A tribute to Bill Adair

Bill was the Club’s oldest surviving senior player, from an era when the game was booming post-war and Saints were not considered to be amongst the rugby league elite at the time. He also has a special place in the recent history of our Club and Town, as we shall detail later.

Bill’s initial debut was a friendly fixture against the touring ‘Canaries’ of Carcassonne, on 5^th October 1950, in front of almost 16,000 at Knowsley Road, when Saints won a thrilling encounter 24-22. He made the first of his two senior appearances on the left wing against Hunslet on home turf two days later, when Saints won 20-14 in a league match.

His final match was a fortnight later, against Liverpool Stanley and another win for the Saints to the tune of 26-4. Welshman Vivian Harrison was his centre in all three games.

To play for the Saints was the ambition of most sporting-minded kids in those early post-war days, but where did it all begin?

“I was born a stone’s throw from where I live today,” he said in an interview in 2021, “in St Andrews Grove, Haresfinch and my dad, William, was a teaser at Pilkington’s Sheet Glass Works. [someone in direct charge of furnace operations during glass production]. I went to Lowe House school and was more into running than rugby. When I joined the Army at eighteen, I won a cup for running. One day, Billy Mercer, the former Saints’ centre and A-team coach, came round to our house as part of his work with the Corporation. He asked my Mum what the cup was for and if I ever played rugby. He got me round to Saints and it all developed from there.”

Despite impressing with his pace and try-scoring prowess, chances at Knowsley Road at first team level, with the likes of Steve Llewellyn and Stan McCormick on the flanks, were relatively few and far between and Bill remained a stalwart of the Saints’ A team. “Some great players at Saints in those days,” he recalls. “Don Gullick was a powerful centre from Wales and there was also that brilliant centre Jimmy Stott too, probably the best I’ve ever played with.”

First team football was soon to beckon, although not with his hometown club. According to the Liverpool Echo of 28^th January 1953, Liverpool City had contacted two Saints’ players, Bill Adair and Jack Travers, who signed the necessary forms for a loan spell. By all accounts Bill settled down well in his new surroundings at Knotty Ash and later made the move permanent. “Dr Roebuck was in charge. It was a good club to play for,” he recalled, “with some excellent players like stand-off ‘Dollar’ Parkes [father of later Saints’ player Brian] and Ray Ashby at full-back, who was such a confident performer and went on to play for Great Britain.”

He enjoyed some memorable times at City in a team which consisted of mainly lads from St Helens and Widnes, who occasionally punched above their weight. “In 1953-54 we were one of a few teams to beat Warrington in their four-trophy year,” he recounted with obvious pride. Bill’s defensive qualities were up there with the best at club level and the way in which he had contained ‘superstar’ winger Brian Bevan had obviously made a big impression that afternoon. “My former team-mate at Saints, Stan McCormick, actually recommended me for a series of trials at Warrington when I was on the transfer list for £1,000, but I didn’t stay there.”

There was to be another adventure in Bill’s life when he made the decision to move to Canada, just before the end of the 1956-57 campaign: “My wife, Dorothy, had relations in British Columbia and we flew from Burtonwood airbase and went to a town called Fernie to work at a coal mine there. I was a joiner but they asked me to brush coal dust up all day, so we made the decision to return to the UK…by boat this time, with my wife expecting our first child. We’d only been over there a few months. Fortunately, Bill Mercer, that man again, got me a job as a joiner with St Helens Corporation, so we were able to re-establish ourselves back in St Helens.”

Liverpool City had removed him from their roster and didn’t expect to see him again. Potentially, he could have been classed as a free agent, but Bill re-signed for the start of the 1957-58 campaign. Terry Karalius, one of the famous rugby league family, also joined City at the same time. “After I came back from Canada, Don Gullick asked me if I would go to Leigh, but they didn’t want to give me any money – so it was one game and that was it. In later years I played outside Don as my centre for Newton le Willows Vets RUFC against The Evergreens. That was in the 1980s. I think I must have been about 55!”

Bill’s professional career came at the end of the 1957-58 season. He continued in the joinery and building trade until his retirement. Since the early 1980s, he lived in the house he had built himself next to the Liverpool-Wigan railway line on land which was once occupied by the former Rushy Park Colliery. Bill was delighted to receive his Player Heritage Certificate in March 2020 but there was more to come.

Fast forward to 16^th December and following an initiative from Saints Community Foundation, Bill became the first person in St Helens to receive the Covid 19 vaccine as GPs began a massive vaccination programme. In a first positive step towards normality in the Borough. The moment was captured by Saints’ photographer Bernard Platt. It was also appropriate that Bill received Pfeizer jab at the Saints’ stadium, one of the first designated local vaccination sites across the country. By the close of the 2023 rugby league season, when the club celebrated its 150^th anniversary, he was in his 93^rd year and Saints’ elder statesman, born six days after the club’s first visit to Wembley in 1930.

Sadly, Bill’s wife Dorothy pre-deceased him and he is survived by his younger siblings Teresa and John, together with his children, Sharon and Mark, plus one grandchild. “He loved playing a game of snooker at Greenall’s Club,” remembers Sharon “and he was active right to the end.” He was a popular character for sure and will be sadly missed.