For today is no ordinary day in the life of the former Ebbw Vale rugby club speedster – it is the day he reaches his 100th birthday.
The All Blacks had their first centurion last Friday, when Roy Roper reached the age of 100, and now Welsh rugby has its own three figure hero to celebrate. Scouring the history books to try to find a former first-class player who has lived to be 100-years-old has proved a tireless and fruitless task to date.
The great Willie Llewellyn always used to be regarded as Welsh rugby’s longest surviving international player. He died at the age of 95 in 1973, while the former 1955 British & Irish Lions prop Courtenay Meredith is still very much alive and kicking and will be 97 on 23 September.
Former London Welsh back row man Glyn ‘Shorty’ Davies will be 96 in November and Lynn ‘Cowboy’ Davies, the former Llanelli and Cardiff centre, will be 94 at the end of December.
Former Wales centre Harry Perrott Morgan was 93 in June and triple Lions hooker Bryn Meredith will be 93 on 21 October. The great Llanelli full back and rugby league legend Lewis Jones was 92 in April and former Cardiff stalwart Alun Priday and outside half Bryan Richards are both 90.
Meredith was in the last Welsh side to beat the All Blacks way back in 1953, and Williams also played against that New Zealand touring team when he featured on the wing for the combined Abertillery & Ebbw Vale XV that faced them at Abertillery Park on 23 December 1953.
The Combined Abertillery & Ebbw Vale team that faced the 1953 All Blacks
“We think Dad is the sole survivor from that team and there are only two players from the All Blacks touring party who are also still alive – Bill McCaw and Stuart Freebairn. McCaw and Freebairn played at Abertillery,” said Gabe Williams, one of Bernard’s sons.
WATCH VIDEO OF 1953 ALL BLACKS AT ABERTILLERY PARK
“He still has a lot of memories about the players he played with and loved his time at Ebbw Vale. I’ve been researching his career, with great help from Roy Lewis at Ebbw Vale, in recent years and it’s obvious he was a good player who found himself playing in an era when Wales had some great threequarters.
The 1953 All Blacks side that played in front of 18,000 in 1953
“He had some great battles with Ken Jones both on the pitch and on the track and even played as outside half to the great Haydn Tanner when he serving in the Royal Signals. Rugby gave him a lot at the time and has filled his life with wonderful memories.”
Born on 14 August 1923 at 1 Ashvale Terrace, Tredegar, Joseph Bernard Williams learned his rugby at Tredegar County Grammar School between1934 and 1941. He excelled at all sports and was captain of the rugby, cricket and athletics teams.
He won the school’s Victor Ludorum three years running and competed in the Welsh Junior athletics Championships in 1941 and 1942 in the sprint and long jump. He went on to compete in the senior Welsh AAA Championships all the way through to 1947.
On leaving school he studied Mechanical Engineering at University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire (now Cardiff University) in Cathays Park, graduating in 1944. He served in the Royal Signals, based at the Catterick Camp, during his period of National Service.
On the rugby front, his early senior games were with Tredegar before he took the plunge and joined Newport in the summer of 1947. He played alongside Malcolm Thomas at centre and also on the wing.
Quick he most certainly was, but perhaps not as quick as the newly capped Ken Jones, who a year later won an Olympic sprint relay silver medal. Seeing his opportunities blocked by Jones at Rodney Parade, Bernard opted to switch to Ebbw Vale RFC at the beginning of 1948.
His debut came on the left wing in a 3-0 home defeat to Pontypool on 17 January 1948 and he was in the Ebbw teams who beat Newport 15-3 at Rodney Parade on 12 December 1953 and went down 6-0 to Cardiff on the club’s first official visit to the Arms Park.
Bernard in action for Ebbw Vale
When the Steelmen headed to north London in January 1953, Bernard played in the 10-0 win over Saracens for a game that was watched by their local MP, Aneurin Bevan. He was also in the side that reached the final of the inaugural Snelling Sevens back in 1954, played for Monmouthshire and even squeezed in a few games for Pau in the Top 14 when he was working in France.
WATCH A VIDEO OF EBBW VALE PLAYING SARACENS
Working life began in the family bakery business in Tredegar, while in France he was employed by the French oil exploration company Schlumberger. They arranged for him to travel to the USA and on to Venezuala to review their company facilities in both countries and he spent two years in Pennsylvania in the early sixties.
In July 1955 he returned to Tredegar to get marry Maria Cavanna, who had been in his same class in school, and their early married life was spent in London and Sicily. Their two sons, Gabe and Karl were born in 1958 and 1959.
The family moved to live in Cardiff in 1968 and after losing his wife in 2008, Bernard spent the past 14 years living on his own very close to his son. He moved into Penylan House residential care home in April, where he continues to live a happy and pretty independent life.
“I miss my old friends, but I have some lovely memories of my time playing rugby. In those days it was all about the team, not individual glory,” said Bernard.
He said he’ll be watching the World Cup and roaring on Warren Gatland’s Welsh team. Both the WRU and the team wish him the happiest of birthdays today.
Ebbw Vale as Welsh champions 1951-52
