The club will launch its heritage numbers, awarded to every player to have made an appearance for Widnes since 1895, in full at the game against Sheffield on May 3. Full details around the heritage number launch and the Hall of Fame event will be announced shortly.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/wright-oneill.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Mike O\u2019Neill<\/p>\n
Mike O\u2019Neill made his Widnes debut in October 1977 in a league fixture against Castleford when he was still a month short of his 17th birthday.<\/p>\n
He possessed a rare combination of graft and speed \u2013 ready to drive the ball in all afternoon and tackle everything that moved, but just as capable of running through gaps out wide or backing up a break to score from halfway.<\/p>\n
In 1978\/79, he established himself as a semi-regular in the first team under player-coach Doug Laughton, and the biggest moment of his young career arrived when he was selected as a substitute in the Wembley win over Wakefield.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/hof-mikeoneill.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Two years later, still not 21 years old, Mike collected a second Wembley winners medal against Hull KR.<\/p>\n
There were plenty more finals and medals in that late Cup Kings era, culminating in the 1984 Wembley win versus Wigan. Mike was a Great Britain international at this point, having featured in the 1982 test series against the Kangaroos and toured with the 1984 Lions. By then Doug Laughton had resigned as Widnes coach and, with the retirement of Mick Adams, Eric Hughes and, later, Keith Elwell, Mike found himself as one of the senior players in a period of rebuilding.<\/p>\n
When Doug returned as coach, Mike was still there as one of the key figures in the new golden era and to provide the solitary playing link with the late 1970s team. Although he missed out on the 1989 World Club Challenge triumph through injury, there were plenty of other honours to compensate, including back-to-back league titles.<\/p>\n
Later in his career, he played for Rochdale and Leeds, where in 1994 he set a record for the longest span between a first and last Challenge Cup final, before he returned to end his career at Widnes, playing his final game in April 1995.<\/p>\n
Mike said: \u201cWords fail me sometimes. I really didn\u2019t expect it. It was totally out of the blue. To be in such company, I\u2019m absolutely proud but really shocked.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all strive to do our best for the team and the club, it\u2019s just the effort you put in over the years, and then to think I\u2019ve made the Hall of Fame is fantastic. I\u2019m sure it\u2019s every player\u2019s goal, it\u2019s my hometown club, and to be in it with the players I am in with, I am humbled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what my brother will say! No, he\u2019ll be made up. We played a lot together. It was a fantastic experience to have a brother in the side. You put a little extra in when your brother\u2019s with you, you\u2019ve got each other\u2019s back. It was always good to have brothers in the side and of course the era we had and winning everything it was brilliant, absolutely brilliant.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/hof-oneillwright.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Stuart Wright<\/p>\n
Stuart Wright arrived at Widnes in August 1976 from Wigan for a club-record fee of around \u00a310,000 and established himself as arguably the club\u2019s first ever world-class wingman.<\/p>\n
Anyone lucky enough to have witness a typical \u201cWrighty\u201d try will remember it well. He was a threat even when deep in his own half. Some quick footwork, a change of pace and a devastating body swerve and all of a sudden defenders would be grasping at thin air and he would be in the clear. And, at his peak, there was usually only one outcome once Stuart was running free in the open field.<\/p>\n
He was the league\u2019s top try scorer for two successive seasons in the years 1976-78 \u2013 the first Chemic to achieve that honour \u2013 and he featured in 17 of the 20 major finals that Widnes reached during his time at Naughton Park, despite some bad luck with injuries along the way. More often than not he made it onto the score sheet in those games, including a last second try to set up the 1978 Lancashire Cup final win and long-range touchdowns at Wembley in 1979 and 1982.<\/p>\n
Allied to his pace and elusiveness, Stuart was also a brave and skilful finisher. For example, he was in agony after taking a knee to the back in a tackle in the closing stages of the 1977 Challenge Cup semi-final but, as the ball immediately switched back to his wing, he picked himself off the floor and squeezed past the cover tacklers to score at the corner for the match-clinching try.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/hof-stuartwright.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
By the time of his retirement at age 37, making his final first team appearance in April 1987, he could reflect on a full and successful career that included scoring two tries in a famous Great Britain victory over Australia and a record four tries in a game for England against Wales.<\/p>\n
Stuart said: \u201cI\u2019m absolutely made up. At the end of the day, that era and them lads, they\u2019re heroes for me. That side, we knew when the club came round, we would up our game. You couldn\u2019t fault them. I had some fabulous times.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an honour. It\u2019s important too to get a heritage number, when you\u2019ve played for a club and you get your number, and now I\u2019m in the Hall of Fame, you can\u2019t beat that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year, six legendary players who all played in the 1975 Challenge Cup final winning team were inducted in to the Hall of Fame as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations \u2013 Ray Dutton, Mal Aspey, Reg Bowden, Eric Hughes, John Foran and Mick George.<\/p>\n
The inclusion of O\u2019Neill and Wright will take the total number of players in the Hall of Fame to 24.<\/p>\n
With thanks to Ste Jones and Steve Fox for their contributions.<\/p>\n
There will be a number of exclusive interviews with members of the Widnes Hall of Fame on the club\u2019s official YouTube channel over the next few weeks. A Widnes Vikings YouTube Premium subscription costs just \u00a32.99 per month, click \u2018join\u2019 to sign up<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Widnes legends Mike O\u2019Neill and Stuart Wright are to be inducted in to the club\u2019s Hall of Fame…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-545359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}