I thought start a thread:

Writing about Austin made me think of the best centres I have seen play for Fax
John Burnett ( though only at the end of his career) ,Tony Anderson , John Schuster and David Willicombe.
Schuster probably my favourite he could do it all.

Anyone have suggestions?

You have pretty much covered my time supporting fax. So it would be Schuster and Austin for me, and i would give a mention to Diao powell in 98. I thought for just that season he was a handful before he left as part of the Pinkney swap deal.

Fax haven't been blessed with many great centres over the years I've supported other than those already mentioned.

The centres when I first started spectating were Graham Garrod and Dave Cholmondeley ....... always a laugh at away games when the team announcer tried to pronounce his name!

Loved watching Cholmondeley and also had many a chuckle at away games as team was announced. He always gave everything and hard as nails.
If Garrod had just a little more pace he would have been an international.

I actually think Cholmondeley's name was simply pronounced "Chumley"!

Indeed it was.

I think it was at Hunslet when it was announced as "Colmundersleysley"

Haha yes. Always waited for the announcement to see what version they came up with. Also saw one of the funniest moments when we played away at Huyton. "Chumley" kicked into touch on a penalty, it went out of the ground, and some young scouse lad ran off down the road with the ball.......before he probably returned with his mates to chuck stones at our buses.

As for best Centre, has to be Schuster. Although shame we never saw him and Austin in same team.

They were the first centre pairing I remember watching - good defensively but can't remember either of them scoring a try even though I followed Fax home and away then. Even though he didn't actually play many games for us I can remember Greg Florimo having a few at centre and being absolutely devastating, albeit only over short distances!

As an outsider I remember so many class players at Fax. That championship and cup winning side in 85-87 was all about the team rather than individuals but it still had some great players. Eadie was at the veteran stage but he was still class. I remember going to the cup semi in 87 and seeing Grant Rix score a belting try. Chris Anderson and Gary Stephens were a great halfback pairing. Other players I admired (or feared) at Fax were the likes of John Pendlebury, Les Holliday, John Schuster, John Bentley, Michael Hagan, Greg Austin, Dave Watson and Paul Dixon. Glad to say we also saw a few of them turn out for Northern.

What happened with Dave watson at Fax. The story i was told was Fax knew he was going to fail a drugs test so they sold him to Bradford then boom he fails that test and Bradford have forked out for him and he is banned from playing. If that is wrong i would be interested to hear the true story if anyone knows.

The story I heard was that he tested positive for weed but claimed he'd smoked it passively at a jazz venue.

That's some excuse!

I think bullseye may be right about the passive smoking theory but I thought it was in a car with his mates. I also heard Fax's owner at the time Tony Gartland (no relation) wasn't happy at the antics of Watson, Warren Wilson and Greg Pierce.