Rugby tough guy was really a ‘gentle giant’
Graham Charles Williams, All Black, Wellington representative player: b January 26, 1945, Wellington; m Sharon; 1d, 1s; d January 25, 2018, Wellington, aged 72.
An All Black, an axeman, a gentle giant with a heart of gold: Graham Williams was a tough guy on the pitch, but compassion ran deep in his veins.
The openside flanker rarely let an injury take him off the field back in the day when, if you didn’t play, you risked losing your spot on the team.
His former Wellington and All Blacks team-mate Andy Leslie said in 2011 that Williams was never one to give in to injury.
‘‘When he lost his ear against Auckland I remember him holding it on. It was lying in his hand when he got to the trainer on the sideline at Eden Park and he asked if they could tape it back on,’’ Leslie said.
Williams played 18 games for the All Blacks, including five tests. He scored five tries in one game and was always on the winning New Zealand team.
He played 174 games over 14 seasons for Wellington representative rugby between 1964-1976 and about the same number over 16 seasons as an ‘‘axeman’’ – a name bestowed on players from the Wellington Football Club. That number will never be matched, says WFC president and television sports commentator Keith Quinn.
Williams was one of the club’s ‘‘truly all-time great players and personalities’’, Quinn says. ‘‘He always led from the front. He was fast and skilful as an openside player. His tackling was ferocious and his pain threshold was vast and strong.
‘‘Not to put it too mildly... he never took a backward step.’’
Williams’ ears were his badge of honour, Quinn says.
In his rugby career, he put his ears in places where other parts of his body were not prepared to go. This meant that on a number of occasions he suffered serious injuries – twice, one of his ears was torn off so badly he was advised to retire.
His fingers were broken so often he resorted to wearing his wedding ring on a chain around his neck.
But he had a compassionate side on the field, says Quinn, recalling a story the great Welsh rugby player Sir Gareth Edwards told him.
Edwards ‘‘foolishly’’ dived on top of the ball against the All Blacks just as the All Black forwards arrived to form a fierce ruck.
‘‘Fortunately, your Wellington flanker Graham Williams dived on top of me first and pulled me in as both sets of forwards stormed in and in the heat of the ruck. Williams said to me ‘get in here, young man, you’ll be safer under me’,’’ Edwards recalled.
Williams’ career wearing the black jersey did not progress beyond 18 games, perhaps because of injuries at the wrong time – maybe because of the whims of selectors, Quinn observes.
Born in Wellington, Williams and his three sisters were raised in the eastern suburbs. He was a keen sportsman and played hockey in primary school, but swapped his hockey stick for the oval ball at Rongotai College.
It was at secondary school that he indulged his love of rugby, playing in the first XV from 1960-1963. In 1964, at the age of 19, he was picked for the Wellington representative team, a rare feat for a schoolboy leaver at that time.
But something else occurred at college that would change his life in other ways. At 16, he volunteered to be a stagehand in the school’s production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman with Wellington East Girls’ College. Playing the lead female role of Linda Loman was a girl called Sharon. The pair fell for one another and married five years later. The childhood sweethearts were married for 52 years.
‘‘Everyone knew Graham for his strong, tough ways on the field,’’ Sharon said in the wake of his death. ‘‘I knew him as a gentle giant. He had a heart of gold and that’s what I fell in love with.’’
The couple had two children, son Paul and daughter Tracy. They lost Tracy 13 years ago to cancer.
Outside rugby, Williams joined his father, grandfather and assorted uncles and cousins in the family car sales business, Williams and Adams, initially as an automotive engineer rebuilding body engines and regrinding crankshafts. But the engine reconditioning side petered out and Williams moved into car sales in the 1990s.
By then, the business was being run by five of the Williams’ cousins.
When it closed down in 2009, he worked at the pro shop at Miramar Golf Club.
Golf was another sport he excelled at and one in which he showed his trademark toughness, once ignoring a dislocated shoulder to finish his round.
In recent years, Williams suffered from frontal lobe dementia and motor neurone disease.
He lived at his Seatoun home with Sharon up until the past two years, when he moved into Te Hopai.
On Williams’ death, Quinn reflected how he was never the biggest forward and hardly ever the biggest man on the pitch, but pound-for-pound he was the toughest man on any field.
‘‘Wellington Football Club have had 16 All Blacks... Was there a greater one than Graham Charles Williams? I don’t think so.
‘‘Give ‘em the axe.’’
‘‘I knew him as a gentle giant. He had a heart of gold and that’s what I fell in love with.’’ Sharon Williams