Career Record for Featherstone
Appearances			Tries	Goals	Drop Goals	Points
Total	Start	Sub
17	17	0	1	0	0	3

So extraordinary was Sam Shirley’s debut that he must have seriously asked himself what kind of club he had just joined. Aged 23, he left Huddersfield to join Rovers just five months after Rovers Championship final appearance. He arrived at the club with the players rumoured to be considering strike action over pay and conditions. Featherstone were due to play Bramley in the Yorkshire Cup. The committee cancelled a reserve team game in preparation to have to call up those players en masse to first team duty. The first team players themselves held out until the day of the match, met up at the bottom of Station Lane and walked up to the ground to confront chairman George Johnson. Finally, a compromise was reached and the players took the field to boos from their own supporters.

And so began Sam Shirley’s Featherstone career. Rovers scrapped a 4-2 win but then promptly beat Huddersfield and Castleford in a run to the Yorkshire Cup final where Shirley played in the second-row. As a hard-working forward he did well enough to hold down a first team place, injuries permitting, for the rest of the season. But in May 1929 he was sold to Batley and his Rovers career was over.