walked for that. The first line-out was just as bad. Mike Burton, never short of a quick riposte, said something to one of the Aussie forwards who was then heard saying ‘Burton’s got the biff on’ to his team-mates who immediately piled into us. About four of them waded into me and I ended up needing stitches. My boys watched the incident on a Brian Moore video nasty that we somehow acquired recently and they thought it was absolutely hilarious that Dad had been unable to fight his way out of the situation. It was quite a long hike down the corridor to the dressing rooms at Ballymore and, as I was having the stitches inserted, I could hear studs clomping towards us. The next minute Burton walked in and slumped on to a bench, and when I asked what was wrong with him he told me he’d been sent off.
Nowadays a replacement prop would have been sent on as cover, with a flanker having to drop out to make way for him. Things were different then and sides had to cope as best they could. I should have stayed off but I thought bollocks to that, I’m going back on. I didn’t want to be replaced in the first international I had actually been selected to start in. As a result I raced back to the pitch and joined John Pullin and Barry Nelmes in the front row. I was well fired up, but I had played at prop previously, albeit at nothing even approaching that level, and coped all right, losing only one put-in against the head all afternoon. One scrum did collapse and I reckon my opposite number, Ron Graham, who is now an Australian rugby administrator and a good guy, could have killed me had he been so inclined. That he didn’t seemed rather odd, considering all that had gone on before!
I discovered later that Burton had delivered a late, late tackle on Doug Osborne, the Aussie wing and after the earlier fracas there was only one way he was going … and that was off. Mike took it badly, feeling he had let everyone down. I felt particularly for John Burgess because, through no fault of his own, everything was going wrong. Perhaps with a more experienced side things wouldn’t have got quite so out of hand but the Aussies did have something of a reputation at that time and they had one or two players who just appeared to go looking for trouble. Sledging, as favoured by their cricketers, is one thing but unprovoked violence is a different matter and it is a wonder that nobody received a serious injury.
Steve Finnane had already shown his colours but their flanker Ray Price and hooker Peter Horton could also put it about to some tune. What I couldn’t understand was that Horton was actually English and a teacher to boot. He was into Pom-bashing big-style and I only hope his language was rather better in the classroom. Price was a very talented player and turned up in England to play rugby league at Wigan. I met him at Central Park one day and with tongue in cheek said, ‘I remember you Bill. You cut easily.’
It had been a disastrous tour and, even though I had collected my third England cap, I still hadn’t played on a winning side. Although I had made my debut the previous season England had only managed to win one Five Nations game – by a solitary point – and worse was to come. John Burgess resigned as national coach and, in the following season, England suffered a whitewash. A time of gloom and doom for English rugby but it wasn’t all bad news for me because I met my wife Hilary.
Just before the start of the following season I was invited by a friend of mine to a girl’s twenty-first birthday party but I declined, saying that it didn’t seem right to attend when I didn’t even know who she was. The following day I did attend a pre-season barbecue in St Annes that had been organised by one of the lads at Fylde, and ended up chatting to the attractive young lady whose party I had decided I couldn’t possibly have attended the previous evening. Had I known it had been Hilary’s birthday party I’m pretty sure I would have been first on the doorstep. We got along fine but it wasn’t long before I was ensconced in a corner chatting about rugby with the lads and I didn’t notice her again. Not that I was seeing too well by the end of the evening because one of the lads had been messing around with a golf club and a ball hit me in the eye. That forced me to withdraw from the club’s two opening games against Coventry and Cheltenham, so I was not exactly a happy bunny. The first game I was able to play was a home fixture against Gloucester, a side packed with quality players and captained by Mike Burton. John Watkins, John Fidler, Peter Kingston, Peter Butler and John Bayliss were also in the line-up but I was determined to do well because I had trained hard during what had been left of the summer and wanted to get my season off to a good start. Fylde would usually settle for any sort of victory against a side of Gloucester’s quality but we really got the bit between our teeth and beat them 31–3. I remember that we scored a try in the last minute of the game and then caught the restart and ran it back at them to score again. It was that sort of day and was about to get better.
In the bar afterwards I bumped into Hilary who had gone to the game with her sister and brother-in-law. She didn’t know anything about rugby but her brother-in-law was quite keen and when I ran on to the field at the start of the game she was able to say that at least she knew the big guy with the number four on his back. Apparently he was quite impressed that she’d been chatting to an international rugby player but she couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. Anyway, she told me later that she hadn’t been too impressed by my performance that afternoon because I hadn’t been running around doing spectacular things with the ball. It took me some time to teach her that forwards have a very different but equally important role and that beating Gloucester 31–3 was not something you did every day.
My initial impression of Hilary was enhanced at our second meeting and I asked her out on a date. Unfortunately, I had forgotten the Lancashire trials so I had to hastily reschedule and, as it was, our first date coincided with Lancashire playing Cumberland and Westmorland in a warm-up game, fortunately at Fylde’s ground – a game in which the father of Sale Sharks wing Mark Cueto was playing for the opposition. I wore my England blazer to impress and took her for a drink at the Grapes pub in nearby Wrea Green, not realising that we would one day be married and living just around the corner.
That was the start of a fine, if at times complicated, romance bearing in mind that rugby was tending to dominate my life and Hilary was a student in Manchester, preparing to become a French teacher. She shared a house with two other students and that’s where we did most of our courting. Although it was often a case of snatching a few hours together between work, training and Hilary’s studies we got engaged the following February. Fortunately, Hilary grew to love the game, which was just as well considering that, with three rugby-daft sons, it does rather dominate our lives. Instead of watching me play she now watches the boys and the only difference is that these days she has three times as many sets of dirty kit to wash and iron!
Throughout the ups and downs of my career, both in rugby and in business, Hilary has been my greatest supporter, confidante and friend – in short, the love of my life – and without her I would never have achieved half the things I have achieved. We are both basically shy people who enjoy nothing more than spending a quiet time with our family and, in a way, we had to force ourselves to do things that were being demanded of me because of the high profile I had acquired. I’m fortunate that she was always there to encourage me. If she hadn’t been, there is a lot that would have been left undone. During the early years of our marriage she had to endure long separations that would have put a strain on many marriages but she coped with those well and has proved a wonderful mother to our children. She has held the ship steady during my absences and even now is involved in the business, becoming a director a few years ago. Since moving into household and upholstery fabrics, the feminine touch has been much appreciated and there is no problem when it comes to decision making because that is something we have always done together.
For my sins, I became a Lloyds Underwriter in the 1980s and, like a lot of people from the world of sport, I lost a lot of money in that venture, but with Hilary’s help I worked my way through it. We were fortunate having the family business to fall back on.
Our engagement coincided with England having an even more disastrous time in the Five Nations Championship and I’m just grateful that Hilary and I were better at selecting our partners than the England selectors were at picking a side that might actually win something. With John Burgess gone from the scene, England elevated their Under-23 coach Peter Colston into the hot seat and it really was a baptism of fire. Peter’s one saving grace was that we did manage to beat Australia, even if we lost everything else.
At least I was picked to play for England in what was effectively