JJ snubbed a fortune for Wales

PETER JACKSON pays tribute to JJ Williams who died on Thursday at the age of 72. An all-time great, record-breaking try scorer during the only invincible Lions tour, double Grand Slammer, national sprint champion, millionaire businessman and outspoken pundit, he was also a fearless critic of The Blazer Brigade who ran the amateur game.

- PETER JACKSON

Early one morning during the first week of the school term in September 1974, a very large man pulled up outside JJ Williams’ modest home in an even larger car.

“It was the biggest Mercedes I’d ever seen,’’ said the most coveted of wings, a trifle bewildered at further evidence of how the Lions tour that summer really had changed his life, from humble PE teacher into embryonic global superstar. “Nobody in Maesteg had ever seen one as big.’’

Vince Karalius, so tough an hombre that the Aussies called him The Wild Bull of the Pampas after he had out-slugged them at their own game of Going the Biff, had driven from Merseyside to the old mining town in the Llynfi Valley on behalf of Widnes Rugby League club.

When the startled object of his outrageous smash-and-grab mission explained that he could not afford to be late for school, the formidable Karalius reached into the breast pocket of his suit for something equally as formidable.

“He opened his cheque book and wrote a cheque in my name for £13,500. My wife Jane and I had bought a house for £4,500 and here was this famous man offering to pay me the equivalent of three houses. I said: ‘No, thankyou Mr Karalius. I can’t be late.’

“The big Merc was still there when I got back from school that afternoon. By then Mr Karalius had increased the offer by another £3,000. I still didn’t sign but when the story got out, I said I was considering it. I was asked a question and I gave an honest answer.

“An offer which would have equalled the world record for a Union player? Anyone would have considered that. I had been warned that the WRU would take a dim view of it.