With the world’s economies in meltdown, it would be eight years before the Lions toured again, though both the Springboks and New Zealand came north earlier in the decade and thumped their opponents. A party of prominent rugby players from the British Isles visited Argentina in 1936, as had also happened in 1927, but neither of these tours is classed as an official Lions venture. That may be due to long-running snobbery about Argentinean rugby in that era—Scotland, for instance, would not award caps for matches against the South American country until the 1990s. Alternatively, it may reflect the realization that Argentina was no match for the British and Irish players who visited: they won all 19 matches, including 5 ‘Tests’, over both tours. With the giant steps forward taken in recent years by the Pumas, and with an under-strength Argentina having drawn with the Lions in a preparatory match for the 2005 tour, it’s interesting to think what might happen should the Lions now visit that country. After all, Argentina beat England at Twickenham in 2006 and reached the semi-finals of the 2007 World Cup by beating France and Ireland in the group phase and Scotland in the quarter-final.
By popular demand in that country, South Africa was the venue for the 1938 tour, and the Lions went there despite the growing menace of Adolf Hitler’s Germany, a country where rugby union had its own federation of clubs from 1900 and which had played many internationals, including winning two against France, before the Nazis effectively killed off the sport because of its ‘Britishness’.
Captained by Sammy Walker, later a much-respected BBC commentator and then a robust prop forward for Ireland, the party was once again be devilled by great players declaring themselves unavailable for the long tour south. The absentees included the Welsh wizard Cliff Jones, Scot-land’s Wilson Shaw and the mighty second row forward from England, Fred Huskisson. Injuries would also wreck many plans, with Haydn Tanner, Jimmy Giles and George Morgan all having to take a turn as a Test scrum-half, with Giles even turning out at centre.
The Springboks, by contrast, were at full strength and were coming off the back of a tour to Australia and New Zealand where they had beaten the former country twice and had won their first Test series in New Zealand by two victories to one. The Springbok side included the great forward Boy Louw and was captained by Danie Craven who was well on his way to becoming a legend of rugby. They were hailed as the champions of the world, and no one could disagree that their record made them so.
The Lions did have some very fine players, including Ireland’s Harry McKibbin, who would later go on to be the president of the IRFU in its centenary seasons; the outstanding Welsh hooker Bill ‘Bunny’ Travers; the prodigious goal kicker Viv Jenkins, later to become a superb writer on rugby; and Gerald Thomas ‘Beef’ Dancer, a belligerent prop who was the find of the tour but never actually played for England, as the war intervened before he could break into the team. There were also three serving police officers in their ranks, Welshmen Eddie Morgan and Russell Taylor, and Bob Alexander of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. By coincidence, the 1989 Lions also contained three policemen, Dean Richards, Paul Ackford and Wade Dooley.
The early part of the tour was promising for the Lions, as they lost only to Transvaal and twice to Western Province. They arrived in Johannesburg for the first Test in confident mood, having gained revenge over Transvaal the week before. But with 14 of the Springboks who had bested New Zealand on tour, South Africa were ready to do battle to stay as unofficial world champions.
In what many who saw and reported on it claimed to be the best match ever in South Africa, the Springboks and the Lions played marvellous running and passing rugby, the home side finally triumphing despite the visitors taking the lead three times. Four tries to nil tells its own story: the Lions points all came from penalties in a 12–26 defeat.
The Springboks wrapped up the three-match series with a clinical 19–3 win in Port Elizabeth on a day when blazing sunshine sapped the Lions’ strength. But there was still honour to play for in the third and final Test in Cape Town and no one should ever underestimate the pride of Lions.
In a thrilling match which went down to the final seconds when referee Nick Pretorius disallowed a Springbok ‘try’ for a forward pass, the Lions came from being 3–13 down at half-time to record a famous victory. The wind had been against them in the first half, but they took full advantage of the conditions in the second, and it probably helped that eight of the players were from Ireland and knew each other’s game well. It should be recorded that the Springboks themselves notified the referee that Charlie Grieve’s drop goal for four points had indeed crossed the bar. Bishop Carey’s prayers almost 40 years earlier that the South Africans would always play like gentlemen were answered on that day.
The Lions had beaten the Springboks for the first time since 1910, and Sammy Walker was carried off the field in triumph after their 21–16 win. But there was no hiding from the fact that a Lions series had been lost again. There was little time for disappointment, however, as the players returned home to their own countries to await the visit of the Australian tourists in 1939.
The Wallabies had been in Britain for just one day when war was declared on 3 September. They had the consolation of a reception at Buckingham Palace by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth before they embarked on the long and now much more dangerous voyage home. Organized rugby effectively ceased for the duration of the war, though many scratch matches were organized, particularly within and between the various Services. Even the rules on professionalism were set aside and players from rugby union and rugby league played together and fraternized.
Almost all of that Lions party of 1938 saw their careers curtailed by the war. Bob Alexander and earlier Lions such as 1930 tourists Brian Black and Royal Tank Corps officer Henry Rew died as a result of wounds sustained in action, while Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne, the fighting Irishman of the 1938 pack, won no less than four Distinguished Service Order medals, the Legion D’Honneur and Croix de Guerre. Amazingly, another Lions forward, Major General Sir Douglas Kendrew of the 1930s squad, equalled Mayne’s feat of winning a DSO and three bars—only seven men in history have achieved that quadruple honour, and two of them were British and Irish Lions.
One of the most extraordinary of all the Lions, Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne in particular would become a legend of military history as one of the original members of the SAS. He was named after his mother’s cousin, Robert Blair, who also won the DSO before being killed in the First World War. Blair Mayne became a champion amateur heavyweight boxer and all-round sportsman, as well as a qualified solicitor, but it was rugby at which he excelled and he was soon selected for Ulster, Ireland and then the Lions.
A year after his return from South Africa, Mayne, who had been in the Territorial Army, joined the regular army on the outbreak of war. After volunteering for the commandos, he saw action in the Lebanon in 1941, where he allegedly had an altercation with a senior officer after calling him incompetent. Fortunately, SAS founder David Stirling stepped in and recruited Mayne for his new long-range fighting force in the North African desert. Mayne was eventually promoted to colonel and commanded the 1st SAS Regiment. It was while he was serving in Oldenburg in Germany in the latter days of the war that Mayne single-hand-edly rescued a squadron of troops, for which he was recommended for a Victoria Cross. But his truculent attitude to authority probably cost him the highest medal of honour. Stirling said of Mayne: ‘He was one of the best fighting machines I ever met in my life. He also had the quality to command men and make them feel his very own.’
After the war, and suffering from the effects of a back injury, Mayne returned to Northern Ireland but had difficulty coping with civilian life and volunteered for a polar expedition to the Antarctic. His health deteriorated however, and he came back to his home town of Newtonards to a job with the Law Society. His back pain got to the point where he could no longer even play rugby. Nothing, it seemed, could match up to the excitement of his playing days and war service, and he began to drink more; it is said he would challenge every man in a bar to a fight, and beat them all. One night after a drinking session, however, he was driving home when he crashed his Riley sports car and was killed at the age of just 40.
Mayne’s life has been the subject of several books, and a film has long been planned about him. In 2005, MPs attempted to have his Victoria Cross finally and posthumously awarded, but the Government turned them down. He is commemorated in his home town by both