Jackson column: James Whitcombe keeping the great prop dynasty alive

The cradle of rugby‘s oldest bespoke manufacturing business can be found across the river from the Principality Stadium on the far side of the Taff Embankment in Wedmore Road.

Frank Whitcombe lived there through the Great Depression until he took the Rugby League shilling and hitched his wagon to Broughton Rangers in Manchester on September 18, 1935. The family’s Front Row dynasty will therefore be 85 years old next month and far from finished.

A prize-fighter’s son from Cardiff’s proud inner-city Grangetown district, the founding father would be tickled pink to see his great-grandson is maintaining the tradition at Leicester Tigers, where England props have been rolling off the conveyer belt since before the dawn of professionalism.

James Whitcombe is hoping that maybe one day he will emulate those who have propped in the national cause at all but one of the last six World Cups – Graham Rowntree, Darren Garforth, Julian White, Dan Cole. If the teenaged Whitcombe fails, it won’t be for any lack of stature, not at almost 19 stone and 6ft 3in.

He has a pedigree in the propping department which money can’t buy, a generational success story dating back to when Franklin Roosevelt was in the White House and the Prince of Wales was courting abdication by dating an American divorcee.

James’ father, Martin, played for England B, Yorkshire, Leicester, Sale, Bedford and Leeds Tykes, as they were then, his career stretching from the early Eighties to the late Nineties.

Martin’s father, Frank junior, broke all Yorkshire records by making the county team at the age of 17 as a prop-er chip off the old block.

He played for Bradford and, famously, for North Eastern Counties against Wilson Whineray’s All Blacks at Harrogate in January 1964.

Frank’s father, Frank senior, alias ‘The Big Man’, set the ball rolling before the war, switching codes for £100, nine-tenths of which went on buying himself out of the army.

He lived up to his name as one of the Indomitables, the victorious Great Britain RL team in Australia in 1946 named after the aircraft carrier which took them there.

An exchange trip between Leicester and Sydney University gave the youngest Whitcombe the chance to make a pilgrimage last year to the scene of his great-grandfather’s most famous try, at the Sydney Cricket Ground against the Kangaroos at the start of the four-Test series.

“James left school on the Friday and on the following Monday he went off to play for Sydney University in U20 competition,” says Martin Whitcombe. “He knows the family history and was lucky enough to spend a day at the SCG with the Sydney Roosters.”

The teenager has propped for England on either side of the scrum at all age levels – Under 16, 18, 19, 20. He spent last season in the fourth tier of the pyramid on loan to Leicester Lions just as Martin Johnson did 30 years ago.

In the course of learning his trade against clubs like Redruth, Henley Hawks, Esher and Dings Crusaders, the youngest Whitcombe was voted the Lions’ Player of the Year. He has since been promoted to Leicester’s development squad.

“The game today is unrecognisable from the one I played,” says his father. “It’s a case of going through the meat grinder. You’ve got to want to do it and there’s never been any doubting James in that respect. He’s got his head down, working hard to do the best job he can for the Tigers.”

And so the longest-established production line keeps rejuvenating itself, none the worse for an incident which might have caused it to collapse in a heap before old Frank had time to get it off the ground.

To augment his £3 a week from Broughton Rangers, the club arranged part-time employment for their Welsh recruit at Belle Vue Zoo. The Big Man’s role as a zoo keeper included ensuring that the herd of zebras were kept under lock and key.

“One lunchtime Frank – ever the joker and never one to turn down a pint or five – and his team-mates retired to a local public house,” grandson Martin wrote in his book Indomitables. 

“On returning to work at the zoo, they decided to set the collection of zebras free…”

No sooner had the zoo rescued the zebras and locked them up than they locked Whitcombe out.

He drove a lorry instead, played in three successive Challenge Cup finals for Bradford Northern in the late Forties and was running the club as chairman when he died from pneumonia at the age of 44.

The dynasty has lasted for so long that the youngest Whitcombe, born in Keighley, has run out of time for the land of his great-grandfather. Ancestral eligibility rules go back two generations, not three. 

PETER JACKSON