SPECTATOR SPORT
Gloves and knickers
Frank Keating
THIRTY winters ago, the 'great freeze-up' of 1963 began, when the snow started to fall at lunch-time on the Sunday after Christ- mas. It lasted till Good Friday. On 19 Jan- uary, England beat Wales at Cardiff Arms Park by 13-6 in 10 below zero on an ice- armoured pitch. In 14 games between the two sides at Cardiff, England have won only once since then — two years ago, when they were so shellshocked by the victory that they zonked out in a cold faint and refused to talk to the press or television Unless they were warmed with £5,000 in readies.
This weekend, the smartypants of Eng- land attempt to make it two wins out of the last 15 at Cardiff. I daresay it would take an expensively long session on an analyst's couch to discover exactly the reason why I hope fervently that, whatever the weather, the Welsh fry, poach, grill, boil, braise, roast or generally jug the English once again. England have preened and pranced and ponced and promised (not to say premised) so much in recent seasons that someone else deserves a chance. Cardiff seems an ideal place for the ambush.
Back in the snows of 1963, a week before the Cardiff match, England held a trial game on the only thawed pitch in the coun- try, at Torquay. Afterwards, the heating went kaput in the resort's hotel and the selectors — in overcoats — had to keep calling for more large ones of the same as their deliberations continued into the night. How blotto (more than usually) they were, none has ever admitted, but they came up with a record seven new caps.
Meanwhile, on that very same Sunday, the Welsh held their trial at Newport. After it, in the committee-room at Rodney Parade, the 'Big Five' sat to choose the team. The frosts had slow-leaked a gas- pipe. Two of the selectors were carried to hospital unconscious, and the other three needed treatment — but not before they had released to the press an amazing six new caps.
So, thanks to Gordons and gas, a record 13 chaps made their debutants' curtsey the following Saturday on the skating-rink at the Arms Park. After, that is, they had cleared 20 tons of straw from the pitch and three-dozen, coke-red navvies' braziers Cliff Morgan, bless him, called them `navvies' brassieres' on television before the start .
On their way from London by coach, the England team stopped off at Gloucester to be donated 15 pairs of new-fangled 'ther- mal' underpants and a pair of gloves each by Messrs Morley Underwear Ltd.
No overnight stays in hotels in those days, no week-long tactics-and-fraternisa- tion 'squads'. Half the Welsh team still reckon they were lucky to get down from the hills on the morning of the match. Few of them had cars, so it was either a lift or an Eynons or Ralphs village bus down to the city.
New cap — and new captain — Clive Rowlands just made it from Newport, where he was teaching that morning, in his clapped-out Mini (numberplate TOP CAT1 — hence his name to this day, 'Top- cat), after 'slithering into snowdrifts all up and down the A4!
Higher up, two other new caps were igloo-ed in. Dai Hayward, wing-forward, was told to slide down from his mum's house and pick up Dai Watkins (new, and great, fly-half) at Blaina. They missed the rendezvous. Hayward (`they'd even lagged the daffodils up there') had to slide on down in his battered, aptly-named Hillman `Husky'. Watkins, panicking, cadged a des- perate lift with an intrepid band of support- ers, hanging on (from the inside) to the latch on the backdoors of the van. Most other Welsh players tell similar tales.
No wonder England won. Gloves and knickers by Morley.
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