MOMENT IN TIME
LEICESTER vs THE BARBARIANS, 1973
Where are they now?
BACK ROW
Chalky White: Dubbed the best coach England never had, was a teacher and died in January 2005.
Harry Sibson: The team secretary was a stone-mason and died in January 2010.
John Duggan: Winger, a school teacher and The Tigers head strength and conditioning coach, later becoming Disability PE & School Sport Manager for Leicester City Council.
Bob Watson: Lock has been the managing director of Roshal Space consultants for the last three decades.
Garry Adey: England No.8 is the Executive Chairman of The Adey Group, the family steel fabrication and steel stockholding business and has been a Tigers director.
Mike Mortimer: Prop moved to Leicester to take up a teaching post but left to be a salesman with Rank Xerox and died in October 2019.
Dave Forfar: England B back row was a salesman before becoming a partner in an engineering company and machine higher business. He died in July 2020.
Mike Marshall: Flanker was a travel agent who lives in Melton Mowbray, founding alpine holiday firm Simply Morzine and is now retired.
John Allen: Scrum-half. A chartered accountant serving the club as treasurer, secretary and director. He died in December 2022.
Tom Barry: The former flanker served the club as president, a farmer who died in July 1993.
Jerry Day: The Honorary Secretary from 1966 until 1982 and introduced youth teams at Welford Road. He died in May 2012.
MIDDLE ROW
Ray Needham: A prop who later coached the youth teams at Welford Road and worked as a teacher who specialised in maths and PE.
Bleddyn Jones: Fly-half worked as a teacher and was headmaster at Little Bowden. He was the voice of Leicester Tigers on BBC Radio Leicester before his death in April 2021.
Robin Money: Full-back who moved to Leicester from Scotland for a teaching job before going to work for Adidas UK for four decades, where he became a marketing manager.
Peter Wheeler: England and Lions hooker worked as an Insurance broker, then became chief executive in 1996 until 2010, when he was named Rugby Director until retiring.
Bob Barker: Centre scored a hat-trick in the 1971 game with the Barbarians, a PE and geography teacher who was then head of a special needs school.
Bob Rowell: England lock a teacher at Fosse School before going into business running R ERowell Transport.
Tim Ringer: Centre brother of Paul helped Staffordshire win the County Championship in 1970 and was working as a school teacher.
FLOOR
Paul Ringer: Back row played for Wales at both league and union, has been employed in a property business. His son Joel had a spell with Toulon.
Brian Hall: Centre who captained the Tigers as a production manager at BSS, then a sales manager, and then managing director with Velan engineering.
NOT PICTURED
Alan Old: England and Lions centre, the brother of England cricketer, Chris was another school teacher who became principal of a sixth form college in Redcar.
Eric Bann: A lock who had the distinction of playing for the Tigers and Leicester City, is a partner in EB Ecology from his base in Northern Ireland.
Jerry Day’s devotion to Leicester Tigers knew no bounds, especially when it came to ensuring that their biggest game of the season against the Barbarians went ahead no matter the conditions.
Day played for Leicester for eight years following World War Two, went on to serve the club as secretary from 1966 until 1982 and, in 1971, started the youth team that has served them so well.
And, after he died in May 2012, the lengths that he went to to make sure potential poor weather over Christmas didn’t stop the biggest money-spinner of the season emerged, as former Tigers No.8 Garry Adey recalls.
“The Baa-Baa’s match had to be played from a financial point of view. It transformed the club’s finances for the season. I think the Baa-Baas got paid something.
“We needed it to be played in the best possible condition. Dave Matthews, who played more times for the club than anyone, was a farmer and supplied the straw for that game.
“Jerry’s daughter remembered a lawn at home having little experimental patches where he would try things to see if they were more practical than straw. He would put down different materials to see what worked. That was Jerry. He wanted to come up with schemes to protect the Barbarians game. We never knew anything about this until it was mentioned at the funeral,” said Adey.
The first Christmas fixture with the Barbarians came in 1909 with a 9-9 draw and continued until 1996, only interrupted by two World Wars and a handful of postponements.
The festive fixture list, until the mid-Sixties, was arranged so Leicester would play Birkenhead Park and then the Barbarians on the day after Boxing Day, and the crowds flocked to Welford Road.
Former Tigers winger John Duggan who scored a try in the 16-7 defeat on the December 27 clash in 1973, remembers the lengths some fans would go to get a view of the action.
“In the days when it was normally a few men and their dogs or maybe a thousand or two thousand if you were lucky, for the Barbarians it was a full ground of 16,000 or 17,000.
“Everywhere was crammed. We even had some who climbed up the posts and sat on the crossbar. The game was played at a time when people had an extended holiday period.
“Anywhere you went, in pubs or around town. It was, ‘have you got your tickets for the Baa-Baas game, or do you know where I can get some tickets at the last minute?’ Usually, it was sold out.
“If you had tickets, it was a bonus because they were at a premium. The atmosphere was just fantastic. Everyone would be there in their Christmas finery.
“Year in and year out, the Barbarians’ game was the highlight of the season and the highlight of lots of family Christmases around Leicester.
“And if you played, you would have a normal Christmas Day, but you tried not to get slaughtered knowing you had the game on the day after Boxing Day,” said Duggan.
Duggan might have moderated his alcohol intake pre-match but points out that he made the papers for accepting a warming drink during one particularly cold Barbarians game.
He added: “There were hip flasks galore and coffees with various additions. I didn’t realise this until later.
“Because I was playing on the wing, you got very close to the crowd and it was a game at that time of year that could be bitterly cold. So I was out on the wing, having had little service, trying to keep warm, jogging on the spot all of the usual things, arm movements.
“Someone in the crowd said that I looked like I could do with something to warm myself up, so he offered me his hip flask. I went to the side and had a swig. But it was the side of the press box.
“And the day afterwards, it appeared in all the papers! You certainly had a good night after the game. Win or lose, the Barbarians’ reception was always a very generous affair. But very festive and celebratory.”
John Spencer pulled the strings for the Barbarians in their 1973 victory, which ended a run of two successive wins for Leicester in the fixture, and he points out it was often his second game in as many days.
“In those days, we used to have our local derbies on Boxing Day. Headingley used to play Roundhay. It was a pretty full programme. After the Boxing Day fixture, it was Barbarians the following day,” recalls Spencer.
“And would you believe it, Headingley played Leicester on the Saturday between Christmas and New Year. But it didn’t matter because we were all young lads and couldn’t get enough rugby then.
“You didn’t worry too much about Christmas when there was a representative rugby game in the offing. You just go and do it. It was also a chance to meet up with your mates and have a beer or two afterwards.”
The home side failed to ground the ball over the line three times before Duggan scored their try in reply to Barbarians’ tries from Dick Milliken and debutants JJ Williams and Bobby Windsor.
Spencer’s performance at Welford Road in front of coach John Elders and chairman of selectors Sandy Sanders led to speculation that he would be brought in from the cold. He hadn’t played for the Red Rose since captaining their centenary season in 1971, and he wouldn’t get another chance to add to his 14 caps.
“I won my last cap when I was 23,” Spencer said. “I thought that I would get back in. I did tour South Africa but wasn’t picked for a Test match. The Barbarians was right up my street. I loved the fast-flowing rugby.
“I played some of my best rugby when I wasn’t in the England side, and they wouldn’t pick me. I might have got a good mention in the match report, but I didn’t get back in the England side.
“I wasn’t even picked for the trial. They never told me why. I had a bit of an argument at a party in the Hilton after we lost to Scotland at Twickenham in 1971 with a former England player Martin Turner.
“Sandy Sanders assured me everything would be all right, but Martin was on the RFU the following season, and I never got picked again, but all of the selectors were from Northampton and never saw me play.”
WHAT BECAME OF baa-baas PLAYERS
Andy Irvine: Scotland and Lions full-back, a chartered surveyor who became chairman of Jones Lang LaSalle until his retirement in 2020 after 42 years.
Drew Gill: Scotland winger was a non-travelling reserve for the British Lions and turned down the chance of turning professional with Wigan, worked as a manager for a wholesale newsagent.
John Spencer: England centre was a solicitor and senior partner of Spencer Davies in his native Grassington, is the current Barbarians president and has been the manager of a Lions tour.
Dick Milliken: Ireland centre, a chartered accountant, working in investment banking, was group financial director of pharmaceutical solutions firm Almac. He has held board positions in various companies.
JJ Williams: Wales and Lions winger schoolmaster who later became the director of a commercial and industrial painting company. He died in October 2020 after a battle with cancer.
Ian McGeechan: Scotland fly-half, a schoolmaster who taught PE and geography, became a Lions coaching legend and also coached Scotland to a Grand Slam. He was knighted in 2010.
Dougie Morgan: Scotland scrum-half worked as a chiropodist and coached his country for two years. He died in April 2020. His grandson Charlie Shiel is a Scotland sevens cap.
Piggy Powell: England loosehead prop who toured with the Lions, worked as a Northamptonshire farmer, and then served as head groundsman at Franklins Gardens until he retired in 2015.
Bobby Windsor: Wales and Lions hooker nicknamed The Duke, a member of the legendary Pontypool front row, was a steelworker at Whitehead Iron and Steel Works in Newport. He moved to Majorca in retirement.
Mike Burton: England and Lions prop, his country’s first player sent off, was the managing director of a property company and oil company sales rep before starting a sports travel and hospitality business.
Allan Martin: Wales lock who started his working life as a PE teacher, became a financial company rep before starting a firm that supplied Sportswear and Leisurewear and founded Lions Legends Rugby.
Chris Ralston: England and Lions lock an adverting executive who set up the Ralston Holding Company Ltd, which is the publisher of in-flight travel magazines.
John Watkins: An England blindside flanker, worked as a toolroom engineer, then sold insurance before returning to work in an aluminum factory. He became a referee after retiring from playing.
Andy Ripley: England back row was a chartered accountant and worked in banking but is best known for competing in the TV series Superstars. He died in June 2010 after a battle with prostate cancer.
Hefin Jenkins: Llanelli and Wales B back row part of the side that beat the All Blacks. The only non-capped player in the side was a surveyor who became a successful businessman and died in January 2014.
