The Codebreakers BBC2 Wales documentary on now.

[Futtocks]

31 minutes ago, Wolford6 said:

Glen Webbe was the first black player to win a Wales RU cap, in 1986. Chris Oti won his first cap in 1988.

Steve Ford (Phil's brother) was banned by the WRU in 1985 after playing (unpaid, I think) in a trial game for Leeds RL. He was reinstated the same year and was capped at RU in 1990.

An interesting case is Dennis Brown, a black Welsh serviceman who switched from RU to RL with Widnes in the 1960's / 1970's. At first he played under a false name but when the true situation came to light, the WRU banned him. However,  the English RU allowed him to play RU if he was representing the Royal Marines / Royal Navy.  Utter hypocrisy of course and, if I remember correctly, the situation was resolved when he was conveniently given a foreign posting.

Plenty of Rugby League stars played Rugby Union when on National Service, thanks to the armed forces' long-running ban on the 13-man code. Something that they have never apologised for, surprise, surprise.

[Steve Fox]

59 minutes ago, Wolford6 said:

An interesting case is Dennis Brown, a black Welsh serviceman who switched from RU to RL with Widnes in the 1960's / 1970's. At first he played under a false name but when the true situation came to light, the WRU banned him. However,  the English RU allowed him to play RU if he was representing the Royal Marines / Royal Navy.  Utter hypocrisy of course and, if I remember correctly, the situation was resolved when he was conveniently given a foreign posting.

 

As someone else has pointed out, servicemen could play RU for forces teams even if they were professional. Alex Murphy played at Twickenham when doing National Service when he was already an established GB player. On a much more modest level, my dad was a decent amateur player as a teenager and he was (briefly) on Warrington’s books when he signed up for the army. He tells how different company commanders were vying to get him in their unit knowing that he’d taken the professional shilling and would be an asset to the company team - in civvy street they’d have been hounding him out of their RU club if he’d tried to play that sport. Incidentally he once got sent off playing RU in the forces for “violent conduct” - a hand-off to the forehead of a would-be tackler.

As for Dennis Brown, he had a long Widnes career (1964-75) but his appearances were fitful because of overseas postings. For the first few years he appeared as A Newman.

[DoubleD]

A really good programme. For those on Facebook, don't forget to share it as I have done, to reach the widest possible audience. You might be able to do it on Twitter too, but I'm not on there so wouldn't know

[Futtocks]

16 minutes ago, DoubleD said:

A really good programme. For those on Facebook, don't forget to share it as I have done, to reach the widest possible audience. You might be able to do it on Twitter too, but I'm not on there so wouldn't know

Don't worry; it is all over Twitter. Both Tony Collins and Carolyn Hitt (the presenter of the programme) are on there too.

I suggested on Twitter that her next project might be what happened to RL in France in the late Thirties, and got a response from both Carolyn and Tony. It probably won't happen, but you can't reap a crop without sowing a seed.

[Oxford]

6 hours ago, Stan Doffarf said:

The Beeb do this kind of programme better than anybody else.

Now that must be the red wine.

Or yes if ru is involved they'll make every effort to produce something decent.

 

[latchford albion]

4 hours ago, Oxford said:

Now that must be the red wine.

Or yes if ru is involved they'll make every effort to produce something decent.

 

I don't completely agree.  We get Mark Chapman to host our games while they get Inverdale.  I know who has the most respect from the general sporting public.

[yanto]

12 hours ago, Futtocks said:

And already uploaded to YouTube too.

Had a few requests from guys in Europe and Aussie about how they could watch it so I used an app to download it from i player and uploaded it to YouTube. I'm surprised it hasn't been taken off yet. BBC and Sky make it very difficult to get any coverage of the game on social media. Hopefully this has got under the radar. 

[Random tiger]

Great documentary. The racism of the time seems so absurd these days. 

Sadly  the show didn’t address  rugby league IN Wales in the modern day. Can a young Welch kid truly adopt league as a code nowadays? Probably not. I fear anyone that really signs through will emerge in Union. Are the current Welch “leagues” truly accepted or do they remain invisible?

[iffleyox]

17 minutes ago, Random tiger said:

Great documentary. The racism of the time seems so absurd these days. 

Sadly  the show didn’t address  rugby league IN Wales in the modern day. Can a young Welch kid truly adopt league as a code nowadays? Probably not. I fear anyone that really signs through will emerge in Union. Are the current Welch “leagues” truly accepted or do they remain invisible?

someone from the marches writes.... Unless you're a former fusilier in a now defunct regiment it's WelSh...

[Random tiger]

32 minutes ago, iffleyox said:

someone from the marches writes.... Unless you're a former fusilier in a now defunct regiment it's WelSh...

Thanks for the correction . Can you answer my question?

[burnleywelsh]

50 minutes ago, Random tiger said:

Great documentary. The racism of the time seems so absurd these days. 

Sadly  the show didn’t address  rugby league IN Wales in the modern day. Can a young Welch kid truly adopt league as a code nowadays? Probably not. I fear anyone that really signs through will emerge in Union. Are the current Welch “leagues” truly accepted or do they remain invisible?

Probably not ???

Plenty of young Welch (sic) kids, adopting League.  http://www.walesrugbyleague.co.uk/article/16197/seventeen-wales-juniors-at-super-league-academy-set-ups

[Bearman]

I really enjoyed it.

I was amazed by the hypocrisy of the WRU bloke that said he didn't blame anyone for turning pro and going North......No, not much

The whole RFU for a hundred years were nothing but hypocrites.

" You pretend your not paying them and we'll pretend to believe you"

and still the traitourous, tax dodging hypocrites have never offered one word of apology.

[Moomintroll]

19 minutes ago, Bearman said:

tax dodging hypocrites

Given the number of RU teams that were allegedly involved in paying boot money to players, did the Inland Revenue ever get involved?

(Maybe this is a question for the cross-code forum - I'll move it there if required)

[Bearman]

1 hour ago, Moomintroll said:

Given the number of RU teams that were allegedly involved in paying boot money to players, did the Inland Revenue ever get involved?

(Maybe this is a question for the cross-code forum - I'll move it there if required)

Of course not

#allinittogether

[dkw]

7 hours ago, Moomintroll said:

Given the number of RU teams that were allegedly involved in paying boot money to players, did the Inland Revenue ever get involved?

(Maybe this is a question for the cross-code forum - I'll move it there if required)

Incredibly it was just basically whitewashed out of history when onion went "legit".... No investigation, no mention, just acceptance. Disgraceful really. 

[latchford albion]

It was interesting to hear Alex Murphy's views as a player considering the number of Welsh union players he signed as a coach for Warrington in the 1970s.

[Padge]

17 minutes ago, latchford albion said:

It was interesting to hear Alex Murphy's views as a player considering the number of Welsh union players he signed as a coach for Warrington in the 1970s.

Murphy has always been a self centred money grubber, great player but as greedy as they ever came.

[Gerrumonside ref]

Would hope it might inspire the BBC to do more historical stuff telling the story of rugby league - perhaps a three parter on the history of the Challenge Cup?

They’ve got the archive footage and it would be great to get interviews done now to preserve memories.

Thought people like historian Tony Collins came across very well in this documentary too.

[ckn]

19 posts deleted, don't play with the sad little folk who come here to troll the forum because they have nowhere else to go.  It was the same guy I've now banned about six times.  I just don't get it, I really don't, when I see him/her/it these days I just delete all their posts as if they never existed in the first place, probably what their mum said to them at some point to make them so bitter.

[JoneslessBishop]

Such a shame that we never built a legacy on the back of all those Welsh players. But given the social stigma of moving to League, understandable that pro clubs never took root on South Wales. Hindsight would probably tell us that Wrexham would have been the place to build a club in the 80s while we still had access to all those union players away from that stigma, and really build a League culture. The Crusaders moves there 20 years too late when professionalism had turned the tap off. If we move to two leagues of 10, then semi-pro RL in Wales will be dead and buried.

[Wolford6]

Trevor Foster played for a British Army Rugby League team that beat a British Army RU team at rugby union during or just after WW2.

 

I expect they've got pictures from the game all over the boardroom at Twickenham HQ.

[indomitable]

I did write earlier on this subject, and mentioned a booklet called "the Boys from the Bay", which of course is Tiger Bay in Cardiff. Like the diverse nationalities they formed a rugby club equal representative of the diverse nationalities. The club is still going and is called the Cardiff International Athletic Club, and the president is a certain Billy Boston, and they have produced many future star rugby league players. Billy of course, Johnny Freeman, Colin Dixon and numerous others, their second team was captained by internationally famous boxer Joe Erskine, and many other famous players should be included. Incidentally, Gus Risman was at the same school where most of the players came from, but left long before the club was formed.

The Wales RFU used every weapon in the book, and some they made up to prevent the club being affiliated to them, and they were totally against apartheid, and were heavily criticised for their part in marching against the touring South African rugby team. Apartheid came closest when in 1957 Billy Boston was in Australia with the Great Britain Rugby League team, after the tour they were to stop off in South Africa, and play three exhibition matches. Inevitably the question of a visa for a certain Mr Boston arose. He was to be allowed into the country only under certain conditions. He was to stay in a separate hotel from the rest of the party. He could not visit their hotel, and he would not be allowed to play in the games because the African teams would be made up of white players. To all intents and purposes Billy would be kept in isolation, and he refused to accept them. The Rugby League management came out of this episode in disgrace for abandoning one of their party, and leaving him on his own to travel back home.

It does show that Rugby League was always perfect in these matters.

[indomitable]

The game Wolford6 refers to was played at Bradford in 1944, and I had a programme for that game , which due to war commitments bears little resemblance to those who actually played. Ike Owens had recently left union at the time, and played for the League side in the second half, and turned a losing score at half time into a convincing victory.

[glossop saint]

Very interesting programme. Thanks for the recommendation. At the risk of getting into the realms of cross code, I never knew that union went professional within days of the 100th birthday of rugby league (if I heard and did my maths right).

The end with the Wales world cup semi final does give you a feeling of what if... If there had been maybe a more concerted effort to convince clubs to join as opposed to just players then who knows where we would be as a sport.

[Oxford]

On 3/13/2018 at 12:39 PM, Moomintroll said:

Maybe this is a question for the cross-code forum

Yeah, let's celebrate TGG heroes on a cross code forum please?