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Stradey Park is missed most when Wales return to Llanelli, where the All Blacks were conquered
When Eddie Jones opined that England’s opponents on Saturday would be lifted by “playing at the heart of soul of Welsh rugby”, he evoked images of sidestepping classics from the 1970s, of pubs running dry, of a town singing 'Sosban Fach' in unison, of Max Boyce flooring All Blacks with his giant leek and of great bears of men weeping at the romance of it all.
The reality of Llanelli 2020 is, of course, very different to the point of being almost unrecognisable, but the nostalgia remains bright enough to pierce the current gloom of Welsh pessimism. If a miracle is to happen anywhere then surely it would be on those ramshackled streets where Phil Bennett used to dance.
As it happens, before it was called upon to host these autumn internationals - with the Principality Stadium on Covid duty as a temporary hospital - Llanelli had never staged a Welsh defeat. In 1887, Stradey Park was picked for the Home Nations encounter with England, but when the visitors arrived they found a frozen pitch and refused to play.
Determined to placate the restless crowd, the Welsh Rugby Union hastily switched it to the cricket pitch next door. It was a 0-0 thriller and, at one point, Arthur “Monkey” Gould, the legendary centre who earned his nickname courtesy of a childhood obsession with climbing trees, was obliged to shin up the posts to repair the crossbar which had collapsed.
Four years on, Stradey finally had its day in the sun, with Ireland beaten and again two years later when another victory over the same opponents - this time a 2-0 humdinger - secured Wales their first Triple Crown. A paucity of points, perhaps, but the history is plentiful. And when it comes to club rugby, and club rugby against international teams in particular, that sosban boileth over.
As an Antipodean, Jones would have heard of Stradey from his youth, that strange place in the shadows of the steelworks where they croon about little saucepans and where Southern Hemisphere dominance was left at the town gates. Llanelli first claimed Australia’s scalp in 1908 and then again in 1967 and, most notably, when they were world champions in 1992. Yet it was the win against New Zealand in 1972 that holds pride of place in folklore.
Boyce immortalised the titanic victory – and the equally titanic celebrations thereafter when every barrel and every bottle was sank – in his song, '9-3':
The shops were closed like Sunday,
And streets were silent still,
And those that chose to stay away, were either dead or ill,
But those that went to Stradey, will remember 'til they die,
How New Zealand were defeated, and how the pubs ran dry.
It was the classic Boyce "I was there" moment, as 20,000 crammed in on a Tuesday afternoon in October to witness a side, inspired by coach Carwyn James, captain Delme Thomas and match-winner Roy Bergiers, the Wales and Lions centre - who scored the only try - pass into immortality. They did not help with the phenomenal barrel-emptying, however,
“Delme and I actually met up this week and we were laughing about it,” Bergiers told Telegraph Sport. “I only had half a shandy - I was exhausted. It was a tough match, yes, but it was the emotion of it, running out to an atmosphere none of us expected and then seeing what it meant.
“The try is still vivid. Phil’s penalty hitting the crossbar and me charging down the clearance of the scrum-half [Lin Colling]. It was at the scoreboard end and that’s where all the kids were, including loads from the school where I was a PE teacher. It’s funny, because I had to take half a day’s unpaid absence and there were other teachers in the ground looking after our pupils.
“So they were there being paid to watch and I was getting nothing for having to face these huge All Blacks. I was back in the next morning and it was raining and some of those same boys who’d been there were moaning at me - ‘Mr B, do we have to go outside, it’s vile.’ I suddenly wasn’t the guy who’d scored the try against All Blacks, I was the horrible teacher forcing them out onto that mud-patch. It was a bit of a come down.”
In truth, Bergiers is still hailed to the heavens, as are the rest of that XV. A few have been lost over the years, including JJ Williams last month, while Bergiers’ midfield partner, the irrepressible Ray Gravell, passed away in 2007. Twelve months later, Stradey was sold to housing developers and the club, now a region, moved to Parc y Scarlets. A dozen years on and, a few weeks on from his 70th birthday, Bergiers still struggles to accept what was done in the name of progress.
“I have to walk past the old place when I go to my dentist’s and I think, ‘hang on, that’s where we used to play rugby and now it’s someone’s front lawn’,” he said. “They named the streets after some of the players and I’m honoured to be one. Yet it does make me sad.
“With the cricket pitch there and the training fields and the tennis club, you could have had a wonderful sporting complex and Stradey could still be the focal point of Llanelli. As it is, Parc y Scarlets is a few miles outside the town centre; you don’t even have to go into Llanelli to get there. In the centre, shops have shut and are still shutting - the pubs, too.
“It’s like a ghost town to what it was. You know, Delme and I were talking how great it is that the Scarlets have been staging these internationals and well done for pulling it off during these Covid restrictions. But, we agreed, that even if the fans were allowed in it wouldn’t be the same as back then. It will still be special if we beat England, though. That will never change.”
