Bobbledegook: A Knighthood for Gareth Edwards and a walk down memory lane

Congratulations to the great Gareth Edwards on the well-deserved award of a K in the Queen's Birthday Honours list. GOE was one of Wales' greatest players, a world class scrumhalf if ever there was one and a terrific ambassador for the sport of rugby.

The great man in his pomp

Gareth was reckoned to be possibly the greatest player to ever play for Wales, and who's to gainsay that? He was one of the first scrumhalves to perfect the long spin pass and this did so much to free up the two fabulous outside halves he played with, Barry John and Phil Bennett, during Wales' glory years.

Gareth anguished that his sideburns were not as good as JPR's!

A spot of Googlisation reveals that the commemorative figurines (Groggs) of those days are still available - a fantastic Fathers' Day present if ever there was one.

Groggtastic mates!

Of course, no mention of the Great Man would be complete without reference to THAT try, so for those heathens amongst you who may not have seen it recently, hold on to your hats!;-

Please note that this game was not played in a mist! It's just the crappy quality of the old film! Amazing how the game has changed, the lineout then was mayhem and a great excuse for skullduggerry (and many were skullduggerred!) and there are at least two attempts at decapitation in this clip. Good to hear the dulcet tones of the late, great Cliff Morgan on commentary too.

Mention of Sir Gareth brought back happy(ish) memories for your correspondent of the day when I played against Gareth. As far as I can recall, I haven't thought about this during the 50 years that have elapsed since Gareth and I were callow youths in opposition!

Back in the mid-sixties our provincial Welsh grammar school side were invited to a prestigious sevens tournament in Bristol, and who did we draw in the first round but Millfield School who were then by far the most powerful schoolboy side in England. A trip across the channel was of course an international tour for us and off we set by steam train for the great adventure. There were no bridges across the Severn in those days (small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts etc.) so other than a trek round via Gloucester (where to this day the locals still eat Welsh people) a trip by rail through Brunel's great Severn Tunnel was the only way to get to foreign parts. Anyway for some reason (probably sheep on the line) our train was late arriving in Bristol and so we had to change on the train and rush to the ground by taxi. God knows where the money for that came from! Somehow the organisers had been informed of our hold up (No idea how, no mobile phones in those days, must have been a carrier pigeon) and generously rescheduled the playing order to give us a chance to arrive. So there we were, straight out of the taxis and onto the pitch to meet the greatest challenge in our lives.

To put it into perspective, Millfield's side were all schoolboy internationals (including JPR Williams, another from the Welsh pantheon) and so we were deep in the doodoo before kickoff. Sadly there was to be no fairytale ending and we were duly beaten by this array of stars, but we gave a good account of ourselves and were certainly not disgraced. I should here record that during the match I inflicted on Gareth the hardest tackle he encountered in his entire playing career but, truth be told, all I can really remember is bouncing off the biggest pair of thighs I'd ever had the misfortune to come across (oooh-er Mrs.!). Actually, neither Gareth nor JPR were the best players on the day; that accolade went to Vaughan Williams, then the Welsh Schools fly half who strangely never made it through to the senior ranks (although he was capped by The Bahamas!). Vaughan Williams died a couple of years back after 30 years of service as Director of Sports at Nottingham University (where incidentally he was indirectly my daughter's employer when she worked as a lifeguard at the University Pool - small world we live in!).

Predictably, after our prodigious efforts against Millfield, we were rubbish in our next tie in the Plate competition and got well tonked. C'est la vie.

This encounter with rugby's royalty was not, however, the only highlight of our day. On our journey home we went to the station buffet at Bristol Temple Meads (named after a New Zealand rugby great) and partook of that rare delicacy Oxtail Soup. Served with two slices of bread and butter, this was the food of the Gods. Now I doubt that this was a speciality of British Rail's catering (all nicely nationalised in those days you see). It probably came out of a tin, but to a bruised and battered sixteen year old it tasted wonderful and I can smell its aroma as I write this drivel.