Bill & Rugby
He loved the game from an early age. I’m sure he flinched every time somebody referred to the rules of rugby. He always said rugby had no rules, only laws. He understood the laws as well as any referee because he went to the referees' meetings to make sure he understood them. That's why in the days before 'miked-up' referees and action replays he could give viewers an accurate description of what was happening. People often talk about his big sheets but very few people realise how much work went in. He sent letters to clubs and countries that he was due to cover in games with a questionnaire for every possible player to fill in topics including school achievements, famous relatives, and, well, the common or garden stuff: weight, height etc..
He also knew details about the groundsman, doctors, coaches, anyone who could possibly appear. I was disappointed when a dog invaded the pitch and he didn’t know his name. He used different coloured pens for each different type of information: fine nibbed bics (that’s another sponsorship deal he missed out on). If he had had an agent, who knows what he would have been worth. He kept his own records and bought newspapers that gave full match descriptions of games world wide so that he was solely responsible for his facts. His records were so good he used to write programme notes for international programmes. He loved the characters he met. He thought that this was what made the amateur game so special. The change to professionalism, and substitutions, took some of the gloss of it: well he had to research seven extra players on both sides!
He loved flair: Jim Renwick, Andy Irvine, Gavin Hastings, David Duckham, too many Welsh standoffs to name, lots of Irishmen because of their unpredictability, and of course David Campese. Most of his funny stories seemed to involve Irishmen and, boy, could he mimic them, although the other nationalities were not immune. He did say he could have joined ENSA if General Mark Clark had not required him personally to rid Italy of the German yoke. Anyway one of my favourite stories which he told was about Willie Anderson, the Irish internationalist. Willie turned up late for training once and the coach gave him a roasting for missing the warm up. Willie replied: 'I knew I was going to be late so I turned the heating up in the car to compensate'.
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