Players
Nearly 1,200 players have pulled on a first team jersey to represent the club now known as Warrington Wolves. In this section you can find a season-by-season breakdown of the players who played, together with details of their scoring record.
Also included is a full list of players who have represented the club in competitive games. This includes games before the formation of the Northern Rugby Football Union in 1895, and as such breaks with the convention of only recognising games and players following the great split. The reasons for this are set out in the article on The Forgotten 48.
The statistical records follow the conventions established by the Rugby League Record Keepers' Club several decades ago. Only officially recognised games, which are part of a sanctioned competition are included. Therefore, friendly games, even the long standing Wardonia Cup/Locker Cup, which ran for over 50 years and could rarely be described as friendly, are not included. Unlike association football, abandoned/void games are included. Substitute appearances are only counted where a player joins the field of play; in instances where a substitute is not used, they are recorded as "DNP" (Did Not Play), though records of many of these are incomplete. I would be indebted to anyone who can help fill in these blanks for completeness sake.
The first and last game for each player is listed; for current first team squad members, the last game remains blank. In 2012, Warrington became the first rugby league club to introduce Heritage Numbers: 1-15 were awarded to the 15 men who played in the first game under the Northern Union, against Hunslet on 7 September 1895, and then the numbers proceed sequentially from there.
Since initially being published, three errors have been identified. Arthur Gladstone Bramhall was the first to be spotted, as his sole appearance on 29 December 1914 was initially over-looked; when identified, rather than retrospectively adjusting the numbers of the 889 players who had followed him, he was awarded the next available number, 1103, instead of the number 214 he should have had.
In 2019 Stan Lewandowski identified that Damian Gregory was incorrectly awarded a Heritage Number for a sole substitute appearance against France in 1988, when in fact he never took the field. Again, rather than restating numbers the club have left the numbers as they are.
Finally, in early 2020, an error in the line up for the team at Barrow on 21 April 1923 was spotted, which resulted in G A Boardman being recognised for his only appearance in the first team. Following the principal established with Arthur Bramhall he was awarded number 1157.
Unfortunately, as explained in the article on The Forgotten 48, players who only played in competitive games pre-1895 are not officially recognised by the club, and have no Heritage Number. I have though taken the liberty to introduce my own numbering for these players to give them some form of parity with those who played after the breakaway: thus the 48 players who played in competitive games pre-1895 have Heritage Numbers in the format of 0xx, so Harry Ashton snr is 001, and so on, until F Hampson 048. Sequentially, Fair Barber then continues the run, starting with the official Heritage Number 1.
In the all-time list the full name of players is listed where available, though for some a Christian name, or even initial has not been identified. I have also adopted a more user-friendly nomenclature for use in the season-by-season records, and team records which will follow on this site. The convention here is "A Player", provided a first name or initial is available. In instances where two or more players would share a name under this format, a full Christian name is used, and middle name if this is still not sufficient. In a small number of cases, two players have identical names, which is resolved by the elder being appended with "snr", and the younger "jnr"; this does not necessarily indicate paternal lineage, but is merely used to distinguish between players. In this way, each player has a unique 'statistical name' by which they may be identified.