The wonderful memories of Charlie Faulkner, hardman on the pitch and gentleman off it
IT SAID everything about Charlie Faulkner’s passion for the Wales rugby team that amid questions being asked about the side’s scrum close on 20 years ago, one-third of one of the most celebrated front row in history offered to help out free of charge.
Steve Hansen was Wales coach at the time and his pack were destroyed at the set piece by France, with Gethin Jenkins played out of position at tighthead.
“Look, they need a specialist and if they asked me I would gladly help out for nothing,” Faulkner said. “I couldn’t care if Steve Hansen is on £4,000 a week. If I went in there I could spark an 80 per cent improvement in two sessions – bottom line.
“I’d be there like a shot. I’m a passionate Welshman and money would not come into it. I simply cannot stand to see a Welsh scrum forced back like that and I don’t want to see it again.”
It wasn’t like that in Charlie’s day as a player, for sure, not even when Wales came up against arguably the toughest, meanest pack of them all in the France eight of that era. Somehow, Wales coped, with the Pontypool front row of Faulkner, Bobby Windsor and Graham Price providing the foundation.
Welsh rugby is mourning the passing of Faulkner at the age of 81. To say the former loosehead prop and coach was a one-off is to understate the matter.
He had started in the senior game with Cross Keys before heading for Pontypool, where he became part of the so-called Viet Gwent, the fabled front-row unit that became celebrated in song by Max Boyce.
Sample lyrics... “There’s a programme on the telly, I watch it when I can/ The story of an astronaut, the first bionic man/ He cost six million dollars, that’s a lot of bread I know/ But Wigan offered more than that for the Pontypool front row.”
That said, opponents didn’t have much to sing about when facing Faulkner, Windsor and Price, mind, with the threesome known for their ruthlessness. Rival sides were frequently destroyed in the scrums, forced backwards and left in disarray.
The unit from Pontypool became the bedrock of Wales’ success in the second half of the 1970s.
Faulkner had made his Test debut in 1975. How old was he? No-one seemed to know. Mervyn Davies had once told Windsor to lop two years off his age on breaking into the Wales set-up, to persuade the selectors to keep picking him beyond 30.
It isn’t certain if such advice was passed on to the Duke’s front-row colleague, but there was a certain mystery about the new man which even extended to his name. Was he Charlie or Anthony George Faulkner, the names he had been given at birth?
Years later it was established he had been close to 34 on his Wales debut. He was called Charlie after regularly riding a shire horse of the same name on a farm.
The off-field tales associated with him and Windsor became legendary. In Heart and Soul, the Character of Welsh Rugby, their former Pontypool team-mate, the great Eddie Butler, discussed the pair.
When joining the club in 1976 there was a story going round that the pair of them had been taken in by the police over some minor misunderstanding. Nothing too bad, “but it was essential they synchronised their stories,” recorded Eddie.
“After the briefest time to prepare they were led into different rooms and asked to give their accounts separately. Remarkably, every detail of two highly convoluted tales matched perfectly. Except for the moment when a cat had apparently run in front of their car. Bobby said it was black, Charlie said white.
“They were hauled back in for round two. The colour of the cat was a stumbling point. Was it black or was it white? ‘Ah that,’ said Charlie. ‘Well you have to remember, it was a very frosty night.’”
Doubtless, the tale did the rounds on the after-dinner circuit for years
after.
The legendary battles against the French in the second half of the 1970s were where the Viet Gwent truly earned their spurs for Wales. They were up against Robert Paparemborde, Alain Paco and Gerard Cholley at a time when anything went.
Plenty of other front rows crumbled. The Pontypool three didn’t. Without Faulkner, Windsor and Price, the 1970s would not have been so wonderful for Wales.
But the threesome were always happy to head back to their club and their mentor, Ray Prosser. Pontypool RFC of that era was a place where only the strong survived and standards for forward play were sky high. Certain opposing players would look ahead to trips to Pontypool Park on midweek nights with dread, some even developing mysterious injuries that forced them to cry off. Pontypool flu, it became known as.
JJ Williams once described how he was dragged into a ruck by Faulkner in a Welsh Cup match between Pontypool and Llanelli. “That was one place I did not want to be,” he said. “As a sense of terror crept over me, our eyes met. Charlie grinned, and said: ‘You’re my mate, JJ. I will let you go.’ I’ve never been more grateful.”
A good man to know was the martial artist that was Faulkner. And a player team-mates relished playing alongside.
His one try for Wales, against Ireland in 1975, was memorable, set up by a punishing carry from Windsor.
But, invariably, the limelight fell on the glamour stars behind the Wales scrum in that era. “I remember saying to Pross at the time it was a bit upsetting that they don’t even mention us,” Faulkner said in an interview in 2021, talking about the press.
“He said, ‘Charlie, you are in a position where you carry water for other people to drink.’ I thought that was a good way of putting it.”
A true character was Faulkner and a top player. He was also a nice man. He will be missed hugely.