Saints needed the money and sold him, that's what I've always been told.

The sad thing was instead of just saying that the board decided to make Gary a St Helens lad a villain.



People point to the fact he got a big pay rise... so what, he was told he was being sold to at the time the best team in the country and he negotiated a nice deal for himself, I fail to see the problem with that.

SOme people seem to think this is a profesionel game or something

If you remenber we got in trouble over Adrian Shelford. One of the Directors signed him on the back of a fag packet and the Connolly money paid some court costs

Thought the Andy Platt transfer paid for the Shelford affair?Maybe the Connolly money was for something else.

Ahh the Saints board of the 1980s,never a dull moment!

Platt monies were to cover the "Shelford Affair". Those were the days a massive board made up of the

great and not so good business men of St.Helens with Geoff Sutcliffe as what would now be Chief Exec.



Murphy (coach at the time) claimed that the saints board had a signed contract from Shelford in the club safe.



Remember reading the Echo reporting of the High Court Case in Liverpool with the judge describing

the Saints director responsible for signing Shelford as a "most unreliable witness". Ironically the Saints

director was a sitting magistrate in StHelens at the time.

Saints were left with costs of £140Kish. Platt was sold to Wigan for £140K.



Also remember going to Naughton Park for a pre season friendly and a flag being unfurled "Splash Out or Get Out" in front of the saints directors in the away directors box to endless chants throughout the match of "Sack the Board".



Think they sold Paul Round when he was on holiday Connolly was similar.



Happy Days.

Hands up I was involved in that along with a certain Steve Ganson and our local ' Saints' press reporter.

The saints board at the time was not the worlds most professional, however, the fact they actually sold players to balance the books was far better than the Wigan board who bankrupted their club to buy the likes of Connolly.

It's not selling players that that was the problem it was the sneaky way in which they did business. The Goon board is a different kettle of fish , they were reckless but I suspect had the right intentions

years to wait before we stepped out of that smelly, rancid, retard-accented shadow and took Super League and summer rugby by storm.



Just a pity we've been on the decline again since Anderson left.

On Super League Supermen he gave the full account of the transfer to Wigan:



He was in Australia and then got told he was getting sold to Wigan he then told them he would play for Saints for half the money Wigan offered him. But they sold him to get a fee.

I was told that years ago, he didnt really want to leave but as Th'ump said he was offered a pathetic contract by Saints.