A Rugby Man

Yesterday afternoon (17 March 2012) the Welsh rugby team beat France at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff in their final game of the 'Six Nations' tournament. In doing so they achieved the 'Grand Slam' (beating every other side), the Championship and, on the way, the 'Triple Crown' (beating the other three home nations). It is the third time they have achieved the Grand Slam in the last 7 years and represents a total rehabilitation of the team following the frustrations of the late 80's and the 90's; (when the regular failures of the Welsh team, especially against England, were a source of much pain and misery for the true supporter).


My father would have been delighted. He was a rugby man through and through and a great player in his time. He was an avid watcher of international rugby and he and I and, latterly, his grandchildren, particularly his grandson Bryn, had been through the whole gamut of emotions over the years with Wales and with him. He was a hugely passionate spectator and communicated that passion to us.


His own rugby career had humble beginnings. He described how, as a child and with no-one having enough money to buy a proper ball, he and his friends would use a paper bread bag stuffed with rags and tied shut as a makeshift ball. They would play in the backstreets and in the fields and, of course, at school.


By the age of 17 he was school captain of the Aberdare Grammar rugby team and, as one of the most promising players of his generation, he was selected in the centre to play for a representative side against the touring New Zealand All Blacks. At the last minute he was withdrawn from the side (because of his young age and for his own safety) but he had the honour of receiving the All Black team at his school. He recalled the huge hand of the New Zealand captain, a second row forward, enveloping his own as he looked up at the giant. He received a silver fern (which is the symbol of the All Black team, worn on their shirts) which he left with his parents when he went away. He missed his mother's death and the fern was lost at that time. He consistently reflected on its whereabouts, including with his sisters, but he never saw it again.


At that age he had already been invited to play for the Neath senior XV. One of the more feared sides in South Wales at that time, he played several games and still had the black Neath jersey with the white cross on it - indeed, they were called the "Neath All Blacks". He described sitting in the changing rooms after the first game and the captain coming over and congratulating him on the performance. He slipped a 'ten bob note' (ten shillings, a lot of money at that time) into his boot, which was sitting on the bench next to him. He winked and said: "keep it under your hat Bryn".


The reality, as my father said to me, was that Rugby Union was not an amateur game at the level of the senior clubs. For working class players in South Wales, iron and steel workers and coal miners, to be able to train during the week and play on a Saturday they would have to be paid to compensate their loss of earnings. This is exactly what happened to the game in the North of England; which became professional and broke away as Rugby League. Rugby union finally became professional in the 1980's (much to the amusement of my father).


In the meantime the game had been dominated by hypocrisy right up to the level of the administration; to the extent that anything deemed "professional" was totally vilified. This was clear even when listening to sports commentators who passed their judgement on players who 'defected' to rugby league. Everyone knew that often these were working class boys from the valleys who would be going back to a job in the pit when they retired from rugby; unlike their middle class English and Scottish counterparts who were more often than not highly educated and could take a job in the city, medicine or some such. This is of course a generalisation but my father never liked the double standards in it, particularly when a large number of those in the game clearly knew it to be a facade. Professionalism was one of the best things that could ever have happened to rugby union.


I think it was in our discussions about rugby that I first heard him mention the "Taffia" - the so called 'mafia' who governed Welsh Rugby. Leading him to reflect on that wonderful observation of I know not whom, that; "the Welsh pray in Church on a Sunday and every other day of the week they prey on each other...".


After Aberdare Grammar and Neath, he played at university and then in Coventry for what was then one of the stronger English teams; then the war came. At the end of the war he found himself in Japan; at this point he played in a Combined Services team against the 'Anzaks' - New Zealand and Australia. This was the closest that he would get to an international cap, but who knows what would have happened if it hadn't been for the War?


After the war he played for Chester for a while before leaving for Africa. I still remember my mother taking me to see him play when we lived in Malawi. She hated the game ("too violent") but probably took me because this was one of his last games. I don't remember much of course - faded blue shirts and a bone hard pitch with the scrum kicking up dust, a white paling fence around the pitch and siting in a small grandstand. By this time he was 49 and playing in the scrum as a flank forward.


When we returned to England he became a spectator rather than a player. He took me to see Oxford University at the 'Parks' in Oxford play the touring New Zealanders, the Australians and the Stanley's Invitation XV. Here I saw the great Barry John (one of a long line of Welsh number 10's) and the huge second row, Peter Whiting of New Zealand who, before the kick off, came down to the touchline under the posts, jumped up and touched the cross bar.


A long time later I took him to see England play the Netherlands at the Huddersfield Town football stadium, prior to one of the world cup competitions. It ended 110-0; in spite of the score he was impressed with the physicality of the players and highly amused when the crowd (this is Rugby League territory) booed at the minority who sang the England rugby union anthem "Swing Low Sweet Chariot"! I was able to take my daughter Hannah a number of times and my son Bryn to see Great Britain playing Australia and new Zealand in rugby league test matches at the same stadium a few years running after that.


He also loved rugby league. The thirteen man version of the game is one of the hardest sports in the world and the players have great ball handling skills and enormous physical toughness. At least he could see rugby league on television (rugby union at club level was hardly ever screened) and I remember watching it with him on rainy weekends, on our black and white TV with the famous Eddie Waring commentating.


We used to kick and pass a ball to each other in the garden. Once, when I must have been 14 or 15 (and he would have been around 60), he told me to run the ball past him. I was playing first XV rugby when I left school and was no slouch. I dummied and side stepped but to no avail and he literally took me out with a full blooded tackle that stopped me in my tracks and sent me flying backwards. By the time I got back to my feet he was sauntering off to do more gardening. I got an insight then into what a hard and uncompromising player he must have been.


Well, I have to dedicate the most recent Wales Grand Slam to the 'Old man'. I am sure he is up there smiling broadly!