Leeds Rhinos and Hull FC are mourning one of rugby league’s greatest prop-forwards, Mick Harrison, who has died aged 79.
Featherstone-born Harrison played more than 500 games in three different decades for Hull, Leeds and Great Britain and was twice a Challenge Cup final winner at Wembley.
Born in Featherstone, he began and ended his career with Hull, where he made his debut, aged 18, as a back-rower against Workington Town on August 21, 1965.
Quickly moved to prop, he earned the first of his seven Great Britain caps a couple of years later, against France and played in two Yorkshire Cup finals with the black and whites, on the losing side against Hull KR in 1967 and in 1969 when Hull beat Featherstone Rovers to win the trophy for the first time in 46 years.
After nine years with Hull, he joined Leeds for a £10,000 fee in 1974 and went on to feature in five more finals, winning them all.
His career highlights came in 1977 and 78 when Leeds completed back-to-back Wembley triumphs, beating Widnes and St Helens respectively.
He also starred in the Loiners’ 1979 Premiership final defeat of Bradford Northern and the 1975 and 1980 Yorkshire Cup victories against Hull KR.
Harrison returned to Hull in November, 1982 and played his final game the following January, ending a career which included 528 games at club level.
Departing Leeds Rhinos chief pays tribute to Mick Harrison
Among his teammates at Leeds was current Rhinos chief executive Gary Hetherington.
Paying tribute, Hetherington said: “He was a very formidable player, with both Hull and Leeds and Great Britain as well.
“He was a very quiet man and a lovely bloke. He was a very well-respected player and one of the toughest and strongest I ever played with; a no-nonsense prop-forward, solid as a rock and he had a remarkable career.
“He was such a strong bloke, when he tackled opponents he used to effectively squeeze the life out of them – he’d squeeze their ribs and you could hear players yelp in agony.
“That was an unusual thing, players didn’t usually show their emotions, but when he tackled them, they knew they’d been tackled.”
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