Kevin Harkin will take part in this week’s AA Jones Legends Parade ahead of Sunday’s clash against Huddersfield Giants at the MKM Stadium.
Club Historian Bill Dalton looks back at his distinguished career…
The Hull FC side of the early 1980’s merited the status of one of the best in the club’s history. Head coach Arthur Bunting, was astute enough to realise that he had a squad of players that he could utilise to the full by rotating players in particular positions.
Kevin Harkin came successfully into that category as having signed for the club from York in November 1981 – he settled into the role of sharing the scrum-half role with the enigmatic, but aging, Tony Dean.
Both saw plenty of success as part of the squads of the 1981-82 to 1983-84 seasons. Both players were good at their jobs as scrum-halves and there can be no doubt that their continual ‘freshness’ was an advantage to be enjoyed in support play to ‘Knocker’ Norton and David Topliss.
Kevin made his Hull FC debut – a try-scoring one – against Leeds on 8th November 1981. Hull won 17-5., and he went on to feature in 25 matches that season, finishing with seven tries.
He appeared as our scrum-half in the drawn Challenge Cup Final of May 1982, but missed out to Tony for the Replay at Elland Road. A further 33 appearances followed in 1982-83, and he had the misfortune to have to withdraw with severe concussion at Wembley after a collision with Terry Hudson’s boot at a first-half scrum.
Hull’s half-backs were, as a consequence, a disjointed unit and Featherstone capitalised to take the cup by 14-12.
Along the way, Kevin had featured off the bench in the 1982 John Player Final success over Hull KR, and also as scrum-half in the 1982 Yorkshire Cup success over Bradford Northern.
Speculation was rife that Hull were to sign the great Australian scrum-half Peter Sterling and that came to pass in November 1983. ‘Sterlo’ made his debut at Wakefield on 4th December 1983, which marked the end of Kevin’s career at Hull as he appeared for the last time as substitute in the 32-16 victory.
Supporters of that era can legitimately ask whether the club would have won everything they did in those times with or without Sterling. There is no easy answers to that one, but, nevertheless, Kevin Harkin was a grand servant to Hull FC. He totalled 69 appearances, registering 19 tries.
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