Widnes Vikings were saddened to learn of the passing of former player Ken Gill last week, who also played for many years at Salford as well as for Barrow, Lancashire, England and Great Britain.
Ken’s Widnes career was a short one, consisting of just 17 games played over three and a half months during the latter stages of the 1977/78 season and yet, such was the quality of his play, that his name regularly crops up when supporters of a certain age discuss the great stand-offs who have worn the black and white.
The Chemics paid a club record fee of £15,000 for the services of a man considered to be perhaps the finest number six in the game at the time and he was soon delighting his new fans with his playmaking abilities, particularly his knack of picking the perfect pass to put runners into gaps. Ken played a huge role in sustaining the Widnes charge at the top of the table as the team went on to clinch a first-ever league table. He must have hoped, too, to visit Wembley for the first time in his career, but ironically his lone season at Naughton Park was the only campaign in five years in which Widnes failed to reach the Challenge Cup final.
As well as exciting the fans on the terraces, Ken also made an impression behind the scenes too. Former international referee Ronnie Campbell did much of his fitness work alongside the Widnes players over many years and he remembers the professionalism of the former Salford man. “Of all the players I trained alongside, no one worked with the intensity of Ken Gill,” he recalls. “Some of that Cup Kings team took some beating on training nights, but Kenny was in a league of his own.”
However, having cemented himself as a Widnes favourite, Ken was soon looking for a move away. As he later revealed an interview with the Widnes match programme, he had been hoping at the time for a quick return to the Willows where new coach Alex Murphy was promising to bring back the glory days. When the Chemics were unable to agree terms with Salford, Ken found himself at Barrow for a season of struggle and, though he subsequently got his desired move back to the Red Devils in the summer of 1979, that too proved to be an anti-climax. He played the last game of his career in April 1980, almost ten years on from first turning professional at Salford
Ken had been something of a late bloomer. He was 22 years old when he left Pilkington Recs ARL in 1970 having already captained the England Open Age amateur side. He served a brief apprenticeship in Salford’s second string but was soon promoted to the first thirteen along with his A team halfback partner, Peter Banner. Ken displaced David Watkins from the stand-off role in the process, with the Welsh legend switching to the centres to make room for the newcomer. Domestic honours soon followed although a haul of two league titles and one win in each of the Lancashire Cup and BBC2 Floodlit Trophy were less than might have been expected from one of the most exciting ever British rugby league teams.
Representative recognition for Ken came in the form of seven caps each for Lancashire and Great Britain and twelve for England. He played down under in the World Championships of 1975 and 1977 and was a Lions tourist in 1974, scoring a try in a Test win at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Despite playing in an era graced by many great halfbacks, Ken Gill’s pure footballing talent always marked him out as one of the very best.
Ken Gill, 2 April 1948 – 13 November 2024. RIP
