his own construction company.
Lowe is one of those who believes Clarkson would have played for Great Britain if the selectors had known where to find him from month to month. But that was not his way, because he was always on the lookout for a chance to turn his abilities into another pay-day somewhere else. Lowe recalls: "He used to say to me, 'Phil, the whole of Cumbria's untapped.' " Amazingly, he never signed for a club in that county, although he did have a short time in Australia.
No player has been more entitled to the motto that should have been on his locker: "Have boots, will travel."
External links
- Geoffrey Clarkson Statistics at rugbyleagueproject.org
- The Independent - Geoff Clarkson Obituary
- Rugby League Journal - Issue 24 - Autumn 2008
- Geoff Clarkson, the much-travelled forward, has died at the age of 57
- Yorkshire RFU
- Photograph "Stan Fearnley" at rugbyleagueheritageproject.com
- Photograph "Trotter looks to offload" at rugbyleagueheritageproject.com
- Statistics at orl-heritagetrust.org.uk