St Helen’s ArchivePreserving the past for the future
Four
Transcript:
This is part four of the nine part, all jersey, audio trail following the career of Mervyn Davies. Following the British and Irish Lions tour of 1971, as explored in the last part of this trail, the following year brought about an encore of sorts as twenty-two of the ‘Lions’ returned for a celebration match between sides lead by Lions coach Carwyn James and tour top point scorer Barry John.
During the Lion’s tour in New Zealand, fly-half Barry John broke records, scoring 30 points in test matches, and 188 points on tour as a whole. Tour captain John Dawes when speaking of Barry John said, ‘People forget that Barry played 17 games on that Tour [...]. He just took New Zealand by the scruff of the neck – and it was the New Zealanders who gave him the title ‘King John.’
When it came to a celebration of 50 years of ‘Urdd Gobaith Cymru’, that is the League of Welsh Youth in English, or the literal translation, ‘League of Welsh Hope’, Barry John, who had enjoyed activities with ‘Urdd Gobaith Cymru’ as a boy, was given captaincy of a team in their name in the celebratory and fundraising match. He selected Mervyn Davies as one of his fifteen. Mervyn was soon to leave the London Welsh side for Swansea RFC by the time of this celebration match in 1972. And so with the Welsh dominated Lions squad and then playing in Barry John’s XV, Mervyn had seen quite an appropriate prelude to his homecoming.
The match itself ended in 32-28, to Barry John’s side. A fitting result given it was ‘King’ John’s last senior match before retirement, which he announced nine days after the match. The other ‘scores’ to speak of were the sale of 35,000 tickets raising £15,000 for the movement. at the National Stadium
Playing in Barry John’s side, Mervyn Davies played in green. The colours of Urdd Gobaith Cymru are in themselves the colours of the Welsh flag, and so unsurprisingly, Carwyn James’ side played in white. John’s side also played in red socks, completing the flag’s colours. Mervyn’s jersey here at the archive has very much maintained its colour, but like the previous entries’ Lion’s jersey, it has suffered some UV fading from years of display prior to being kindly donated to the archive. We can also see that the jersey bears the Urdd Gobaith Cymru badge on the breast, which is a triangle split into three horizontal sections for each colour, white, red then green. In the white triangle is the number 50, for the 50 years of the organisation. Of course, we know this to be Mervyn’s jersey because on its back is the number eight.
The next part in the trail follows Mervyn Davies as he moves from London Welsh to Swansea RFC in the same year as this celebration match. Follow on to find out more. Please don’t forget to press next.