Peter Jackson: The Big Brekky feeding the soul as well as body

On the filthiest of winter mornings last Tuesday, when the squalls rattled everybody and everything, the old boys from the glory days came from miles around for The Big Brekky.

The bacon and eggs, the sausage butties and the communal breaking of bread somehow almost imbued the occasion with a Revivalist fervour, a feeding of the spirit as well as the body.

To have been there listening to the veterans was to rediscover the soul of Welsh rugby, their message ringing out like hymns and arias in defiance of Storm Bram raging all around them.

In times hard enough for at least one former Wales coach to speak of the national game as having lost its soul, the 65 gathered at the long tables of a carvery in Bridgend would have been there all day had they been asked to add up all the matches they played; probably 10,000 or more all told for the Lions, Wales and their clubs.

Soul

“The modern game may well have lost its soul, but we’ve never lost ours,” says Meredydd James, a West Walian from Whitland whose 400 matches over 13 seasons for Bridgend included winning consecutive Welsh Cup finals as captain at a packed Arms Park.

“For all the seven bells we knocked out of one another, we always made time after every match for camaraderie and banter and from that we made friendships for the rest of our lives.

“It’s very rewarding to see how they all enjoy one another’s company.

“Sadly, I don’t see that happening in today’s game. Within an hour of their match finishing, the players are gone.

“I can’t see them in 20 or 30 years from now gathering for breakfast on a regular basis for a few laughs with old friends who were once old enemies. Professionalism has eroded the loyalty we felt to our clubs.”

Legends of the Welsh rugby game gathered in Bridgend, home of the Ravens
PICTURE: Alamy

Pleasure

The Big Brekky, once every six weeks, is James’ baby, a creation born some 15 years ago out of too many burials and cremations.

“It felt as though we only met at the funerals of ex-players, referees and committee men.

“I had recently retired. I had some time on my hands, so rather than wait for the next funeral, we arranged to meet regularly over a leisurely breakfast.

“We began at The Thunderbird Café in Bridgend, and when the numbers grew, we moved to the Toby Carvery on the edge of town, a halfway house between east and west.

“The pleasure I get is seeing so many people enjoying one and another’s company and then making sure they keep in touch with those who’d love to come but can’t because of health issues.”

People

Tuesday’s absentees included two of the most revered one-club men in the Welsh game, octogenarians Bob Penberthy and Boyo James, whose combined appearances for Pontypridd and Bridgend respectively topped 1,300.

Between them, they had the grand total of one cap, awarded to James against England at Twickenham in 1968.

The other James, Meredydd, succeeded him as Bridgend’s tighthead four years later.

“This isn’t about me and don’t you dare make it out that it is,” The Big Brekky impresario says. “This is about the people who come from near and far.

“They are the ones who make it work and there’s never a drop of alcohol consumed, just tea, coffee and tap water.”

Deaths

At the risk of being condemned to detention by the former headmaster, he makes it work by notifying every one of the 372 names on his phone of the next Big Brekky by text, a painstaking process which takes him three hours, sometimes a bit longer.

He takes care to ensure that the 372 include ex-players from every one of what used to be known as the ‘Merit Table’ clubs, all 16 of them strung across the 65-mile rugby belt from Llanelli in the west to Newport in the east.

James used to send out more than 400 such texts until the grim reaper started hacking into his mobile.

Just as the deaths of JPR Williams and Barry John early last year leaves John Bevan as The Big Brekky’s sole Test Lion from the Seventies, so the passing of Llanelli’s Peter Morgan and Bridgend No.8 Gareth Williams in their early sixties leaves Clive Williams, ex-Aberavon and Swansea, as the sole Test Lion from the Eighties.

Last Tuesday six other internationals braved the storm: founder-member Steve Sutton (Pontypool, Ebbw Vale, SW Police), Kevin Moseley (Pontypool, Newport, West Hartlepool), Hugh Williams-Jones (Bridgend, SW Police), Ray Giles (Aberavon, Cardiff), Richard Diplock (Bridgend, Aberavon) and another Bridgend wing who holds the distinction of scoring the first hat-trick in the World Cup, the one and only Glen Webbe.

Recognition

Many more at Tuesday’s Big Brekky – self-service and self-payment plus generous support for a wide range of charities – would have been internationals had they chucked caps around in their day the way they have done since.

James, for example, had the irritating misfortune for a specialist tighthead to have been born at almost the same time as the immovable Graham Price.

“Had ‘Pricey’ been an Englishman, they would have built a statue of him and put it at the entrance to Twickenham,” he said.

“What he did – 12 consecutive Tests over three tours to New Zealand, twice, and South Africa – will never be done again.

“Tighthead is the most important position on the rugby field and don’t listen to anyone who says otherwise.

“The tighthead anchors the scrum and if he does that, everything flows from there. Here in Wales, Graham has never had the recognition he deserves.”

Laughing stock

There is widespread disbelief at the Welsh implosion from a major power to a laughing stock.

“I’m concerned about the future, very concerned,” James says. “The game at youth level has been decimated.

“We badly need to widen our playing base, attract more of the 11-18 age group and take a leaf out of the English book by awarding scholarships to rugby schools and private ones.

“If they don’t act decisively, the conveyor belt of talent will seize up. The national team’s results are a direct consequence of the WRU starving the roots over a long period.

“The South Africa match should never have been played. Total greed by the WRU. Then they kept sending out all these mixed messages and contradictions.

“One minute they say they have the money to keep four regions, then only two and now three.

“Who knows what’ll happen next?”

Meanwhile, The Big Brekky men, having swapped rugby politics for a sheet of Christmas carols, bring their three-hour reunion to a crescendo with the national anthem followed by Dafydd Iwan’s classic: Yma o Hyd (‘We’re Still Here’).