THE biggest casualty of rugby league’s switch to summer was the demise of the Saints v Wigan Boxing Day tradition which was the stuff of legend for many decades…memories that still burn brightly for those who played in those tussles and the thousands who watched on.

Boxing Day or the nearest Sunday to it, produced some of the most memorable derbies between the clubs, invariably in front of the biggest crowd of the year.

And 35 years ago saw one of those that that had all the ingredients; a packed house, a sub-plot, a villain of the piece, a hero and the unlikeliest of comebacks.

On Sunday 27 December 1987, 23,809 fans shoe-horned into the old Central Park, with the well-watered Saints contingent packed into the creaking old open club house end.

Under Alex Murphy, Saints had slowly begun to use their Wembley windfall from the previous May - and receipts from selling Paul Round to Oldham - to add in new recruits Les Quirk, Paul Groves, Stuart Evans and most significantly Shane Cooper.

St Helens Star:

Nevertheless, Saints travelled in hope, rather than expectation, to face a Wigan side featuring Joe Lydon, Ellery Hanley, a young Kevin Iro, Andy Gregory, Shaun Edwards, Andy Goodway and Graeme West.

Added to that mix was big, square-shouldered New Zealand test prop Adrian Shelford – an inclusion that threw a large dollop of fat into the fire.

Saints thought they had signed the Kiwi man-mountain to bolster their pack - but he had instead opted for the Riversiders and he spent the autumn in limbo as the case went to the lawyers.

It went from bad to worse for Saints, who did not simply end up losing the player to their bitterest rivals, but also a costly legal battle that would have a knock on effect months later.

Of course Shelford lived up to his role as the villain of the piece when he entered the fray as an early replacement for Ian Potter.

Kevin McCormack had given Saints an early lead, when he collected a fine inside ball from Paul Loughlin after Phil Veivers had ghosted through the Wigan right edge.

McCormack, however, was about to have his Boxing Day adventure ended.

On 17 minutes, after fielding an Edwards hack down field, the young Saints wing raced back over the glue-pot of a pitch only to pull a muscle as he retrieved it. As he lay motionless on the floor covering the ball, there was a period of a few seconds before Shelford ploughed into him and therefore underlining his place as the panto villain.

Wigan, as expected took control with two tries from Lydon, and one each from Iro and Goodway giving them a 22-6 lead at the break.

Frustratingly, two of those scores actually came directly from Saints errors with the ball.

Whether Murph had got the half-time team talk right, or Wigan thought they were home and hosed, the game turned due to Saints clinging on as keenly as the Central Park mud.

The pack grafted hard, not least Andy Platt at 13 and big men Peter Souto and Tony Burke, Cooper schemed in the halves, but outstanding that murky afternoon by the River Douglas was Australian full back Veivers.

Ten minutes into the second half Platt stood up well in the tackle to send Veivers in for his first. And on 61 the alert full back was on hand to touch down after the ball squirted out from a clever Cooper grubber.

The once unassailable deficit was now whittled down to two points, but the momentum was with Saints - roared on by the travelling hordes who had kept the faith.

From a scrum the ball was switched to the blind side where Veivers fashioned a try for Dave Tanner and two minutes later Quirk crossed on the other flank to make it 30-22 and the Wigan walk began in earnest.

Loughlin slotted a late penalty - his sixth goal of the afternoon ¬— to cap a remarkable 32-22 triumph that is still being talked about by everyone who was there that day, especially those young lads who ran on to the pitch to congratulate the heroes and got their Christmas trainers caked in mud.

Saints were on a roll, a few days later they nilled Widnes on New Year's Day before marching back to Central Park in New Year to clinch their first and only John Player Trophy with a 15-14 win over Leeds.

Talk about Merry Christmas and Happy New Year - you could not top it.

Wigan: 1. Steve Hampson, 2. David Marshall, 3. Joe Lydon, 4. Ellery Hanley, 5. Kevin Iro, 6. Shaun Edwards, 7. Andy Gregory. 8. Ian Lucas, 9. Martin Dermott, 10. Brian Case, 11. Graeme West, 12. Ian Potter, 13. Andy Goodway. Subs: 14. Richard Russell, 15. Adrian Shelford.

Saints: 1. Phil Veivers, 2. Kevin McCormack, 3. Paul Loughlin, 4. Mark Elia, 5. Les Quirk, 6. Shane Cooper, 7. Neil Holding, 8. Tony Burke, 9. Paul Groves, 10. Peter Souto, 11. Paul Forber, 12. Roy Haggerty, 13. Andy Platt. Subs: 14. Dave Tanner, 15. Stuart Evans.