The Club on The Beach

Who beat the All Blacks, Springboks and Wallabies?

Photo by Phillip Roberts on Unsplash

1872 seemed a good year to establish and create what would become one of the world's most respected and revered rugby clubs. I had the privilege of being a 3rd generation player from my family to be a first teamer of Swansea Rugby and Football club. Last season 2022/23 was Swansea’s 150th anniversary, and this is a tribute to my club on behalf of all my family members who first played in 1921 plus the numerous Swansea RFC characters I had the pleasure of encountering since the early 1960s when I first sat in the Committe Box next to my grandfather, Bruce Barter who in the 1960’s was the voice of the St Helens grandstand PA system announcing the name of the scorers. When a Swansea player crossed for a try the members ( NOT “fans” in those days) would stomp their feet in celebration of the “All Whites” players who had crossed for a try. As a young boy it was the rumble of thunder as 2,000 members stomped in appreciation in the wooden grandstand. I likened it to an approaching herd of elephants….it was primeval and wondrous.

For a full history of Swansea RFC affectionately known as the ‘All Whites’ I recommend the excellent Web site, swansearfc.co.uk and the history titled “The All Whites” written by David Farmer. So my Musings today focus on my personal experiences of both playing for Swansea in the youth, Athletic and first teams from 1976 to 1987, whilst remembering the stories told to me by my grandfather Bruce Barter, a founder member of Swansea Uplands RFC in 1919 who then played for Swansea from 1922 to 1929, and my illustrious father RCC Thomas (Clem) who played from 1948 to 1959. Both my brothers, Greg and Mark played for the club as did my winger grand uncle Roy Jones( captain in 1929 winning two Welsh caps) and my uncle, Ian Jones, a tough ex royal marine who played in the centre in the 1950s.

Since its inception Swansea RFC and St Helens has represented the ultimate rugby destination for generations of the most talented rugby players drawn from the local geography of a series of villages within the greater Swansea area, from Morriston, the Uplands, Bonymaen, Mumbles, Town Hill, Clase, St Thomas, Trebanos, Waunarlwydd and Dunvant. In addition the towns and villages of the Swansea Valley provided an annual influx of passionate rugby ability from Brynamman, Ystradgynlais, Pontardawe, Ystalyfera and Cwmtwrch. The city of Swansea is a collection of villages in a land where parochialsm is really important. Walk into any pub or shop in Wales as a stranger and the first question is inevitably, “Where you from ? "

St Helens ground takes its name from a convent dedicated to Saint Helen built by an order of Augustinian nuns on the foreshore of Swansea Bay during the Medieval period. Helen was born Flavia Julia Helena, and was an Augusta of the Roman empire and mother of Constantine the Great. There is a magnificent statue of her in the Basilica in St Peters in Rome.

The ground is situated on a beachfront, a jewel in Dylan Thomas’s “splendid, curving shore”. There is a unique conjunction of playing first class rugby and cricket at St Helens; The full moniker is Swansea Cricket and Football Club……SCFC. In Swansea there was a great sense of pride in the institution across all classes..”Once a White, always a White”, witnessed by the recent 150th Anniversary match played against the Barbarians and the classy, sumptuous banquet in the Swansea Arena magnificently presided over by Russell T Davies, son of one of the club’s most loyal illuminati, Viv Davies. This lifelong commitment to the Whites is characterised by an unquenchable spirit and a burning conviction that there has always been a superior style of open, flowing, inventive rugby played in Swansea, which at its best is unsurpassed in the world. There is a confidence that on their day, the All Whites have been able to take on any team from anywhere and prove more than a match. It was this romantic notion of rising to the occasion that appealed to my father Clem Thomas throughout his time playing at St Helens. And against the two great rugby powers from the Southern Hemisphere, South Africa in 1951 and New Zealand in 1953, Swansea more than lived up to these ideals.

I left Blundells School as captain of rugby and in 1975 joined the Swansea Youth team. We were coached by a rough tough Yorkshire prop from Halifax, a wonderful man called Martin Bottomley who mercilessly pounded us in physical training sessions on the rec adjacent to St Helens under hazy floodlights.We were no gym monkeys in those days, but sweated through piggyback shuttles, press-ups, burpees, and fireman’s lifts over 50 yards ten or even twenty times if Martin was in a bad mood (which he was on most Mondays and Thursdays!). Then came the interval running and sprints. As an ex public schoolboy I was in awe of my colleagues who gave me a warm welcome and I am still friendly with guys like Johnnie Blyth, Keith Colclough and Monty.

My first game wearing the famous All White jersey was against Mountain Ash away. We played on a pitch that was a reclaimed slag heap…if you scraped away the surface mud you were running on compacted coal dust in constant Welsh drizzle under battleship grey skies. I thought I had landed on Mars. We played a game that bore little or no resemblance to the fast passing rugby on lush green grass public school playing fields I was used to. I played No 8 and Martin had devised a move requiring a long lineout throw over a shortened linout. My job was to catch the ball and drive at the fly half. Having easily secured the ball I was then smashed by a highly motivated Mountain Ash back row, as wound up as any fighting bulls reacting to the pristine white jerseys of Swansea rfc. They broke my front tooth and trampled me into their mountain. Welcome to Welsh rugby.My public school rugger days were behind me.

The story starts in 1919. My grandfather Bruce Barter was educated at Ellesmere College whose school magazine described in its December magazine that “Barter was one of the best three-quarters we ever had..who combined pace and skill effectively.Very good in both defence and attack”. Against Ruthin School on Wednesday October 15th he scored six tries. Bruce was a founding member of the Swansea Uplands Rugby Club, attending the meeting at The Uplands Hotel of players of the pre-World War 1 Swansea Grammar School who had safely returned from military service in 1919. This is how the name of the new club became Swansea Uplands which originally played its games in Singleton Park, the Recreation Ground and even St Helens.

By 1921 Bruce had been snapped up by Swansea RFC, a difficult year both on and off the pitch as the Depression deepened, with 94 tinplate mills idle and unemployment worsening by the day. He became a stalwart of the club, but his best performances were from 1924 onwards when the club recovered its playing reputation, an opinion reinforced when in 1925 Leicester were “outclassed at St Helens” as Swansea put them to the sword…”All four tries were capitally engineered” with The Post reporting that “Barter was the life and soul of the Swansea side. It seemed that the player brought the crowd to its feet as he sold a dummy to run over for a dazzling try”. The St Helens crowd was ecstatic. The boys were back. Later in the season of the match against Neath the Post declared “Barter…realising that a superhuman effort was needed…zigzagging his way through the Neath defence beating three or four men and sent Sid Philips over for a try.” As far as the newspaper was concerned, Flash Gordon and Bulldog Drummond had nothing on the Swansea centre.

Bruce was renowned as the team’s comic. Despite being teetotal he was the life and soul of post match parties, home or away.He was a fine musician on the violin or piano, and on away trips would take his ukulele along and dress up imitating the famous comedian Harold Lloyd. Bruce continued his fine form into 1926 and 1927, featuring prominently in the touring fixtures against The Maoris and The Waratahs, and played in several Welsh trial matches. However the rugby gods failed him when he tore his Achilles tendon which he described to me was “just like a violin string snapping”. By 1930 he had become a committee man, and proceed over the next 48 years to fill most posts of responsibility at the club, from Chairman of Selectors to Fixtures Secretary. At his death in 1978 he was President of Swansea RFC, an honour I know he cherished.

Clem played his first 1st Class rugby match for Neath during the Easter school holidays in 1947, and so can claim to be the trailblazer for the Ospreys, the professional Region created by a merger of sorts between Neath and Swansea rugby clubs in 2003 following David Moffatt's reforms to the professional game in Wales. However From 1948-1959 he played for Swansea with St Helens featuring as the arena where he displayed his world class talents and aggressive athleticism that won him 26 Welsh caps over the period and a British Lions tour to South Africa where the Lions drew the series 2-2. Clem played in the critical 3rd test at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria, a battling performance won by the Lions 9-6. He had played against the touring Springboks in 1951. That afternoon a crowd of 40,000 saw one of the most exciting matches ever played at St Helens. With only 7 minutes to go the mighty Springbok team, which lost only one match out of thirty-one fixtures, against London Counties, were fighting for their lives. Aaron ‘Okey’ Geffin the famed Jewish goal-kicking prop landed a penalty from inside his own half. Okay had perfected his goal-kicking skills at a prisoner of war camp in Poland, Stalag XX-A near Thorn during World War Two. He practised his kicking barefoot near a mass grave of Polish concentration camp victims. In 1949 he had helped kick the Springboks to victory over the All Blacks and they won all four Tests. Jack hearts sank as the kick imperiously floated over the uprights and sank furthering the last minute as Chum Ochse wriggled over in the corner and South Africa won 11-3. Four years later, when Clem was playing for the British Lions in South Africa, the iconic bald-headed wing -forward Basie von Wyk told him that the Swansea match was one of the hardest games he had ever played in and that he was relieved to get off the field in one piece. He claimed he had never been tackled so hard and so consistently in his life.

In late 1953 Clem played in the first Welsh trial match. The local paper commented, “ Discriminating spectators at the rugby trial played at St Helens considered that R.C.C. Thomas is now the greatest wing-forward in the four countries. His play in the trial was one of the greatest individual performances by a forward seen for many a year and it was common talk that Thomas made more openings in attack than any other player. New Zealand will find him a real problem.”

And on Saturday, December 12 1953, Swansea mounted a desperate challenge that gave them a highly creditable 6-6 draw with the All Black's. JBG Thomas reporting in The Western Mail wrote of the game, “ Rising to the occasion magnificently and performing almost as well as did their great predecessors in 1935, who beat the All Blacks, Swansea gained a draw with honour against New Zealand. The result will hold a high place in the pages of rugby history… Swansea's heroic efforts, with RCC Thomas the bravest forward of them all, exposed the limitations of the New Zealanders… the darkness of their present attacking football matches the colour of their jerseys.”

At the end of this game Clem and the outstanding fullback, Bob Scott, enjoyed a stand up exchange with a flurry of fists in front of the main stand and VIP box, a brawl that Scott started with a head shot thrown at the back of Clem’s head. The fighting continued as the players left the field at full time, brawling along the narrow corridor that led to the changing rooms. Clem had satisfaction the following week when Wales beat the All Blacks 13-8 following Ken Jones’ try scored from the assist of Clem's now legendary crosskick.

For the last twenty years elite rugby in Swansea has been played in the Liberty/ Swansea.com Stadium in Morfa, but the total mismanagement of Welsh Rugby by the WRU combined with the Covid pandemic has brought rugby in Wales to its knees. The Ospreys did fill the Liberty in the early period of its creation, but over the past ten years crowds have dwindled due to poor competions, fan unfriendly kick off times and a realisation that a total reset is required to grow back support for a winning Ospreys team. The rugby gods have now intervened to steer elite rugby back to St Helens. Perhaps due to divine intervention from the Saint herself, but The Ospreys announced last week that from 2025 the team will make St Helens its home ground, with a major upgrade to facilities to allow a seating capacity of 7,500. The iconic arena that first hosted rugby in 1873 will continue to host elite club rugby. This is the real achievement of the Osprey’s deal fulfilling the long term strategic goal set by the controlling triumvirate of Mike James, Rob Davies and Roger Blyth, and now the responsibility of Andrew Yeandle's sports management Group Y11. Good luck to them and the Ospreys.The ghosts of all who played for the club on the beach will be watching. And all are welcome at St Helens.