Career Record for Featherstone
Appearances			Tries	Goals	Drop Goals	Points
Total	Start	Sub
440	440	0	130	377	0	1144

Jim Denton was without doubt one of the greatest players to don a Featherstone jersey and it must always be remembered that his achievements were gained in the crucial formative years of the Rovers as a senior club.  As such, for half of the time that he played, the team was struggling near the bottom of the table with depletion of ranks as star players were sold to survive. The club can only be grateful that he remained for his whole career, although that was to be expected. The Dentons were a famous Featherstone sporting family – Jim and his brother Sid were stalwarts in the Rovers team through the 1920s and part of the 1930s and both, together with the other brothers Edgar and Raymond, were accomplished Yorkshire Council cricketers.

Jim only started playing rugby with the Featherstone junior team in 1918 at the age of 18. After one match in the reserves he was straight into the senior team which won eight cups from 1919 to 1921, a strong enough case for admission to the Northern Rugby League in June 1921. He was one of the historic thirteen who played the first senior game at Bradford on 27 August 1921 and kicked a goal in the 17-3 win. On 14 February 1934, he kicked his last goal for the club in the home game with Wigan. In that period he amassed 1,141 points (130 tries and 377 goals) in 440 appearances. He headed the points scoring lists in every season bar one from 1921 to 1934. The exception was 1928/29, when he was runner-up to Ben Gronow. His best seasonal tally was 17 tries and 36 games (123 points) in 1926/27, and his best match tally was 21 points (three tries and six goals) scored against Bramley in a 35-3 home win on 22 March 1933.

He never had any problems with acclimatisation to senior rugby league and whilst his main position was wing (and his partnership with centre Jack Hirst was one of the finest in the club history), he was versatile enough to play in most back positions. Indeed, the match report against Bramley when he reverted to full-back due to the late withdrawal of his brother Sid, commented that 'he only needs to go into the pack one of these days to have filled all positions'. He was fortunate in not having major injuries and made over 30 appearances in all but two of 13 seasons.

In such a lengthy career, he shared all the ups and downs of the club following its admission to senior status. When interviewed in the 1950s, his most outstanding memories were the historic RL Cup encounter with Wigan in March 1923 and the equally historic Cup encounter with Halifax in season 1924/25, when two replays were necessary before the Rovers finally won through to the second round. In all three games, no tries were scored and as the onus fell on the goal-kickers, he had the satisfaction of landing three of the four scored by the team. In the second replay at Leeds, he thwarted a late Halifax rally when he went down bravely on the ball before three Halifax forwards, and the ball burst and had to be replaced!

He scored many memorable tries and goals, his best try possibly being the one scored in his personal best match tally of 21 points against Bramley in 1933 when he beat six defenders in a run from half-way. Many thought he should have been selected for the 1924 tour of Australasia, but he lost out to his nearest rival, Charlie Pollard of Wakefield, on the casting vote of the chairman of the Selection Committee. There was some compensation later that year when he made the first of four appearances for Yorkshire between 1974 and 1926. He captained Featherstone for two seasons.

It is a measure of his contribution to the club that the career records he created in tries, goals and points stood the test of time and were not, in fact, overtaken until the 1960s, when Jack Fennell initially passed his 377 goal record, and Don Fox his 129 tries and 1,141 points records. His 440 appearances remains the one record which has not been broken and one imagines it will never be broken in today's game though Stuart Dickens (420) came close. Ernest Barraclough, who shared the same career period with him and retired at the same time, made 435 appearances but the only other players to challenge him have been Peter Smith (419), Keith Bell (417). Apart from Don Fox, only John Newlove and Ian Hardman have scored more tries. Records impress, but they do not necessarily convey to the reader the picture of a player who could on his day run through the opposition with ease, and who was renowned for his fierce but fair tackling. A natural footballer, it was his tenacity in both defence and attack which helped establish him as one the Rovers' truly great and loyal players.

 

Biography by Ron Bailey