Sir Billy, the man Cardiff ignored

THE Welsh Rugby Union has paid due homage to Sir Billy Boston, acclaiming the sailor’s son they somehow managed to lose more than 70 years ago as 'a trailblazer'.

- PETER JACKSON

The torrent of tributes from within the Union fold expressed heart-felt ‘delight’ at his arrival as the oldest sporting knight of the realm, two years into the tenth decade of his life. It was as if they had come to claim him as one of their own.

The man himself would have appreciated that, a sense that he belonged to the whole of Wales, not just the square mile or two of old Tiger Bay around his childhood home in Angelina Street. He would have appreciated it a whole lot more if only the game itself had made him feel one of their own during his formative years.

Before dementia began taking its cruel toll, Boston would talk about how as a boy all he ever wanted to do was to play for Cardiff at the Arms Park and how in later life he would have traded all the glory year's at Wigan to have played once for Wales, just once.

That neither ambition never came to pass raised a recurring question over the early days, one which sounds as awkwardly shameful today as it did before the embryonic superstar left home at 18 to do his national service in 1952. The knighthood makes that question as relevant now as it was then:

What made Cardiff decide that the boy wonder wasn’t worth a game?

They had so many reasons to welcome him with open arms as one of their own. Instead they found one not to. That they did so beggars belief to this day, most strikingly among those in more enlightened times who take pride in diversity and inclusivity.

Everyone with half an ear to the grapevine of Welsh rugby had either seen the budding genius or read about him. At 14, Boston had starred in the all-star Cardiff Schools team of 1948-49. He spent the next two seasons as the weekly headline act for the city’s illustrious docks club in Butetown, the multi-cultural Kayaks (CIAC’s as in Cardiff International Athletic Club).