Island Life Magazine Ltd June/July 2012 | Page 51

INTERVIEW only two shillings and four pence each way, so we owe you four shillings and eight pence – not five shillings’. “The letter telling me I was to play for Wales for the first time had the word ‘reserve’ crossed out, and ‘selected’ in its place. It also reminded me to take my own socks from the previous game – but I hadn’t played for my country before. It went on to tell me to take my own shorts – or did I wish to borrow a pair.” Cliff played in the days when rugby was truly an amateur sport. The only payments were expenses, and public transport was the only way to travel. Despite being just 5ft 7in tall, he was a giant on the field of play in his fly-half position. He came from a mining family and joined Cardiff Rugby Club straight from school in 1949. In his school days he learned the ‘rights and wrongs’ of rugby, recalling: “I thought I did well when I won a game with a last-minute drop kick, only for the teacher to shout at me ‘ rugby is about passing the ball not kicking it’. He dropped me from the school team for two weeks as punishment.” Cliff won that first cap for Wales against Ireland in 1951, playing opposite his own hero Jack Kyle, and he was part of the Grand Slam winning Wales side of 1952. He was made captain of Wales in 1956, but two years later, having made just 29 appearances for his country, he retired from the game. I asked him why, and his answer underlined just how sport has change. He said: “I had a family to look after so I had to go back out to work.” That was how it was on those days. Cliff modestly claims he would never have been able to play rugby in the modern era because of his size and weight. “Everybody is so much bigger, stronger and fitter now,” he pointed out. “We trained twice a week in the evening, then went off for a pint of beer and a kipper, warmed up over an electric fire.” But he has no regrets at missing out on the financial rewards that are on ‘We trained twice a week in the evening, then went off for a pint of beer and a kipper, warmed up over an electric fire.’ offer to players these days, saying: “I made so many good friends from all around the world, and we have had some wonderful reunions.” He joined BBC Wales as Sports Organiser in Cardiff in 1958. After a brief spell with ITV he returned to the BBC as broadcaster and commentator. In one interview with Richard Burton he got the Welsh screen star to admit: “I would have forfeited playing Hamlet just to have won one rugby cap for Wales.” As a TV commentator he watched the next generat