Eric Ashton

Eric Ashton

Personal information
Born	(1935-01-24)24 January 1935 St. Helens, England
Died	20 March 2008(2008-03-20) (aged 73) St. Helens, England[1]
Playing information
Position	Centre
Club Years Team Pld T G FG P 1955–68 Wigan 497 231 448 0 1589 Representative Years Team Pld T G FG P 1954–61 Lancashire 11 8 3 0 30 1957 Rest of World 1 1 0 0 3 1957 GB & France 1 5 5 0 25 1957–63 Great Britain 26 14 1 0 44 1962 England 1 1 0 0 3
Coaching information
Club Years Team Gms W D L W% 1963–73 Wigan 1973–74 Leeds 1974–80 St. Helens Total 0 0 0 0 Representative Years Team Gms W D L W% 1979–80 England 2 2 0 0 100 1979 Great Britain 6 2 0 4 33
Source: [2][3][4][5][6]

Eric Ashton MBE (24 January 1935 – 20 March 2008) was an English World Cup winning professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1950s and 1960s, and coached in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

He played his whole top flight football career for Wigan along with at times both captaining and coaching them; his position of choice was at centre. Over the span of his career he came to be known as one of the best centres in the modern game and formed a devastating partnership with Billy Boston somewhat because of this combination he went on to represent the Great Britain national side making his début in 1957. After his retirement from playing rugby league in 1969, Ashton went on to coach Wigan as well as Leeds, St. Helens, England and Great Britain; he also had a brief stint as chairman of St Helens in 1996.^[7] He was a member of the St Helens board for fifteen years.