As a prairie kid I had never heard of English rugby until I moved to Victoria from Alberta in the fall of 1944 and attended Mount View High School at age 13 in grade eight. Initially there wasn’t any rugby at the school but when I was in grade eleven a team was formed and entered into the recently formed Senior B league, competing with other B teams at surrounding high schools. The senior A league really had just Oak Bay High and Victoria High who played each other and some mainland teams.
Initially no one at Mt.View had the faintest idea of rules, tactics or team play. None of the teachers had played rugby but one of them was assigned to sponsor the team and “coach” it. Fortunately, a parent from England volunteered to help and gradually we learned the fundamentals. We just had one old leather ball which when it got wet, was like kicking a rock.The heterogenous group of guys were a mix of tall and short, fat and scrawny. The crowd thinned considerably when scrum and tackling practice began and suddenly there could be pain and playing in the rain on muddy fields which was not for them. I think some moms interfered and extracted their little darlings from the melee. When son Craig was a little boy years later he asked me one time what I did in rugby and I told him I ran around the field falling on people.
I was a big kid by grade eleven - over six feet and two hundred pounds. I wasn’t very fast and rather clumsy. I was attracted by the toughness and competitiveness of the game. I was so much bigger than a lot of the kids that they stuck me at the back of the scrum as eighth man and third man in the line out. The initial few practice games against similarly inept teams versed on slapstick. Gradually we got the hang of it and actually developed simple tactics. We also began to win some games which gave us confidence.
In grade twelve we hit our stride. I was elected captain and took my position seriously. Our play improved steadily and we ended up winning the Senior B Cup. We had gold patches to sew on our sweaters which announced to the world that we were winners. The highlight of the final game was when Leo the “Monk” had his shorts torn off in a tackle but ran for a try in his jock strap to the cheers of the spectators, especially the girls! He touched the ball down and kept on going. The only time my mother a failing father ever came to a game they left after ten minutes. They didn’t want to watch their little boy get hurt.
The senior A league finished with Oak Bay high winning the cup. I was on the track team (shot and discus) and knew quite a few of the Oak Bay guys. As a lark I challenged them to an exhibition game. After considerable sneering and comments they finally agreed. We played them on their home pitch with real cheerleaders. We beat them 8-3. They were stunned and a list of excuses emerged. We canvassed to be allowed to advance to the senior A league next season but I don’t think it ever happened.
We were approached by the Fifth Regiment, a military unit centred in the Bay Street armouries who wanted to sponsor a rugby team in their name. Before the war they, the Canadian Scottish Regiment ,and the personnel at the Esquimalt Naval Base all played against each other regularly and had a keen rivalry. They wanted to restart this rivalry and wanted our high school team to form the nucleus for a new team representing them. They supplied jerseys and shorts but we had to buy our own boots. About then, the Australian Wallabies played an exhibition game at Macdonald Park against the Victoria Crimson Tide. We were in awe at their skills. They won 48-0 and didn’t work up a sweat. They were on their way to Britain for their first tour after the war.
This Fifth Regiment team was a joke. We were kids playing men. I think that we only won one game and that was against the Navy. It was a Sunday morning and the sailors were all very hung over from their Saturday night. We had a great time - you couldn’t take it seriously. Harry an older Brit who was a fighter pilot during the war joined us. He had a large repertoire of jokes and rugby songs. For example, sometimes his voice would emerge from a pile-up complaining that someone was clutching his manhood. We were often convulsed with laughter at his antics.
In September of 1950, I started Victoria College with poor motivation but at the urging of some of the guys from the Oak Bay and Vic High teams who planned a great college rugby team. This appealed to me. Away I went for two years where I majored in rugby, beer and socializing. I even went to the occasional lecture! And yes we did have a good team, winning the cup. To my astonishment I was invited to try out for the Victoria Crimson Tide the city senior rep team. Campbell Forbes was coach and chair of the selection committee. Low and behold, here I was a lock in a red jersey playing home and home games against Vancouver, North Shore , Burnaby. We had some good games but didn’t prevail. I scored my first rep try against North Shore - a winner in a push-over scramble. My picture was in the paper much to my mothers delight.
I got to know a lot of fellows and had a good time. I was surprised at the greater pace and harder tackling. I came to know two British arrivals, Derek Hyde Lay and Dave McKenzie - a member of the British Olympic relay team. Both were skilful backs. Dave, with his speed, played on the wing. Derek later joined the staff at Shawnigan Lake School and coached rugby there. Dave became headmaster at Brentwood College. He was a pilot and I heard that he actually gave flying lessons.
In the fall of 1951 I returned from climbing mountains in Northern BC with the Provincial Survey Party. I was down 40 pounds to about 180 and very fit. I moved to my sister Jean’s basement in Vancouver and with credits from Vic College, registered in the sciences. Frank Gower, an older guy who also played on the Tide, moved over at the same time. He became a close friend and eventually best man at my wedding. We turned out for the UBC Thunderbirds rugby under Albert Laithwaite, a short Lancashire man who had played county rugby in England. He was aware of the three or four guys from the Tide coming to UBC that fall and we were welcomed. Gerry Main, first five- eighths, Bob Hutchinson and John Newton - both wingers - and Frank and I. We all became first team members immediately. I remember the first week Albert had the whole team run to the University gates and back. A lot of the guys had been lounging around on the beach all summer. Me with my the mountain climbing fitness took off like a scalded rabbit and arrived back to Albert at the stadium close behind one of the wingers. Both Albert and I were impressed.The question was where to play me. I hoped it would be break, but I had not played there before and competition was keen. I was put in as a second row lock.
My first match with UBC was an exhibition game against the Vancouver Rowing Club, a good opponent with a number of very good British ex-patriots. A recent arrival was Graham Budge, a powerful ex-colonel with the Black Watch and a choice for the Scottish national team. I understand he never obtained a cap because of the suspension of play during the war. Buzz Moore got him a job with Hydro assisting the linemen. Later he became a successful real estate agent on Bowen Island.
The game was played at Brockton Oval in mid September. I don’t remember the score but I think that we won. However, I do remember encountering Graham. One time I had the ball in the loose and he picked me up and shook me like a rat, extricated the ball and dumped me like a sack on the turf. I was impressed, as no one had ever done that to me before.
The Vancouver league games began in later September and were played each weekend, usually on Saturday. I think that there were five or six teams including the Rowing Club, Meralomas, Burnaby, North Shore - maybe others but I don’t recall. The Provincial cup competition, for the McKechnie Cup was played later and included the Victoria Crimson Tide, my previous club. Our UBC Thunderbirds club had a tradition going back well before the Second World War as did most of the other clubs. Competition was vigorous and we had some very good matches. The games were at 2 pm and I remember having a chemistry lab on Saturday one term which often extended into the early afternoon. If the game was in North Van or Burnaby I would be rushed there by car, changing into my strip on route.
Our team came together with a lot of very good players. Front row scrum was Bill Bice, a 230 pounder in law who worked as a bouncer in dad’s hotel in Alert Bay in the summers. He sometimes came back to school with his nose rearranged. Good training for the front row. Bill Mulholland, our hooker, was a scrappy and vocal recently arrived Scot in forestry, and Ralph Martinson, a match for Bill. Locks were me and Derek Vallis, a tall raw boned English guy all sharp elbows. Eighth man and breaks rotated between Ray Cocking, another tough lawyer, Peter Grantham - later a med school classmate - Hugh Greenwood, Jim McNichol, Jim McWilliams, Bob Morford, and Gerard Kirby - an older guy who had been a commando in the war. Others filled in from time to time. Our scrum half was Danny Oliver, another lawyer. Gerry Main, Stan Clark, Bob Hutchison, later a judge, and wingers George Puil and John Newton were usually the three line. Full backs were Bill Whyte, Stu Clyne or Dave McFarlane. There are others that will be apparent in the team picture. In my second year on the team we won all three cups including the Miller, the McKechnie and the Little World Cup. The latter was a home and home series against the University of California Berkley and Stanford.
The California series was kind of the high light of the spring season. The rivalry was high and fostered partly because Albert and the Cal coach hated each other. I think he was Australian. We travelled over night by train to Berkeley and billeted in fraternity houses, an experience in itself. The American guys were friendly enough and we saw the sights of San Francisco including my first and only strip show. I went to the Zoo , Fisherman’s Wharf and the Marine Park which I enjoyed more.
We played Cal in their huge bowl that held 60,000 people. The field was as hard as a rock. One year attendance was about 2000 which surprised me as I expected no one in this football Mecca. The Cal team had quite a few football All-Americans. The scrum guys were huge and purposely unshaven, I suspected. The set scrums smelled of after shave rather than the usual sweat and farts. They tended to slip you a fist if the ref wasn’t looking. One of the big football stars was their All-American linebacker who I had to check in the line out. Busy afternoon. He did something dirty to our commando Gerrard Kirby, resulting in him leaving the field shortly after with assistance. Kirby kept mum.
George Puil, on the wing, put on a show. He dipsy-doodled around the football hero opposite him and scored a couple of tries. The Cal paper next day compared his moves to a classic previous football star who was famous for his evasiveness, named Buddy Young. We usually came out on top against Cal. After one win in Berkeley, when we went back to the frat house and came down for dinner the assembled frat guys all gave us a round of applause. Nice but unexpected. I had overheard earlier one of them refer to us being “candy asses” because we said please and thank you etc., and tried to be pleasant and accommodating. Suddenly we had respect. Nice.
My final game against Cal at UBC was a very tight one. The series and the game were tied. With five minutes to go we were awarded a penalty kick from the sideline forty yards out. Bob Morford, later head of UBC Faculty of Phys Ed, was taking the penalty kicks. He was about 6 foot four, was rather erratic in accuracy but had decent distance if he got a good strike. He was one of the first to place the ball pointing at the goal posts. He was formerly in the British army serving in Burma, so he was used to performing under pressure. He wound up and put it right through the uprights for the win. We were kind of astonished but ecstatic. The Cal guys were, of course, devastated. We won by one point. One of the memories that made me chuckle whenever I still think of it was when I caught a Cal kick off and - facing a closing herd of elephants - I tossed a cemetery pass to Puil standing near the sideline. “Here George” I said. The stars of the game - all backs - were listed in the papers. Us forwards fighting it out in the trenches with future pro-football players got no respect!!
My final game for UBC or ever was against Queen’s University from Belfast, Northern Ireland. They played inter-university matches there. Notable were the number of Irish international players who attended that school. When they arrived they had four or five of these alumni. Jack Kyle was the Irish first five eights and the powerful Noel Henderson was their centre three quarter. Some of them were med students and I think that Kyle had already graduated and was a qualified physician. We had two very tall guys who matched as locks so I played tight head prop against John Smith, another doc who subsequently emigrated to Vancouver and I think married a local girl. He was a very nice guy, as were the others. We had a nice social time and put on a dinner at the Hotel Vancouver which was a jolly event. At that dinner they had a speaker who turned out to be Jimmy Sinclair, the Minister of Fisheries. His daughter Margaret married Pierre Trudeau. He gave a stirring speech about Canada, BC, and suggested that they pack up and move here - some of them did. However, a bunch of the Irish guys stood up and heaved crusty buns at him.
So ended my rugby career. I was taking a very full course in my final undergrad year preparing to pursue a masters degree in microbiology. I was interested in soil and food production as broad subjects and for some strange reason this meant registering in Agriculture. I ended up being an Aggie grad. This involved 18 units of lectures and what amounted to two theses. I had absolutely no free time to train or play. Albert tried to convince me and even suggested that I didn’t need to practice but just come out on game days. I would have none of that, as there was a line up of guys competing to join the team. I would not be able to keep fit and besides I didn’t think it was fair to them. As a final ploy he said that he was going to make me captain. Tempting, but still no. Later he appointed Bill Whyte, an excellent choice, who became a principal in Vancouver and hired my son Craig at Kitsilano High School in 1988. I guess Albert didn’t hold it against me as I saw him as a patient some years later.
Looking back, rugby did a lot for me. It instilled confidence and goal attainment skills. Above all I met a lot of great people who were friends for years. I have enjoyed watching games such as the World Cup and Six Nations competitions. The modern game is very different from when I played. We spent a lot of time training to dribble the ball at our feet. The job of the scrum was solely to get the ball out to the backs. There was very little falling and heeling the ball back. Except for the breaks, we kept together like a bunch of bananas going from scrum to scrum, line out to line out.There was more kicking. The modern game is much faster in my opinion.
Later there was pressure to play club rugby. Graham Budge tried to get me to join the Old Boys group but my life had moved on with med school, marriage, medical practice, family etc. I turned out for a couple of practices for the Rowing Club my heart wasn’t in it.
My life had truly moved on.