Columnist

Social media saw several posts over the festive period from Greg and Karen Austin who were enjoying the delights of Scotland on a trip over from Australia.

A little bit more detective work may have partially explained why with the discovery of son Mitch Austin playing football for Partick Thistle and enjoying university life. He’s got the squad number 77 but apparently the numbers don’t always carry much significance north of the border.

Amazingly enough it is 30 years since Austin senior signed for Halifax in the early months of the Tony Gartland era and Mitch and twin sister Brittany were born whilst he was playing at Thrum Hall.

It was a particularly smart piece of recruitment by Fax. Austin had scored points for fun for Rochdale, Salford and latterly Hull KR after having originally started his career with Manly.

Rovers (and Roger Millward) decided that he was surplus to requirements however and, more importantly was an overseas quota player which was critical when they wanted to sign Kiwi forward James Goulding.

Austin and his shrewd agent, Todmorden based former cricketer Derek Parker, certainly made sure that they left Craven Park on their terms. Austin kept his club car and the contract settlement was a decent one. He even moved to Tod to a house just a few minutes walk from that of Parker before moving to a newbuild property in West Vale.

Austin’s stats are truly remarkable during his three seasons with Halifax and don’t forget that his centre for two of those campaigns, Mark Preston, scored plenty himself!

Thirty matches (tribute as well to his fitness) yielded 100 tries and he brought up his century in his final Fax appearance, against Widnes, in April 1993.