Brilliant Billy Boston still the pride of Wigan - and the greatest rugby union player Wales never had

[josie andrews]

Two statues, one in his adopted home town and the other on Wembley Way, are planned to honour rugby league great.

This Saturday, in the late afternoon, a smartly dressed 80-year-old will slip into the VIP suite at Old Trafford. He will straighten his Wigan tie, and settle down to watch his old team take on their fiercest rivals St Helens in the rugby league Grand Final.

Billy Boston is one of Wigan’s favourite sons, a supreme winger, swift, sure-footed, a 90-metre-try man and, as he piled on the muscle in the second half of his career, a fearsome crash tackler.

However, he did not grow up among the Lancashire mills but in the cosmopolitan Tiger Bay area of Cardiff. He was the sixth of 11 children born to a buxom Irish‑Welsh mother and a tiny seaman father originally from Sierra Leone.

Living three doors down from him on Angelina Street was Joe Erskine, who would grow up to become Great Britain’s heavyweight boxing champion.

The young Boston loved all sport, swimming, running, cricket, but his first love was rugby and by 14 both he and Erskine were playing for the Cardiff Schools team. He rose rapidly through the ranks, playing for Neath, but neither Cardiff nor Wales ever showed any interest – his skin colour had a bearing, Boston has said.

By 1952, after Boston had played for the Army while doing his national service, rugby league clubs had become aware of this huge Welsh talent.

Despite trying to hide from the various representatives who would turn up at his parents’ house, he was eventually cornered by Wigan. They showed him a suitcase containing £1,500 in £5 notes – his mother jokingly asked for £3,000, which the chairman instantly accepted.

Boston cried, knowing it would mean he would never play for Wales, but later called it the “best mistake I ever made”. At 19 he was heading north and Wales had, in the words of dual-code international Ray French, “lost their greatest-ever rugby union player”.

At Wigan’s Central Park, he was both an instant hit and instantly accepted, and after six matches he was picked for Great Britain on their tour of Australia, where he became the first black player to play for the Lions and broke the try-scoring record.

The next year he went on a blind date with a young Wigan woman called Joan, to the Hippodrome to see Tiger Bay’s own Shirley Bassey. Billy and Joan married in 1956, and Boston morphed from crowd favourite into all-time great, finishing his career with 478 tries in 488 appearances for Wigan, and 34 tries in 31 GB games.

Boston had always thought that he would go back home when he finished his league career, but he had fallen in love not only with the girl but the town, so he stayed, going on to run a pub called The Griffin, and in his own modest, quiet way supporting the town and club in any way he could – giving away his memorabilia, attending club functions, opening buildings, always free with a word of encouragement for young players.

Despite his discreet ways and aversion to public speaking, his exploits are remembered by people far too young to have actually seen him play. Ian Lenagan, the Wigan chairman, remembers the time Bradley Wiggins was a guest alongside Boston at a Wigan game.

“Bradley had just won the Tour de France and the Olympic medals and Billy went up to him and asked for his autograph, and Bradley went mad and said: ‘If anyone should be asking for an autograph, it should be me’.”

Fittingly, two statues of Boston are planned. The first will stand alongside casts of Martin Offiah, Alex Murphy, Gus Risman and Eric Ashton at the top of Wembley Way – where Boston played six Challenge Cup finals. The second will sit on a plinth in Wigan town centre, if the £100,000 needed can be raised by the Billy Boston Statue Trust.

“I love Wigan,” Boston says on the telephone, the Welsh lilt still humming, “it is brilliant. They have treated me like a lord. The statues are a great honour, I’m really proud.”

There is a huge Tesco now where Central Park used to stand, but Boston will never be commodified.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyl ... r-had.html

[yokozuna]

Such a good article.

Wish I'd seen him play.

[curryman]

(Billy) Boston will never be commodified.

great line and article.

Billy was my first hero and the reason why I got addicted to rugby league. I loved watching him charging down the wing with several large blokes on his back trying (and usually failing) to stop him getting over the line.

Not just the greatest rugby union player, simply the greatest rugby player the world has ever seen.

[BriH]

Such a good article.

Wish I'd seen him play.

I was lucky! I did see him cause havoc!

[ancientnloyal]

Jim Sullivan
Billy Boston
Ellery Hanley


Boy have we been lucky.

[Stan Dish]

Bladerunner, the film, concerns itself with memories and how they matter. Towards the end of the film( Rutger Hauer? ) says a line ,something to the effect of - “ I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe, - attacked ships on fire, on the shoulders of Orion ….I’ve seen sea beams …glittering down the Tanhauser Gate…
.all these moments …will be lost …in time, ….like tears in rain….. “

and reading this forum entry puts me in mind of those sort of memories…

As kids, the debate was who was faster - Tom Van Vollenhoven, or Billy Boston?
(Tom was the great South African winger who played as Saint’s No 2, - He could break your heart.)
Tom was quick. -When he got into his stride, he was gone. - But he was slight, - even a small nudge at the speed he was going, could put him into touch. If you could catch him, that is.
But Billy was quick too, and had some bulk on him. When he got into his stride he was unstoppable:- Even when he was caught, ( hardly ever, and it took some doing,) I’ve seen him cross the line with four or five players hanging round his neck, having made another ten yards from where he was initially tackled.
On what now seems like hundreds of occasions, as schoolboys, we watched with rising excitement as Wigan worked the ball out to the right wing, and Billy would then take off, take on the defence and score. - There seemed to be a beautiful inevitability about it. Back then, whilst we thought Billy Boston scoring was almost routine, we knew he was special. People talked,- that’s how legends start,- It was magic….
Another time:
Standing on the Kop at Central Park - (dead centre, about half way up ) it was announced that Fred Griffiths (our South African full back and goal kicker ) would attempt to kick a field goal, from the half way line,- bare foot ! - and in those days, they kicked off sand.
I wish I could remember which match it was ,but this was before the match began,
My memory is, Punchy took his boot and sock off, lined up the ball,and of course kicked it straight towards us, smack in the middle,- from fifty yards ! Naturally us kids went crackers.
Fred then calmly put his boots on, the teams came out, and the match began…

Now, as Monty Python said - “you try telling that to kids today,… they won’t believe a word.”

But it’s true, I was there.

Over the years we have all been privileged to see some fantastic athletes. We are indeed lucky.
- Right now, I am in awe of our current wingers, - as far as I’m concerned, Josh walks on water, and it was nice to hear Tony Smith enthusing about “ that kid Burgess, - he’s a bit special,”

Anyway, I may be getting a tad nostalgic in my later years, but in my memory, Boston really was a bit special. There aren’t many players who are as well known throughout the game as Billy was/is, and if anyone ever deserved a statue in his honour, it’s that man.

[Kiwiseddon]

Bladerunner, the film, concerns itself with memories and how they matter. Towards the end of the film( Rutger Hauer? ) says a line ,something to the effect of - “ I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe, - attacked ships on fire, on the shoulders of Orion ….I’ve seen sea beams …glittering down the Tanhauser Gate…
.all these moments …will be lost …in time, ….like tears in rain….. “

and reading this forum entry puts me in mind of those sort of memories…

As kids, the debate was who was faster - Tom Van Vollenhoven, or Billy Boston?
(Tom was the great South African winger who played as Saint’s No 2, - He could break your heart.)
Tom was quick. -When he got into his stride, he was gone. - But he was slight, - even a small nudge at the speed he was going, could put him into touch. If you could catch him, that is.
But Billy was quick too, and had some bulk on him. When he got into his stride he was unstoppable:- Even when he was caught, ( hardly ever, and it took some doing,) I’ve seen him cross the line with four or five players hanging round his neck, having made another ten yards from where he was initially tackled.
On what now seems like hundreds of occasions, as schoolboys, we watched with rising excitement as Wigan worked the ball out to the right wing, and Billy would then take off, take on the defence and score. - There seemed to be a beautiful inevitability about it. Back then, whilst we thought Billy Boston scoring was almost routine, we knew he was special. People talked,- that’s how legends start,- It was magic….
Another time:
Standing on the Kop at Central Park - (dead centre, about half way up ) it was announced that Fred Griffiths (our South African full back and goal kicker ) would attempt to kick a field goal, from the half way line,- bare foot ! - and in those days, they kicked off sand.
I wish I could remember which match it was ,but this was before the match began,
My memory is, Punchy took his boot and sock off, lined up the ball,and of course kicked it straight towards us, smack in the middle,- from fifty yards ! Naturally us kids went crackers.
Fred then calmly put his boots on, the teams came out, and the match began…

Now, as Monty Python said - “you try telling that to kids today,… they won’t believe a word.”

But it’s true, I was there.

Over the years we have all been privileged to see some fantastic athletes. We are indeed lucky.
- Right now, I am in awe of our current wingers, - as far as I’m concerned, Josh walks on water, and it was nice to hear Tony Smith enthusing about “ that kid Burgess, - he’s a bit special,”

Anyway, I may be getting a tad nostalgic in my later years, but in my memory, Boston really was a bit special. There aren’t many players who are as well known throughout the game as Billy was/is, and if anyone ever deserved a statue in his honour, it’s that man.

Amen to that Stan!! :eusa2: