Maybe I am showing my age now.

My Dad and I always liked John Pendlebury.

If the game got rough, JP loved it.

For his size, he played well above his weight.

He would take anyone on for the fisticuffs.

When we were quite frankly dire, JP was one of those who got us 'back on track' for trophies.

Where is he now ?

3 weeks ago I know he caught the train at Wigan and was heading through Warrington.
Me and a mate had a conversation about him at the time.

One of the many players that played a part in the "Transition" phase under Mo etc.
As I've said before we didn't go from Relegation to Champions overnight and the period from 81 through 86/7 was very interesting, never dull and littered with highs and lows.
Mick Scott, Nicky Kiss, Colin Whitfield, David Stephenson, Gary Stevens, Brian Case, Ian Potter , Steve Nicholson, Dennis Ramsdale and many more inc a young Henderson Gill and even younger Steve Hampson and Sean Edwards that all played a part in building a platform over 3/4 seasons that led to the next step of signing truly World Class players such as Goodway, Hanley, Lydon, Gregory etc.

I thought he was very unlucky in his coaching career as well. He had a fabulous season at Halifax when they finished third iirc and then never seemed to get another decent crack as a head coach after that job ended.

The trend for teams hiring Aussie coaches hurt him IMO.

Agree with NK, he had a couple of asst jobs and lasted I seem to recall, finishing his career at home town leigh
His brother runs a building company and I have a feeling he is involved with that these days,

Three overriding memories of JP were:

The John Player trophy final in 1983 when he and Nicky Kiss threw their jerseys into the crowd during the post match celebrations.
His try on a Knowsley Road mudbath in the the 1984 CC quarter final that turned the game in our favour with less than 20 minutes left. We'd gone 14 years without a wembley appearance and that set us on our way even though we eventually came up short against Widnes that year.
His try save in the dying moments of the 1987 CC final for Halifax when he punched the ball out of Mark Elia's hand just as Elia was about to score what would have been the match winning try.

A vastly underrated player. Up there with Harry Pinner in my opinion.

John was very underated , I thought of him as a class player ,as far as I know he still lives in Leigh , I see him around now and again , class loose forwards are few and far between , I remember Dave Robinson who played for Swinton and Wigan , he was pure class .

He was good for us for a couple of years.

IIRC he was in a coaching capacity with us and got binned when Madge came over??

This is my main memory of him. I was only a bit of a kid back then and being in that packed kop end when Pengy went over was immense!

This (to me), felt the start of something special...we were hitting "the big time"!

isn't he married to Amanda Wilkinson who works for Wigan RLFC?

John is a top bloke as is his brother Gary who is a true Leigh easter! John was assistant to Brian Noble.

One of my favourite Salford players of that era too.