A sad goodbye to Eddie Butler, the voice of rugby
At some time during every Rugby World Cup, a match between the media of the southern and northern hemispheres is organised by the powers that be. It is a welcome break from the rhythm of touring, a chance to meet up with old mates from around the world and drink some beer.
At the 2003 Rugby World Cup, Mike Greenaway of The Mercury and I represented the Independent group. Gringo had played some decent club rugby. I had once played for my school’s third team by mistake.
That day Mike became the only player in the history of the media match to be sent off. In a match of touch rugby he flattened a French journalist who showed a little too much dazzle.
After the game, I met a friend of a friend for the first time and he joined our table. He was tall, Welsh and white of hair. Mike looked at him and smiled: “You looked like you played a bit in your day.” He nodded and smiled back. Yes, he had. He stood up and asked who wanted a drink and off he went to the bar. Mike watched him walk away, his smile slowly fading. He looked at me.
“I’ve just messed up, haven’t I?” he asked. Yes, I said. That was Eddie Butler, captain of Wales, a British & Irish Lion, BBC commentator, writer for the Observer.
BEST THING
I begged Mike to let it go, but he couldn’t. When Eddie came back with a huge tray of drinks, Mike introduced himself and told him he felt like a fool. He may have gushed a little. Eddie laughed and thought it quite the best thing. It was a good evening by all accounts.
John Robbie was the friend who told me to say hi to his old friend Eddie Butler if I bumped into him. Eddie had been best man at John’s wedding. It was an introduction I needed little prodding to make.
Like many rugby writers, even his peers on the English newspapers, Eddie was the writer you gushed over. You read him first thing the morning after having listened to him tell you the story of the match live on commentary.
“Not many have ever captained their country at rugby union, been a British & Irish Lion and then become a renowned broadcaster, rugby correspondent and fiction writer as well. To bask in the reflected glow of his multiple talents was enough for the rest of us,” Robert Kitson wrote in the Guardian this week.
During the 2009 British & Irish Lions tour, Robert asked me if I could give a colleague a lift to the 2009 Super Rugby final between the Bulls and the Chiefs. When David O’Sullivan and I arrived at the Sandton Sun to pick up said colleague, a tall man with white hair was waiting. It was Eddie.
As David and John are mates, we were all friends of friends and by the time we got to Loftus, felt like old pals. The Bulls romped home 61-17, and at the postmatch presser, Eddie asked a question of Victor Matfield along the lines of, “After watching that, what chance do you think the Lions have?”
It’s not often you see big SA rugby players stop and stare, eyes widening, mouths slightly agape, but stop and stare they did as Eddie’s mellifluous Welsh baritone filled the room. He was the voice of the game, the teller of the grandest stories. He was the essence of rugby for a generation.
I’ve spent the week reading Eddie’s writing. It has an effortless, lyrical lean to it, woven with sentences you read in wonder and in envy. His piece on the 2007 Rugby World Cup final for the Observer ended with: “This was old-style rugby, farewell rugby, won without aplomb. But at the end of a quite extraordinary World Cup, it can be forgiven. This was duty, an echo of the way things were before a quite wonderful tournament rocked France for seven whole weeks.”
I messaged Robert this week after I learnt Eddie had passed on at just 65 in his sleep during a charity hike on the Inca trail. He said they were all still in shock. Some of his colleagues had played golf with him just a few weeks ago. It feels unreal and unfair that we shall never hear Eddie Butler commentate again, but he left his mark, his lyrics and his words, and, to quote Robert one last time, “if you really listen hard, you can still hear it. The timeless voice of all our rugby winters”.