Peter Jackson: Davies still pitches in to help his village club

John Davies put his neck into more than a thousand scrums over the course of 17 seasons and survived with nothing worse than the odd scratch. From his debut for Neath in 1990 through to his last match for Llanelli in 2007 with two years at Richmond in between, the Wales tighthead completed his senior career without once requiring hospital treatment.
How ironic, therefore, that within weeks of retiring, a farmyard accident should destroy his record.
In a freakish mishap, Davies put a pitchfork clean through his right foot, a nightmarish experience which he survived with his dry sense of humour intact, unlike his footwear.
“A bad day all round,” he says, deadpan. “I lost a new pair of Wellington boots and a good fork…”
He might have lost the last five seasons and never been seen on a rugby field again. Instead he is still playing, week in, week out in the Second Division of the Welsh League, strictly for the fun of it at the age of 43.  The idea was not exactly uppermost in his mind the day he impaled his foot on the fork.
“I phoned my brother and he came round and cut the fork except for the bit that was sticking into me,” he says. “I went to hospital with one of the prongs stuck in my foot and yes it was painful. They took it out and sewed me up.
“I’d played all those years and never needed to go anywhere near a hospital.    There I was, in for four days before they let me out.  That was at the start of July so it meant I missed the entire pre-season training.”
By rights, that ought to have ensured that the newly-retired Davies stayed retired.  Eager to put something back into the grass-roots game, he had intended to go back where he started, to Crymych, the little village club in the foothills of the Preseli Mountains in Pembrokeshire.
Surprisingly, the grand plan to reunite the beef farmer with the local team then in the Third Division (West) of the Welsh League had not been spiked after all.
“I went to train towards the end of August and they picked me for the first game,” he says.  “Then we went on an unbeaten run and won the League with 22 wins out of 22.  To get promoted without losing was one of the biggest achievements I’ve been associated with.”
Four years later, Davies is still there, still teaching the young guns the tricks of the trade. Crymych have appointed him captain and he plays these days strictly for the love of the game, free, gratis and for nothing.
“We’ve got where we are without any of the players being paid and I think that’s the way it ought to be,” he says. “We get four beer tokens if we win and none if we lose which means we buy our own beer.  Even if I was offered any money, I would not accept it.
“I’d like to think that would be a blueprint for other clubs.  Crymych is a very well-run club and the facilities are second to none.  Being picked as captain is a great honour.  Maybe it’s because I’m dull or maybe it’s because I’m lucky.  We’ll find out later in the season…”
When Wales capped Davies 21 years ago against Ireland at Cardiff Arms Park, it must have seemed more like Neath and The Rest.  Five other Neath players appeared that day – Paul Thorburn, Scott Gibbs, Chris Bridges, Kevin Phillips, Glyn Llewellyn and Martyn Morris.
Davies’ two lows came either side of the 1995 World Cup. Against England at the Arms Park the year before he had the gross misfortune to be the first player to be given a red during an international, for allegedly kicking the English Lion, Ben Clarke. Farmer John has always protested his innocence but, in retrospect, takes a philosophical view.
“I suppose I’ve done worse and got away with it,” he says. “I’ve been wound up by the boys and everyone else over the years, from the postman, to the farmyard dog and cat.
“I didn’t deserve a red card that day but it’s a fact that I was the first to be given one in an international.  And, ironically, Ben Clarke was the first to be given a yellow.”
The other low came the year after the World Cup in South Africa when a desperately depleted Wales returned there for a one-off Test and conceded 96 points.
“I never played for Wales again,” Davies says. “I probably played well enough to have justified a few more caps during my time with the Scarlets.”
Wales may have put him out to pasture a little prematurely but for John Davies there is still no end in sight to his marathon stint, just as long as he takes extra care where he puts the pitchfork…