The important thing was that I was ‘in’. I had been involved in an England team and it was down to me to prove to the selectors that I was worthy of consideration for the senior side. Things are very different today because there is no selection committee, and I am sure that in days gone by deals were done at times rather than the best 15 always being selected. Now responsibility rests with one man, Clive Woodward. In the 1970s, however, England still relied heavily on a series of trials and I found myself picked alongside Roger Uttley in a North side that took on the Midlands at Headingley’s old ground at Kirkstall. Roger was just back from the British Lions tour to South Africa and that was the first time we had appeared together. It looked as though I would be up against Nigel Horton, who jumped at four, because Roger was a recognised front-jumper. But Fran Cotton, who skippered the side, asked Roger to take on Horton and allow me to jump at the front. Roger was already an established international and hardly needed to prove his credentials but it was still a magnanimous gesture when he agreed to the switch without a moment’s hesitation.
I was quite surprised after the game when the Midlands hooker, Peter Wheeler, walked past and said, ‘Hello Bill.’ I didn’t think he would have a clue who I was so I was chuffed that established players seemed to be aware of me. There was another surprise in store when I told Fran Cotton that I hoped he would have a good Christmas and he responded that he would wish me seasonal greetings the following weekend when we travelled to Twickenham for the final trial. I would, he assured me – and you don’t argue with Fran – definitely be involved in that game. And he was right.
Roger Uttley and I found ourselves on opposite sides rather than as partners. He was picked to play for England and had been due to partner Chris Ralston, while I packed down alongside Nigel Horton for the Rest, but Nigel was elevated when Ralston pulled out and my new partner was Bob Wilkinson from Bedford. As you only meet up just before the game you are never really sure what the team is going to be and there was no time to work out line-out drills. To give you some indication of what it was like, our skipper – Bristol’s Dave Rollitt, who was a bit of a character to say the least – approached me in the dressing room and enquired, ‘And who the hell are you, may I ask?’ Hardly a vote of confidence when even your skipper hasn’t a clue who you are, but he did add that, since I had been selected for an England trial, I couldn’t be ‘completely useless’. I grew to enjoy Dave’s caustic brand of humour and soon discovered what a good bloke he was.
I certainly felt a little inadequate and our preparation was such that I had worked out the opposition’s line-out signals long before I had sorted out our own. Hardly surprising then that we went down 38–22 but I wasn’t too disheartened because I had made one or two useful contributions in the game, and I did have the familiar faces of Tony Richards and Steve Smith in the side. Trial games were always difficult games to play in because sides often comprised players who knew little about each other and it wasn’t easy developing an understanding on the field. That’s why I was able to work out the opposition’s line-out signals before our own. Indeed, the games were often such a poor indicator of ability that it wasn’t unusual for experienced internationals to find a convenient injury to avoid having to play in them. Some of the established players took the not unreasonable view that it was better to rely on past reputation rather than subject themselves to trial games – many of which were messy and disjointed affairs.
It was normal practice to stay down at Twickenham after the final trial for a squad training session and, after Christmas, I was one of 30 players called back for another session. I was really made up just to be there and was determined to shine and prove a bit of a nuisance to the senior players. Conversely, when I was England captain, I just wanted the rest to stop being a nuisance!
In trials and squad sessions it’s possible to look out for your mates. I remember how Fran Cotton and Mike Burton in scrummaging practice seemed to work a little routine. Fran had been at tight-head with Stack Stevens at loose-head and they swapped over so that Fran was up against Burto. They made it look as though Fran was murdering him, with the result that he was kept at loose-head, which ensured that Burto got in at tight-head. In the end it was all in vain because, before they were due to play for England, Burto was sent off in a county championship game by Alan Welsby, the Lancashire referee – that being the occasion when he bowed to the crowd as he walked off. The result was that Stack returned at loose-head with the versatile Fran moving back across the front row.
England were due to open their Five Nations Championship campaign against Ireland in Dublin on January 18 and I was starting to take more than a usual interest in the deliberations of the selectors. On the day that I knew the team would be announced, I was on business in London with my uncle Joe, and I bought the first copy of the Evening Standard I spotted as we walked to our hotel. I somewhat feverishly scanned the sports pages and could hardly contain myself when I saw that I had been named as one of the six replacements. Needless to say, work was put on hold while Uncle Joe and I went for a couple of beers to celebrate. As I had expected, Roger Uttley had been named as the front-jumper, with Chris Ralston as his partner rather than Nigel Horton, who had been alongside him in the final trial.
Back in the 1970s the team was traditionally announced almost two weeks before the game and, in the case of a first cap, it was usual for the lucky player to stand down from his club side that weekend. I suppose that was done partly to ensure the player didn’t miss his big moment by getting injured seven days before his international debut but, as I had only been named on the bench and because I just loved to play at whatever level, I turned out for Fylde against Nuneaton. So you get some idea of the enormous jump in standard players often had to make those days, whereas now the standard is so high in the Zurich Premiership that the step up to international level isn’t quite so daunting.
Two years earlier England had gone to play in Dublin in spite of warnings from the IRA that there would be dire consequences if they did so. Their reception that day had been rapturous because both the Scots and the Welsh players had refused to travel to Dublin after receiving death threats, purportedly from the IRA. After the Nuneaton game I saw John Elders, an England selector who had formerly coached Northumberland, talking to Arthur Bell, the Fylde secretary. Arthur was holding a letter he had received from the IRA warning the supporters and I not to make the trip. The IRA needn’t have bothered because not even a charge of the Light Brigade would have prevented me from travelling to Lansdowne Road. Admittedly I was only due to sit on the bench and might not even get on to the field, but I wasn’t prepared to take the chance of missing out. The rest of the England squad responded in the same way and, once again, we were given the warmest of welcomes by the Irish, as I have always found to be the case – except when dealing with rugby politics. Whether you are playing, or just travelling as a spectator, Dublin is a wonderful place to be on a rugby international weekend.
I was entering new territory and didn’t know anything of the protocol of playing international rugby. So I telephoned Tony Neary, who was working as a solicitor in Manchester, to find out what the procedure was and, as a result, joined him on the train from Manchester to London on the Thursday morning, having walked from my home to Adlington station, humping my bag, to catch the local train – a far cry from today when players very often fly to training sessions. On the way down I pumped Tony for information on the etiquette of playing for England and he was very helpful, being an old hand at that sort of thing.
There was a surprise awaiting me when we arrived at the Stoop for the training session. Robin Cowling, the Leicester prop, dropped a hint that I could be in the side, which was subsequently confirmed by Alec Lewis, the chairman of selectors. Apparently Roger Uttley had knackered his back eating an apple pie on the train – which just goes to show how sensitive his back was! – so I was to take his place in the