Brendan Gallagher: Heroic, tragic and downright eccentric, yes rugby has it all

Posted on by in Brendan Gallagher

A mate of mine, literary agent David Luxton, has had the brilliant idea of organising the inaugural London Sports Writing Festival this week at Lord’s cricket ground, a wonderfully self-indulgent literary orgy for those who love reading and talking about sport as well as watching and reporting the real thing.

Four days of Q&As and seminars have been organised based mainly on this year’s best selling books while generous drinking time has been factored in for essential bar-room debate. The perfect waste of a day awaits and, as you might suspect, cricket and cycling lead the way – it’s seemingly almost impossible to write a bad book about either – with football for once relegated to third place although the national game still attracts a formidable body of written work. The big shock for me, however, is that apart from a chat with Matt Dawson and Sam Warburton about the Lions, rugby our great sport scarcely features this time around.

As both a rugby fanatic and allegedly a writer – no really, don’t titter – I’ve therefore been musing about rugby literature. Is it any good? What are the great definitive rugby books and have any been published recently? Shouldn’t a game packed with some of the biggest, wildest and most extreme characters on the planet figure more prominently? Is this year a one-off, a rare fallow period, or does it represent a terminal decline?

My gut reaction is to stoutly defend rugby’s great wordsmiths who have given so much pleasure but, if pressed, I will reluctantly accept that overall my rugby library doesn’t quite satisfy in the same full measure as my cricket and cycling collections. My First XV, which I have listed, definitely bears comparison with any sport but the strength in depth is possibly not quite there.

Historically, the rugby staple for years was the straightforward tour book and for a while they prospered mightily because in the absence of TV coverage, and with radio transmissions virtually inaudible under the duvet, we had almost no way of “experiencing” the great Lions tours of our youth. Hurriedly written tour books – JBG Thomas, John Reason and Terry Mclean were the main proponents – were almost our sole source of knowledge. The last two named could both turn a strong and memorable phrase and Reason’s accounts of the 1971 and ’74 Lions are ‘must-reads’ but essentially the tour book is now gone, save for coffee table picture fests. How can they compete with 24/7 TV and on-line coverage and inside track documentaries?

Additionally rugby’s famed “What goes on tour stays on tour” mentality is hardly conducive to great book writing. What goes on tour is, of course, exactly what the fan wants to read about but very few players, coaches or journalists have been brave enough to do anything other than hint at high jinks or bitter rows and arguments. Rugby has a strong streak of self-preservation running through it dating back to the old wild west days when there was, frankly, much to cover up on and off the field.

There are exceptions – Bobby Windsor’s biography with Peter Jackson leaves little to the imagination while if you go back further Peter Robbins’ biography Life At 100 Miles An Hour is an astonishing look at a life lived in the outside lane with the ‘pedal to the metal’. It even records a ‘bistro crawl’ in Paris taking in 43 drinking establishments.

Rugby stayed amateur longer than any other major sport and while the game retained that status there was little appetite for revelation and embarrassing friends and mates. Equally now the game has such a large and valued corporate image there is a tangible fear of upsetting the apple cart and possibly damaging future employment prospects.

For many years, shamefully, a player also had to forego his amateur status and all involvement in the game if he wrote an autobiography. Player biogs therefore served mainly as well-deserved pay-days for those retiring and a welcome little earner for the impoverished journalist who acted as his ghost. Very few of these linger in the mind.

There have been some major missed opportunities, Tony O’Reilly being the biggest. Ivan Fallon produced a perfectly readable volume – The Player – on O’Reilly, the stellar businessman who played a bit of rugby but actually the book I want to read is O’Reilly – The Extraordinary Rugby Player And Teenage Prodigy Who Became A Business Legend. That was the order of things, the former explains the latter. Similarly there are some fine military based books on Blair Mayne, Britain’s most decorated soldier in WW2, but again he was a legendary Ireland and Lions hard case, pub fighter and wildman long before he joined the Army. The rugby player begat the SAS legend.

So there are a few holes in rugby’s literature but don’t panic, there is so much else to enjoy. Rugby’s glory is the fantastic array of exceptional individuals and eccentrics attracted to the game and the endless passion they show for both the sport and their clubs and countries. Tap into that and suddenly you are in business. Very few books have achieved this better than Bill Samuel’s Rugby Body And Soul which includes three chapters on the young Gareth Edwards that every rugby fan worldwide should read. I would also point you in the direction of a much less well known masterpiece, namely Carwyn James, A Personal Memoir by Alun Richards. Nobody has come closer to explaining what made the great man tick.

Lets keep left field for a minute. The Final Whistle by Stephen Cooper is a jaw dropping account of the deeds of Rosslyn Park members during World War 1. Of the 350 club members who saw active service 87 died, two were award VCs while 13 won the DSO, 63 the MC, four the DSC, three the DFC and two the Croix de Guerre. There were also another 54 mentions in dispatches.

Invictus by John Carlin is another big book on a massive subject – how a Nelson Mandela-inspired Springboks helped unite the Rainbow Nation soon after the banishment of apartheid. The film didn’t quite do the book justice and even the book itself doesn’t quite conjure the magic that was afoot in May and June 1995 but it’s a noble attempt and a fine read.

Andy Ripley’s fight with cancer – detailed in Ripley’s World – was an inspiring read on all levels and vaguely of that ilk I would also mention John Kirwan’s All Blacks Don’t Cry in which one of the most talented and seemingly confident rugby players on the planet details his fight with depression.

Another poignant and much underrated volume is Crash Tackle by Danny Hearn – an early and painfully honest account of exactly what happens when you wake up one saturday morning as a fit and able-bodied England rugby international and end the day in intensive care rendered a quadraplegic after breaking your neck playing for the East Midlands against the All Blacks.

Rugby encompasses all human life, every body shape and size, every emotion and is enriched by a singing, storytelling, ale-swigging culture second to none. It’s all out there and if the organisers will have me at the second London Sport’s Writing Festival next year I will happily, at the home of cricket, go into bat for the oval ball.

*London Sports Writing Festival October 17-20

Rugby’s First XV – Books everybody should have in their rugby library

The Final Whistle – The Great War In Fifteen Players by Stephen Cooper (Spellmont 2012): The extraordinary story of Rosslyn Park at War between 1914-18. Just about every other club has a similar inspiring tale to tell if somebody is willing to do the research.

Sportswriters Eye: An Anthology of Alan Watkins’ Rugby Writing (Queen Anne Press 1989): A political commentator by profession, Watkins was never better than when he turned his sharp, occasionally jaundiced, but always elegant mind to his second love.

Stand Up And Fight, When Munster Beat The All Blacks by Alan English (Yellow Jersey Press 2005): The ultimate anatomy of a shock win and in passing a beautifully observed homage to provincial Irish rugby.

Confessions Of A Rugby Mercenary by John Daniell (Awa Press 2007): Kiwi-born Daniell was a decent lock but is even better writer. Here he takes you into the weird and wonderful world of French club rugby. Not for the squeamish, especially his discourse on eye-gouging techniques.

Rugby Body And Soul by Bill Samuel (Gomer Press 1986) and (Mainstream 1998): A Welsh schoolmaster’s love affair with rugby and that ‘Eureka’ moment when he discovered the once in a century talent of Gareth Edwards.

Winning by Sir Clive Woodward (Hodder and Stoughton 2004): The science and planning that saw England lord it over the Southern Hemisphere, sweep to a commanding Grand Slam in 2003 and win the World Cup.

The Art Of Coarse Rugby by Michael Green (S Paul 1960): All-time sporting classic as Green and illustrator John Jensen take you inside the dysfunctional but hilarious world of the club fourth XV stalwart who possesses much love but little talent for the game. Blood, sweat, tears and beers.

Goodbye To Glory by Terry McLean (Pelham, 1977): McLean can read like an All Blacks cheerleader in other books but in this fine piece of reportage as he chronicles New Zealand’s painful 3-1 Test series defeat in South Africa in 1976.

The Iron Duke by Bobby Windsor w/ Peter Jackson (Mainstream 2010): A departure from the normal routine ghosted player-biogs, Windsor is unusually candid in his recollections and Jackson resists the temptation to bury any awkward bits.

The Lions Speak by John Reason (Rugby Books 1972) and (Aurum Press 2005, 2013): Reason edited these notes from a coaching seminar soon after the 1971 Lions tour but the real stars are the legends of the game – Gibson, Dawes, Mighty Mouse, Ray Mclaughlin, Carwyn James – and their pearls of wisdom.

Endless Winter by Stephen Jones (Mainstream 1994): Jones in full spate is always a joy and the modern game’s premier wordsmith comes off his long run in this classic delivered on the eve of rugby turning professional. The story has moved on but the prose is timeless.

The 1905 Originals by Bob Howitt and Dianne Haworth (Harper Collins 2005): Wonderfully researched and illustrated account of Dave Gallaher’s All Blacks in 1905 and their first ever tour of Britain and France. Ripping yarn, Boy’s Own stuff. Except it was all true.

Forerunners Of The All Blacks, The 1888-89 New Zealand Natives by Greg Ryan (Canterbury University Press, 1993): A personal favourite which chronicles the greatest tour in sporting history. The New Zealand Maori Natives played 107 matches around the world during 14 months on the road. Epic.

The History Of The British And Irish Lions by Clem and Greg Thomas (Mainstream 1997): The Lions is an irresistible story and Clem Thomas, a former Lion himself, gave it the full monty in his original book which is now updated every four years by his journalist son Greg.

Ripley’s World by Andy Ripley (Mainstream 2007): In one way not a rugby book at all as Ripley relates his fight with cancer but actually on every page you glimpse what made him rugby man par excellence and a genuine superstar.

Bench

The Unbeaten Lions by John Reason (Rugby Books 1974)

Carwyn, A Personal Memoir by Alun Richards (Christopher Davies publishers, 2002)

Playing The Enemy (Invictus) by John Carlin (Atlantic Books 2010)

All Blacks Don’t Cry by John Kirwan (Penguin 2010)

Total Rugby by Jim Greenwood (A & C Black Publishers, revised edition 2003)

Nobody Hurt In A Small Earthquake by Michael Green (William Heinemann, 1990)

Crash Tackle by Danny Hearn (Littlehampton Book Services, 1972)

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