Once Were Lions: The Players’ Stories: Inside the World’s Most Famous Rugby Team

Alongside Aarvold at centre for all four Tests in the New Zealand leg of the tour was the then 23-year-old Harry Bowcott of Cambridge University and Wales, who would go on to be president of the WRU more than 40 years later. Thanks to his surviving to the great age of 97—he died in 2004—and his willingness to be interviewed by Lions historian Clem Thomas among others, Bowcott has provided us with real insight into what it meant to be a Lion in those days.

First of all, he was adamant that selection for the Lions was a great honour and hugely exciting for the young men of the day, as there were few opportunities to travel Down Under in 1930. Though they had a surprising amount of freedom—there was only one manager, no coaches and such training sessions as they did were taken by captain Prentice—the players were strictly controlled in one way, namely their finances. Each player was allowed to bring £80 spending money, which was handed over at the beginning of the tour to the formidable manager, James Baxter of the RFU. Players could draw their own money only by asking Baxter, who also doled out the daily allowance of three shillings per day—equivalent to 15p in modern money. Even that was paid in ‘chits’ of a shilling or sixpence at a time, as no money could be allowed to change hands for fear of breaching the professionalism laws. Meals and other costs were met from the tour budget, and of course, when they arrived at their destinations, the players rarely had to put their hands in their pockets—the hospitality of their hosts saw to that.

Players also had to bring a dinner jacket, as formal dress was compulsory for the nightly dinners on board the good ship S.S. Rangitata, which took five weeks to reach New Zealand, sailing westwards through the Panama Canal and across the vast Pacific Ocean. Some of the players had to rely on their clubs to provide them with their formal wear, as the tour party consisted of men from all social backgrounds, though all were apparently well mannered. Yet none of the tourists took the financial inducements they could have earned as Lions. Bowcott summed up their attitude years later, saying: ‘I would have given up rather than play professional. I would never have taken the money.’

Team selection on that tour was by a committee of senior players with at least one representative from each of the home unions, though Bowcott admitted that Willie Welsh’s strong Hawick accent meant no one could understand him—perhaps the reason why he played only one Test.

According to Thomas’s account of Bowcott’s memories while speaking in his eighties, there was one group of people who were not missed on the tour:

There were, thank goodness, no pressmen, which was a wonderful thing, for we could do as we liked without looking over our shoulder.

We were no better and no worse than the young men of today in our behaviour. We drank a bit and enjoyed female company, but we tended to carouse only after matches. Standards of behaviour were left to the individual. I will not say that the manager, Jim Baxter, could not care less, for he was a typical RFU man. It so happened they were all nice people.

Baxter was to play a crucial and highly controversial role on the tour. There had been reports filtering back to the home unions that New Zealand’s approach to the laws had become lax, and confirmation came at half-time in the very first match against Wanganui, when the home side insisted on a break of ten minutes and a cup of tea.

Baxter was apoplectic. The agreement between the Home Unions Committee and the New Zealand Union was that matches would be played under IRB laws, which clearly stated that no one could leave the pitch without permission and only in special circumstances. The home union gave way on that point, but did not kowtow to Baxter on their interpretation of the scrummaging laws which saw the All Blacks pack down in a 2–3–2 formation with two hookers up front and a spare forward known as a ‘rover’ who was used to put the ball into the scrum and savage the opposition half-backs on their put-in. That the rover just happened to be the All Blacks’ captain and best player, wing forward Cliff Porter of Wellington, who had also led the side on their 1925 ‘Invincibles’ tour, gave the New Zealand officials added impetus to defend their stance.

To be fair, the laws at that time did not state how many players should make up a scrum, and the All Blacks continued to use the formation and the rover forward despite Baxter’s accusations of cheating; accusations he extended to the New Zealand interpretation of the ‘mark’, which allowed the call to be made when both feet were off the ground. Baxter kept his most vehement condemnation for the appearance of All Blacks in advertisements, an early form of sponsorship that caused bitter arguments between the home unions and their southern counterparts for decades.

With a fine disregard for manners and convention, Baxter launched his onslaught at the post-match festivities after the first game against Wanganui. As Bowcott told Clem Thomas: ‘He slaughtered them in one of his speeches after dinner and one sensed that they became afraid of him.’

They were right to be so afraid. On his return to England, Baxter single handedly drove through a change to the laws so that in 1932 a three-man front row became compulsory, as is the case to this day. In a roundabout fashion, the British and Irish Lions had literally caused the laws of rugby to be altered. Some would say the change was not for the better, as the All Blacks reacted by creating a culture that was often too dependent on a rampaging pack as opposed to inventive backs. It worked pretty well for them though.

Off the field, apart from the rows over the rules, the touring party was hugely popular, and were much in demand at various official and unofficial luncheons and dinners. They made a particular hit when visiting a Maori meeting house in Rotorua, where some of the Lions were decked out in traditional Maori dress. A photograph of the occasion shows them looking mostly nonplussed at their apparel. As they made their way round the country, with journeys made mostly by train, crowds would turn out to see the Lions at every stop. There was simply no understating the demand for the Lions.

The 1930 Test series in New Zealand ended in massive disappointment after a cracking start for the Lions. Having lost only to the most powerful provinces of Wellington and Canterbury, the Lions arrived in Dunedin in fairly confident mood, and as always, raised their game for the full Test. A try in the final seconds gave the Lions victory by 6–3, and that after New Zealand’s George Nepia had hit the post with his conversion attempt following the All Blacks’ earlier try. It was the Lions’ first victory over New Zealand in a Test Match, but in one way the ‘All Blacks’ could maintain they were unbeaten—the home team had played in white jerseys to avoid a colour clash with the blue of the Lions. It was this shirt clash in particular that in later years saw the Lions switch to their familiar bright red jerseys, sufficiently different—especially in the age of colour television—from the black, green and gold colours of their traditional opponents.

Despite a valiant effort after playing most of the match with 14 men, scrum-half Paul Murray having dislocated a shoulder, the Lions went down 10–13 in the second Test at Canterbury, Carl Aarvold’s second try scored from 40 yards out being described as one of the best ever seen at that famous ground. With the series nicely poised at 1–1, the Lions gave the All Blacks a real fight in Auckland, going down by only 10–15, Harry Bowcott grabbing the opening try.

In Wellington, the fourth and final Test was watched by a record crowd for any match in New Zealand. Among the spectators was Lord Bledisloe, the Governor-General of New Zealand to whom the teams were introduced before the match. He clearly enjoyed his rugby, for the cup awarded in matches between Australia and New Zealand—which the good Lord presented the following year—bears his name.

The series could still be drawn, but at the end of a tiring match and exhausting tour the Lions wilted in the second half and the All Blacks ran in six tries in all, winning by 22–8. Despite their Test losses, the Lions left New Zealand with the praises of their hosts ringing in their ears, particularly for their sportsmanship and stylish play. Mr Baxter of the RFU was presumably not included in those plaudits.

The touring party then moved on to Australia and though they beat an ‘Australian XV’, the Lions lost the sole Test to the Wallabies in Sydney by the narrowest of margins, 5–6, and also lost to New South Wales. Such was their capacity for rugby, or maybe they just wanted a break on the way home, that the tourists played an unofficial match against Western Australia in Perth and ran up the cricket score of 71–3, a record points total that would not be exceeded for 44 years. As it was a ‘scratch’ match and did not figure in official records, Western Australia’s blushes were spared. Unfortunately for them, the blushes really did arrive in 2001 when the part-timers of Western Australia went down by 116–10.

With the world’s economies in meltdown, it would be eight years before the Lions toured again, though both the Springboks and New Zealand came north earlier in the decade and thumped their opponents. A party of prominent rugby players from the British Isles visited Argentina in 1936, as had also happened in 1927, but neither of these tours is classed as an official Lions venture. That may be due to long-running snobbery about Argentinean rugby in that era—Scotland, for instance, would not award caps for matches against the South American country until the 1990s. Alternatively, it may reflect the realization that Argentina was no match for the British and Irish players who visited: they won all 19 matches, including 5 ‘Tests’, over both tours. With the giant steps forward taken in recent years by the Pumas, and with an under-strength Argentina having drawn with the Lions in a preparatory match for the 2005 tour, it’s interesting to think what might happen should the Lions now visit that country. After all, Argentina beat England at Twickenham in 2006 and reached the semi-finals of the 2007 World Cup by beating France and Ireland in the group phase and Scotland in the quarter-final.

By popular demand in that country, South Africa was the venue for the 1938 tour, and the Lions went there despite the growing menace of Adolf Hitler’s Germany, a country where rugby union had its own federation of clubs from 1900 and which had played many internationals, including winning two against France, before the Nazis effectively killed off the sport because of its ‘Britishness’.

Captained by Sammy Walker, later a much-respected BBC commentator and then a robust prop forward for Ireland, the party was once again be devilled by great players declaring themselves unavailable for the long tour south. The absentees included the Welsh wizard Cliff Jones, Scot-land’s Wilson Shaw and the mighty second row forward from England, Fred Huskisson. Injuries would also wreck many plans, with Haydn Tanner, Jimmy Giles and George Morgan all having to take a turn as a Test scrum-half, with Giles even turning out at centre.

The Springboks, by contrast, were at full strength and were coming off the back of a tour to Australia and New Zealand where they had beaten the former country twice and had won their first Test series in New Zealand by two victories to one. The Springbok side included the great forward Boy Louw and was captained by Danie Craven who was well on his way to becoming a legend of rugby. They were hailed as the champions of the world, and no one could disagree that their record made them so.

The Lions did have some very fine players, including Ireland’s Harry McKibbin, who would later go on to be the president of the IRFU in its centenary seasons; the outstanding Welsh hooker Bill ‘Bunny’ Travers; the prodigious goal kicker Viv Jenkins, later to become a superb writer on rugby; and Gerald Thomas ‘Beef’ Dancer, a belligerent prop who was the find of the tour but never actually played for England, as the war intervened before he could break into the team. There were also three serving police officers in their ranks, Welshmen Eddie Morgan and Russell Taylor, and Bob Alexander of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. By coincidence, the 1989 Lions also contained three policemen, Dean Richards, Paul Ackford and Wade Dooley.

The early part of the tour was promising for the Lions, as they lost only to Transvaal and twice to Western Province. They arrived in Johannesburg for the first Test in confident mood, having gained revenge over Transvaal the week before. But with 14 of the Springboks who had bested New Zealand on tour, South Africa were ready to do battle to stay as unofficial world champions.

In what many who saw and reported on it claimed to be the best match ever in South Africa, the Springboks and the Lions played marvellous running and passing rugby, the home side finally triumphing despite the visitors taking the lead three times. Four tries to nil tells its own story: the Lions points all came from penalties in a 12–26 defeat.

The Springboks wrapped up the three-match series with a clinical 19–3 win in Port Elizabeth on a day when blazing sunshine sapped the Lions’ strength. But there was still honour to play for in the third and final Test in Cape Town and no one should ever underestimate the pride of Lions.

In a thrilling match which went down to the final seconds when referee Nick Pretorius disallowed a Springbok ‘try’ for a forward pass, the Lions came from being 3–13 down at half-time to record a famous victory. The wind had been against them in the first half, but they took full advantage of the conditions in the second, and it probably helped that eight of the players were from Ireland and knew each other’s game well. It should be recorded that the Springboks themselves notified the referee that Charlie Grieve’s drop goal for four points had indeed crossed the bar. Bishop Carey’s prayers almost 40 years earlier that the South Africans would always play like gentlemen were answered on that day.

The Lions had beaten the Springboks for the first time since 1910, and Sammy Walker was carried off the field in triumph after their 21–16 win. But there was no hiding from the fact that a Lions series had been lost again. There was little time for disappointment, however, as the players returned home to their own countries to await the visit of the Australian tourists in 1939.

The Wallabies had been in Britain for just one day when war was declared on 3 September. They had the consolation of a reception at Buckingham Palace by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth before they embarked on the long and now much more dangerous voyage home. Organized rugby effectively ceased for the duration of the war, though many scratch matches were organized, particularly within and between the various Services. Even the rules on professionalism were set aside and players from rugby union and rugby league played together and fraternized.

Almost all of that Lions party of 1938 saw their careers curtailed by the war. Bob Alexander and earlier Lions such as 1930 tourists Brian Black and Royal Tank Corps officer Henry Rew died as a result of wounds sustained in action, while Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne, the fighting Irishman of the 1938 pack, won no less than four Distinguished Service Order medals, the Legion D’Honneur and Croix de Guerre. Amazingly, another Lions forward, Major General Sir Douglas Kendrew of the 1930s squad, equalled Mayne’s feat of winning a DSO and three bars—only seven men in history have achieved that quadruple honour, and two of them were British and Irish Lions.

One of the most extraordinary of all the Lions, Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne in particular would become a legend of military history as one of the original members of the SAS. He was named after his mother’s cousin, Robert Blair, who also won the DSO before being killed in the First World War. Blair Mayne became a champion amateur heavyweight boxer and all-round sportsman, as well as a qualified solicitor, but it was rugby at which he excelled and he was soon selected for Ulster, Ireland and then the Lions.

A year after his return from South Africa, Mayne, who had been in the Territorial Army, joined the regular army on the outbreak of war. After volunteering for the commandos, he saw action in the Lebanon in 1941, where he allegedly had an altercation with a senior officer after calling him incompetent. Fortunately, SAS founder David Stirling stepped in and recruited Mayne for his new long-range fighting force in the North African desert. Mayne was eventually promoted to colonel and commanded the 1st SAS Regiment. It was while he was serving in Oldenburg in Germany in the latter days of the war that Mayne single-hand-edly rescued a squadron of troops, for which he was recommended for a Victoria Cross. But his truculent attitude to authority probably cost him the highest medal of honour. Stirling said of Mayne: ‘He was one of the best fighting machines I ever met in my life. He also had the quality to command men and make them feel his very own.’

After the war, and suffering from the effects of a back injury, Mayne returned to Northern Ireland but had difficulty coping with civilian life and volunteered for a polar expedition to the Antarctic. His health deteriorated however, and he came back to his home town of Newtonards to a job with the Law Society. His back pain got to the point where he could no longer even play rugby. Nothing, it seemed, could match up to the excitement of his playing days and war service, and he began to drink more; it is said he would challenge every man in a bar to a fight, and beat them all. One night after a drinking session, however, he was driving home when he crashed his Riley sports car and was killed at the age of just 40.

Mayne’s life has been the subject of several books, and a film has long been planned about him. In 2005, MPs attempted to have his Victoria Cross finally and posthumously awarded, but the Government turned them down. He is commemorated in his home town by both a statue and a road named after him.

Mayne was by far the most famous of the 1938 Lions, but for all of them the world changed a year later with the start of the war. It would be 12 long years before the Lions would tour again. They would do so in a world transformed beyond recognition, where the concept of Empire would become outmoded and would be replaced by the gradual end of colonies and protectorate and the move to the Commonwealth. Nothing diminished in any way, however, the desire of the people of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa to have the British and Irish Lions visit their countries.

CHAPTER THREE KARL MULLEN’S HAPPY BAND Australia and New Zealand 1950 (#ulink_198ca16e-4585-5217-b78b-121876aad8ee)

In the immediate post-war period, Great Britain, and to a lesser extent Ireland, had rather more to worry about than rugby. It was a time of strict austerity, and rationing still applied to many ordinary everyday items, including meat.

The tight rationing rules apparently did not apply to cigarettes, as the 1950 tourists were given their supply free of charge for the entire duration of the six-month-long tour to Australia and New Zealand in which they played 30 matches, including six Tests. It was to be the last time the Lions travelled by sea to the southern hemisphere. They sailed out on the SS Ceramic via the Panama Canal, and came back also travelling westwards, so it could be said that they sailed around the world just to play rugby. On the way home though, they took a shortcut via the Suez Canal and Mediterranean Sea en route from Sri Lanka, where they had played an unofficial match against a team representing the former Ceylon, before stopping for dinner in Mumbai, then known as Bombay.

More than a few of the players had seen service during the war or had undergone their two years’ mandatory national service in the forces, so they were used to being away from home for long periods. It was nevertheless particularly hard on newly married men or fathers with young children: ‘I had to leave an infant son behind and when I came back he was just so much bigger,’ as one 1950 Lion put it.

Two great characters of rugby and stars of that tour—both now in their late eighties—recently recalled what they were doing in the greatest skirmish of them all: the Second World War. It says a great deal about Dr Jack Matthews and Bleddyn Williams—and indeed all the rugby players who served in the war—that so many were anxious to get back to playing the game after what had been an ‘interesting’ time for them. Jack Matthews, who is now 88, managed to do both war service and national service, as he explained:

I was one of five children, with two sisters and two brothers, both of whom joined the army when war broke out. I was just starting to study medicine, but I wanted to join my brothers in action so I went off to Penarth without telling my parents and joined up as a fighter pilot.

I trained for five months of a six-month course and we were being taught to fly a new type of Spitfire, when my CO came up to me and said ‘Matthews, you’re out.’ I said ‘Beg your pardon, sir, what have I done wrong?’ He explained that they had just heard from the Home Office that I was a medical student, and I was thrown out because it was an exempt profession.

I spent the war qualifying as a doctor in Cardiff, but before I could finish, I was called up for national service. I said ‘Hang on, I’ve already done five months in the RAF, doesn’t that count?’ But Brigadier Hugh Llewellyn Glyn-Hughes, who was in charge of the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) and also ran the Barbarians, persuaded me not to go back to the RAF but to join the RAMC. I was captain of Cardiff at the time, and he was very persuasive in saying I could carry on playing at Cardiff as long as I played for the RAMC in the inter-services Cup. I did, and we won it.

I have a wonderful photograph of Field Marshal Montgomery presenting me with the cup. Funnily enough, I don’t think the RAMC have won it since.

During the war, Matthews kept fit partly by boxing for his medical school side, which travelled to St Athan to meet an RAF select in 1943. On that occasion his opponent was an American ‘guest’ with a knockout reputation—none other than Rocky Marciano, who would later become the only man ever to retire as undefeated heavyweight champion of the world. Matthews managed to avoid being stopped by Marciano, something only six of the great fighter’s professional opponents achieved.

Matthews eventually went on to complete his service in medicine with the RAF. His great friend Bleddyn Williams was also in the RAF, serving as a pilot, and performed the unique feat of invading Germany and playing for Great Britain at rugby in the same week.

More than 63 years later, Williams tells the story of the last week in March 1945 with relish:

After Arnhem there was a shortage of glider pilots so they were looking for volunteers from among us surplus pilots for the big push over the Rhine—it was ‘you, you, and you’, the usual way of volunteering, so I became a glider pilot.

I had been picked for the Great Britain side which was due to play the Dominions in one of the morale-boosting international matches that were played occasionally during the war. The match was set for Leicester on the Saturday after I was due to land in Germany, which we duly did early that week in the massive push (Operation Varsity) to get our troops across the Rhine.

On the Friday morning, the day before I was due to play for Great Britain, I was still in the camp in Germany, when my CO, Sir Hugh Bartlett, who later became captain of Sussex county cricket team, said to me ‘Aren’t you supposed to be playing at Leicester tomorrow?’ I replied that indeed I was, but I had been sleeping in a slit trench all week and was looking rather unkempt by then. All he said was ‘Pack your bags’. We were five miles inside Germany at this point, I should add.