IT is Day 2 of our Saints Advent. Each day until Christmas we will be displaying a Saints teamshot from their glorious history.
Today's team is special with it being the 1953 side that won their first post-war Championship final.
That was 70 years ago in a game played at the Maine Road home of Manchester City in front of more than 50,000 fans.
The team that had been beaten at Wembley by Huddersfield in the Challenge Cup final bounced back in style to lift the league trophy after a convincing 24-14 victory against Halifax, with livewire hooker Reg Blakemore scoring two opportunist tries.
DAY 1: When Mike McClennan's Saints won the Lancashire Cup>
On that famous day sun-drenched afternoon at Maine Road, Saints played some superb open rugby, with stand-off Peter Metcalfe chipping in with three goals and a try in a refreshed half-back combination with young John ‘Todder’ Dickinson, replacing the Langfield-Honey duo from the Wembley final.
It gave the club a ‘double’ reason to celebrate after clinching the Lancashire League title some weeks earlier and saw the club enter into the realms of the rugby league elite.
The Saints’ team featured six Welshmen Glyn Moses, Steve Llewellyn, Don Gullick, Reg Blakemore, George Parsons and Ray Cale.
The team that won the final was Glyn Moses; Steve Llewellyn, Duggie Greenall (Capt), Don Gullick, Stan McCormick; Peter Metcalfe, John Dickinson; Alan Prescott, Reg Blakemore, George Parr, George Parsons, Bill Bretherton, Ray Cale.
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