Golden oldies who had speed to burn
Rob Cole looks back at rugby players like Ken Jones and Jack Gregory who enjoyed success at the Olympic Games…
It’s a question that is often debated: who is the fastest man to play international rugby union?
Some say Jonah Lomu, others back Louis Rees-Zammit or his former Gloucester colleague Jonny May. The French had Patrice Lagisquet and Sebastien Carrat speeding down their wings, while the American Eagles boasted Takudzwa Ngwenya.
Doug Howlett and Joe Rokocoko were like quicksilver for the All Blacks and Springboks World Cup winner Bryan Habana was alleged to have outrun a cheetah in a race. They all had pace to burn.
Impressive stuff, but what about the players of old who are never mentioned in the same breath as the modern day speedsters despite having all the credentials, without the modern day benefits.
With the Olympic Games soon to start in Paris it is a timely reminder to those who think speed is a modern, professional era phenomenon that there are many players from bygone days who could have kept up with the modernday superstars.
If you go back 76 years to the 1948 Games in London you’ll find four rugby players representing Great Britain in the sprints. Two of them, legendary Wales wing Ken Jones and England flyer Jack Gregory, won silver medals in the British 4 x 100 metre relay squad, with a third, the former Notts, Lincs & Derby wing Jack Archer, as a reserve.
Both Jones and Gregory were presented with gold medals after the final track event at Wembley Stadium on Friday, August 7. The Americans won the race but were then disqualified for a faulty change over.
That meant the British quartet were bumped up to the gold medal position and went out into the middle of the arena to be presented with the top prize on top of the medal rostrum. They also heard ‘God Save the King’ played for them.
Over the next three days the film of the change was reviewed, the Americans were reinstated and no sooner had they been given their gold medals the British team were forced to hand them back. Their silver medals arrived a few weeks later having been prised out of the hands of the reluctant Italians.
Jones’ Welsh records on the track stood at 9.8 sec over 100 yards and a hand-timed 10.6 sec at 100 metres. The latter came at Wembley at the 1948 Games, when he reached the semi-finals of the individual 100 metres.
His vest from those Games is being put up for auction by his family this week, along with the Empire and Commonwealth Games vest in which he won a 220 yards bronze for Wales in Vancouver in 1954 and the British vest in which he struck silver again in the 4 x 100 relay in Bern at the European Championships.
While he achieved all of this during his summer months, including winning 15 Welsh sprint titles over 100 and 220 yards, his winters were filled with winning a record 44 caps and scoring 17 tries. In 1950 he ran in four tries in a Grand Slam campaign before going on to score 16 tries in 17 appearances for the British & Irish Lions in New Zealand and Australia a few months later.
Gregory matched Jones’ fastest time over 100 yards of 9.8 sec, was third in the 1947 AAA 100 yards and went on to compete in the Helsinki Olympic Games in 1952 when the British relay quartet finished fourth.
He won the Irish 100 yards title in 1947 and won his only England cap against Wales and his fellow Olympic silver medallist Jones in 1949.
He became the All-Ireland 100 and 220 yards champion from 1947 to 1949 while working in Dublin for Imperial Tobacco before returning to play rugby for Clifton, Blackheath, Bristol and Gloucestershire. His chances of winning an England cap seemed destined never to become true when he was banned for life for playing one game of rugby league in 1945 while in the Army.
The Army took the fight to get it reduced and the RFU eventually relented, banning him for three years only. They then picked him to play against Wales at Twickenham in 1949.
Archer never reached the international stage in rugby, but did have the honour of becoming the European champion in 1946 over 100 metres in a time of 10.6 sec. He brought home the baton for the relay team that won the silver medal at Wembley.
It was remarkable that he was able to do that because he spent 18 months getting back to full fitness after badly breaking his leg a few months after being crowned the fastest man in Europe while playing for Notts, Lincs & Derby in the County Championship.
After the Olympic Games he went to Loughborough College as a mature student to train as a PE teacher. He scored a try in his first game in two years for the 2nd XV, but continued to concentrate on athletics.
He reached the semi-finals of both the 100 and 220 yards at the 1950 Empire & Commonwealth Games in Auckland in 1950 before helping England to a silver medal in the sprint relay. His Nottinghamshire county record over 100 metres of 10.6 sec lasted for 50 years.
A Cambridge rugby player in the war time series in 1944-45 and then a full Blue at Twickenham in 1945, John Fairgrieve was among the two reserves for the sprint relay team, but did run in the 200 metres. He had won a silver medal at the World Student Games over 100 metres the year before and won a silver medal at the 1947 AAA Championship.
He had rugby trials for both England and Scotland and clocked best times of 10.8 sec over 100 metres and 21.6 sec at 200.
Two other great sprinters-cum-rugby players preceded the ‘Class of 48’. The ‘Flying Scotsman’ Eric Liddell, he of ‘Chariots of Fire’ fame, won the 400 metres in a world record time of 47.6 sec. It wasn’t even his best event.
He had been due to run in the 100 metres, but that was scheduled on a Sunday. As a very religious person he refused to run on the ‘Sabbath’.
He had entered the Scottish Championships as a 19-year-old in 1921 and notched the first of his five successive victories over 100 yards and the 220 yards. He also won the 440 yards in 1924 and 1925. He was AAA Champion at 100 yards and 200 yards in 1923 and the 440 yards in 1924. His time of 9.7 sec for 100 yards in 1923 stood as a British record for 35 years.
Add in four tries in seven international rugby outings for Scotland and you can see what a remarkable sportsman he was. It was the same for Cyril Holmes.
He went to the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin before completing the sprint double at the World Student Games the following year. He also won the AAA 100 yards title in 1937.
In 1938, he picked up three medals at the Empire Games, winning the 100 and 220 yards titles in Sydney and helped England win silver in the sprint relay. He won the AAA 220 yards crown in 1939 1939 and finished his athletics career in 1945 with best times of 9.7 sec (100 yards), 10.5 sec (100 metres) and 21.2 sec over 220 yards.
He then won the first of his three England rugby caps at the age of 32, marking the occasion with a try in the 24-3 Calcutta Cup win over Scotland at Twickenham.
Keeping up with the New Zealand sprint champion Tony Steel in the late Sixties was a tough call – he won the national 100 and 220 yards titles in 1965 and 1966 before touring the UK and France with the 1967 All Blacks – and had a fastest time of 9.6 sec 100 yards.
More recently, current WRU director of rugby Nigel Walker reached the semi-final of the 110 hurdles at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 and was a Commonwealth Games finalist in 1986. His fastest legal time over 100 metres was 10.47 sec.
So, whenever you hear how many metres per second a rugby player is covering or how quick he is running in training, just remember that there were those who went before him who were probably just as fast in their own era.
