Colleague who went to the top of his game after career left tracks
IAM a keen follower of rugby union and have regretted not being able to play other than football at school. Grammar schools tended to play rugby, so perhaps I was singularly unlucky to find myself at a fabulous school other than their misguided choice of football as the winter sport. Despite this start, I continue to follow rugby with a passion.
The other Saturday saw me glued to the TV screen as England met Ireland at Twickenham in the autumn round of internationals. If you missed the match, I can confirm England won comfortably, but the talking point since has been the brilliant second try scored by the England winger, Jonny May. I rated it highly, but the sports papers since cannot decide if it is the try of the decade, or the century. I have yet to make my mind up.
After school my main sport activity was cricket and I was fortunate to play at a decent club level. My love of rugby was restricted to watching the televised international games. This only began to change when I met up with a colleague at Stratford.
Our idle chatter changed direction when one of the permanent staff brought over a copy of the Monday Daily Telegraph sports page to ask my new friendly colleague if he was by any chance Bob Hiller, the new Harlequins fullback who appeared to be having a good season. The positive yet quiet answer left me with much to discuss at the next lunch break!
He was also a very good cricketer and we were soon both in the department representative side travelling around for our summer sport. Eventually he asked why I had never tried rugby and as much as he tempted me with his recollections of the brighter times he had in that winter game, I considered it was somewhat late as a 20-year-old to take up rugby.
Bob’s rugby career blossomed, sadly causing the demise of his engineering ambitions. Way back in the 60s, rugby union was a totally amateur sport, and a rising star was expected to play county representative matches on a Wednesday, a practice that did not appeal to our employer. Bob duly left the railway industry so he might follow his rugby ambitions by becoming a teacher.
He progressed to play full-back for England many times and then was selected to tour with the British Lions in the days when a full-back did all the goal kicking. I watched from afar on the basis that even if you are not good enough to play a sport, it is a delight to know someone who is playing at a top level. Bob also went on to further study at Oxford University where he gained a blue at both rugby and cricket.
Rugby was for me a game to be watched until I was 30 years old and agreed to train with a local rugby club to lose some excess weight. I will never know why, but I was persuaded to play for one of the minor sides and found I was more able to play than I thought. In the five years that followed I managed to work my way up the teams and then joined the town side. I can see why Bob loved the game and I would have loved just a taste of his success at the upper echelons of the game.
I cannot end this column without some comment on the Jonny May try that so many think was brilliant. In 1973 Gareth Edwards scored a try for the Barbarians against the All Blacks that was considered the best try of all time. I was lucky to see both live on TV and on consideration think the May try the better of the two as the Edwards try involved so many fellow team members.