I apologised for asking a trite, predictable question that he [Cliff Morgan]
had doubtless been asked a thousand times before; on the other hand, it had
to be asked. Where did he place the Edwards try [the Barbarians’ coruscating
effort against the All Blacks in January 1973 in Cardiff] in the pantheon of
all the great tries he had seen, and indeed scored?
“Well, I suppose it has been watched more than any other try in history,” he
mused. “I have seen other fabulous tries, but this was a great team try,
Bennett starting it off on his own 25, with adventure . . . Willie John
McBride, one of the most unbelievable men you’ll ever meet in your life,
says Bennett for him was the best. When something wanted to be done, he
could do it.”
And what of Edwards, the scorer? Morgan smiled and leant forward fractionally
in his armchair: “The greatest rugby player ever born, in any position,
anywhere in the world.” — Ali, Pele, Lillee and Me by Brian Viner.
IT IS a Tuesday afternoon at Cardiff rugby club and the greatest rugby player
ever born, in any position, anywhere in the world, is trying to get to grips
with my first question as the coffee is poured. “How does it feel to be
Gareth Edwards at the age of 60?” is the kind of appetiser I often serve to
get interviews rolling and I am expecting the usual response — a “not bad”
or a “can’t complain” or “it could be worse”.
Gareth Edwards, however, has never done usual. “Phewww,” he exhales, chewing
on the words and rolling them around his mouth. He repeats the question:
“How does it feel to be Gareth Edwards at 60?” He thinks about it again. “I
never really appreciated that rugby would play such an important part in my
life,” he begins, “and certainly after I retired from the game . . .” He
pauses to reflect again.
He is reminded of the day he decided that he did not want to become a teacher
. . . “Teaching practice was the start of it, just being among the kids and
realising, ‘God! Can I do this? How am I going to cope?’ The thought of
doing it for the rest of my life did not turn me on and it was highlighted
for me by the vice-principal of the college, Eric Thomas, a beautifully
dressed, articulate man who loved the students and his job.
“One day he gave us this informal lecture. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘your rewards
from teaching won’t be monetary, they will come from your inner self. Love
it and it will give you great satisfaction but if you don’t, get out,
because it will only destroy you’. It was a huge release and burden off my
shoulders. I got out.”
He is reminded of his father, Granville, and the sacrifices he made. “My
father was away for five years and lost a great part of his life through the
war. He was quite a talented singer and there were opportunities for him at
the end of the war, but he came back to the village and his employment was
as a miner. People say to me now, ‘Gareth, you’ve got to slow down, you’re
doing too much’, but I often think of my father.
“He used to get up at four to be in work at six. He would work his eight-hour
shift and somebody might say, ‘Glan, there’s a chance for you to work a
doubler’, and he would take it and carry on. I never appreciated how hard it
was until later when I went underground and visited a mine. You couldn’t see
your hand in front of your face. It was a bloody gruesome thing.”
He is reminded of his decision to start a career in management with Jack
Hamer, a Neath businessman who was involved in engineering and
manufacturing, and spurn the fortunes being offered by rugby league. “I
loved my Welsh way of life. I loved my friends. I wanted to play for Wales
and wasn’t motivated by money. They were offering a huge amount and I did
consider it but Jack said, ‘Look, why don’t you come and work for me? I
can’t promise you’ll be a millionaire but you will have a job, you’ll have
time off to do whatever you’ve got to do for your rugby and you will have a
contented mind’. Fantastic. It has been the most wonderful life.”
Forty-four minutes have elapsed and he is ready for the next question. “I’m
sorry to have taken such a long time to answer that,” he says. “I know I’ve
digressed.”
“That’s okay,” I reply, “I’m enjoying it. Keep digressing.” They don’t make
them like this any more.
A BOY is pleading with his next-door neighbour to take him to the village
field. The boy is five years old; his neighbour is 18; the village is
Gwaun-cae-Gurwen in the Swansea valley; football is played on some adjoining
pasture land.
“Take me with you, Ronnie! Take me with you,” the boy pleads. Ronnie walks him
to the field, lifts him onto his back and jumps the stream.
For hours the boy sits and watches the game. This is how the craving starts;
the desire to be Ronnie; the desire to play; the desire to achieve . . .
with those boys playing football on the pasture land; with that ball being
chased around the field: “Kick it higher Ronnie! Try to kick it over the
cloud.”
This was the dream. Soon the boy is old enough to jump the stream
himself and every day after school, he finds himself with a rugby ball at
his feet and the hushed tones of a commentator ringing in his ears: “There
is a minute to go; England are leading by eight points to six; Edwards with
a penalty to win the match.”
This was when the praying started.
Every night before bedtime he would get down on his knees: “Please God, if I
could play just once for Wales, that would be enough.”
One day, after some average reports from school, the boy returns home to find
a miner’s helmet and some hobnail boots on the table. “I see you’ve got new
boots, Dad,” the boy observes.
“Oh, no, no, no,” his father replies. “Try them on. They’re for you.”
“Why’s that, Dad?” “Well, you’re not working in school are you?” his father
replies. “I just want to fit you up. This will be your job.”
Gareth’s prayers take a little longer that night: “I must work harder. I don’t
want to wear those boots.”
Bill Samuel is the PE teacher at his secondary modern school. The boy will
meet some really fine people as he enters his teenage years but few will
have more influence on his career. It is Bill Samuel who throws him the
rugby ball.
“What position do you want to play?” “Centre,” the boy replies. “Forget it —
look at the size of you!” Samuel exclaims. “You’ll make a scrum-half.”
“Okay,” the boy agrees, “what do I have to do?”
It is Bill Samuel who secures his scholarship at Millfield, the sporty public
school in Somerset.
“Have you ever heard of Millfield?” “Yes sir,” the boy replies. “Would you
like to go there?” “Whatever you say, sir.” It is Bill Samuel who chooses
his club. “Where do you want to play?” “I’m not sure, sir,” the boy replies.
“What about a club close to home in the Swansea valley?”
“No, I’ve thought about it. The club for you is Cardiff.”
Samuel writes a letter of application on blue paper with black ink (the
Cardiff
colours are black and blue): “I’ve got a boy here who could be very special.”
It is Bill Samuel who plants the seed for his career.
“I had a very good friend called Nick Williams,” Edwards explains. “The
headmaster at Millfield was talking about him going to Oxford and me going
to Cambridge, but Nick said, ‘No, I’m going to Cardiff to become a PE
teacher’. Bill Samuel’s influence came into play again. I thought, ‘What a
good idea, I’ll come with you’.”
The year is 1966. The boy has just turned 19.
“One of the students I played with here was the son of a selector,” he
explains, “and unbeknownst to me, his father had come down and had watched a
few games and there was talk that I might get a trial. Wales were playing
Australia in December and when the trial was announced I was promoted, not
just to the trial but to the probable side, playing alongside David Watkins,
who had just returned from the British Lions tour to New Zealand.
“I played in the trial and I remember Cliff Morgan wrote a piece which I never
forgot. He said, ‘Gareth Edwards might not win his cap in the next match but
I believe he will win dozens in years to come’, and that was great. It took
away the disappointment of not being in the team.”
His time on the fringes lasts another couple of months. Christmas comes and
goes, a new Five Nations is looming and he is selected as a reserve for
Wales’s opening game against Scotland at Murrayfield. “It was a peculiar
experience,” he says. “As a reserve I knew that if Wales won, I wasn’t going
to play against Ireland, but when they lost I thought I had a chance. So the
team is picked and not only am I not in the team but I’m not even a reserve,
so I thought, ‘That’s it. I’ve had it’. They weren’t going to pick a
debutant in Paris against France [for the next game].”
I remember when I first went to Scotland as a travelling reserve for the
Welsh team, I watched in silence as Gerry Lewis, our physio and baggage man,
handed out a red jersey to each player. There was a silence, a kind of
unspoken respect at the act. I watched this unofficial “ceremony” taking
place and I made my mind up there and then that one day, as soon as
possible, I would line up to receive one of those jerseys.
When it finally happened, deep beneath the old Colombes stadium in Paris in
1967, I picked up the jersey, held it lovingly in my hands and kissed the
badge. I probably did that before every match I played for Wales. — Gareth
Edwards: the Autobiography
IT IS the morning of Saturday, April 1, 1967. He opens his eyes on the day of
his international debut to a sudden knock on the door. His parents and a
friend, Besh, are standing outside. They have been travelling all night by
boat and train to Paris. Besh has been ill and needs to change his clothes.
“You don’t mind if we use your bathroom, do you, Gareth?” Glan inquires.
“Not at all, Dad, come right in,” Gareth replies.
The prematch meal is steak and chips. The team are bussed to the stadium and
the preparations begin with the moment he has been waiting for. Gerry Lewis
hands him the jersey. He rubs the cloth through his fingers, cradles it to
his face and kisses the badge. “It was more than just the kissing the shirt
and more than putting it on,” he explains, “it was the lifetime of waiting
for it. I had dreamt of that moment since I was five years of age.
“I had had my schoolboy shirt and had worn the Prince of Wales feathers but
this was what you had waited for, this was the real thing, and it was such a
special moment for me that I did it throughout my career. My desire to play
for Wales was so strong that it hurt. The fear that you weren’t going to do
it kept you awake at times.
“I had prayed to God to let me play just once but you don’t want to become a
one-cap wonder. You win a second cap and start to think of double figures:
to play 10 or 12 times, now that would be an achievement. And no sooner have
you done it, that it has come and gone and rushed away.”
His career for Wales and the Lions was wondrous. It started with a defeat to
France in Paris, ended with a defeat of France in Cardiff and scaled the
heights of three Grand Slams, five Triple Crowns, two successful Lions tours
and the greatest try the game has ever seen. In the spring of 1978, after 53
consecutive appearances for his country, he started glancing towards the
exit.
“One thing I promised myself was that I wouldn’t retire with tiredness in my
muscles and mud on my chin and blood on my nose saying, ‘Oh God, I’m glad to
see the back of this’. Those lovely clichés about the smell of the grass in
September and the liniment in the dressing room are valid: I was fit, I
could train, but I didn’t have the yearning to go out and do it again.
“We beat France here to win the Grand Slam and the Welsh fans were full of
praise: ‘Oh, you’re terrific, Gareth. You’re playing better than ever’, and
I thought to myself, ‘This might be a good time to go’.”
He has tackled the challenges of life after the rugby with the same desire,
class and enthusiasm as he played and has built a successful career in
business. “I worked with Bill McLaren [the legendary BBC rugby commentator]
for 10 years and it was the best thing I ever did because it kept me in the
game. I went to Twickenham; I went to Murrayfield; I saw my mates; I met the
gatemen — ‘Come in, Gareth, welcome’; and it was wonderful. But I also
realised how precarious it was and made a conscious decision to keep my
media [work] part-time.
“Jack Hamer was a huge strength for me, just as Bill Samuel had been. He
allowed me to keep all of these things together and encouraged me on the
business side and I’ve loved it. Am I concerned for the boys of today? Yes,
because not all of them will be able to maintain their standard of living;
they won’t all become commentators or become coaches. They are not earning
the fortunes of the footballer and they are just as vulnerable, if not more
vulnerable, to injury.”
Golf and fishing are his passions now. Porthcawl has been his home for the
last 30 years. He is a doting grandfather to his son’s three children and
confesses to being still happily married to Maureen, who won his heart as a
12-year-old at school when she looked at him and sniffed: “I wouldn’t touch
you with a fork.”
THE INTERVIEW is drawing to a close. I have offered him one game to take with
him to eternity. A long pause ensues.
“You know, that’s not as straightforward as you think,” he sighs.
“Why not?” “Okay,” he smiles, “I know I’m digressing here but when I retired
from the game the local press here ran a competition: ‘What was Gareth’s
best moment?’ And the biggest pile of letters was the Barbarians game. I’m
fascinated that people still want to talk about that moment. I go to dinners
and somebody puts the video on and the place erupts. Forty years later, I
walk down the street and I am stopped: ‘Tell us about the try’.
“You never forget your first game for Wales and it’s nice winning titles and
achievements but you are always influenced by what people think, so I will
take that one with me and maybe enjoy the run this time because I was
petrified.”
“Forget what people think,” I counter.
“Wasn’t there ever a game when you walked off the field and thought, ‘This was
the greatest moment of my life?’”
“Yeah, right, I need to think about it again because that [the Barbarians
game] would not have been it. It is peculiar . . . I remember the fourth
Test in Auckland [on the victorious Lions tour of 1971], sitting in the
dressing room with Gerald Davies with jerseys and the crap still on us.
Somebody said, ‘Hey! We’ve just won the series’, and we just looked at each
other and went ‘So what?’— that was the immediate sentiment. Later we
realised what it meant but at the time we couldn’t . . . but I don’t think
I’m any nearer to answering your question.”
“Okay, well, try this one I tease: how does it feel to be heralded as the
greatest player of all time?”
“A lot of people ask that,” he smiles. “I don’t think of myself as the
greatest player in the world. It’s very subjective, and I’ve got my own
favourite players and I realise that if it hadn’t been for Charlie Faulkner
and Bobby Windsor on their knees in the mud having their heads stamped on, I
might not have touched a ball . . .
“But it’s a nice thought, and I do feel pride, no question of that. I’m proud
for my parents; I’m proud of my country; I’m proud of what we did for Wales.
I’m proud that somebody thinks I’m the best player there has ever been. Has
it made me any different? I’d like to think it hasn’t.
“I’ve had a wonderful life,” he concedes. “I’ve a great family, great kids and
good friends who are never afraid to keep me in check. Lots of my friends
joke: ‘If I ever come back to this world I want to come back as you’, and I
can’t really argue. I’ve loved it and enjoyed it and I feel very fortunate.
But don’t tell too many people that or they might want a part of it . . . Or
somebody up there might say, ‘He’s had enough, rope him in’.”
No half measures: Gareth Edwards’s life and times
- Gareth Edwards will be 60 on July 12
- Born in Pontardawe, he is regarded by many as the greatest rugby union
player of all time. In a poll of players conducted in 2003 by Rugby World
magazine, Edwards came top
- He first played for Wales in 1967, aged 19. Between 1967 and 1978 Edwards won
53 caps successive for Wales, including 13 as captain
- He is Wales’s youngest ever captain, first appointed when he was just 20, the
season after making his debut against France
- During his era, Wales dominated the Five Nations championship, winning it
seven times, including three grand slams
- He played 10 times for the British Lions, including the 1971 team that won a
historic series in New Zealand, above, and for the unbeaten 1974 side in
South Africa
- Edwards was blessed with pace, strength and agility and scored 20
international tries, equal fourth on Wales’s all-time list
- His try for the Barbarians against the All Blacks in 1973 at Cardiff Arms
Park is often described as the greatest ever
- When he wrote his autobiography he was branded a ‘professional’ and
prevented from coaching or being involved in any way with rugby union
- He now commentates on the game for the BBC and S4C, the Welsh-language
broadcaster
- A statue of Edwards stands in the St David’s shopping centre, Cardiff
- In the 2007 New Years Honours List, he was made a CBE for services to sport
- He was a team captain on A Question Of Sport, from 1979-81, with Emlyn
Hughes
- After JPR Williams was involved in a road traffic accident: ‘Bloody typical,
isn’t it? The car’s a write-off, the tanker’s a write-off, but JPR comes out
of it all in one piece’
