Even now after all these years Peter Larter still stands alone, the one English Lion who took a stand against terrorism and never played for his country again.
The two facts may have been nothing more than pure coincidence but they still raise a question which has never found a definitive answer and probably never will:
Did England drop the RAF radar technician from a great height over his withdrawal from the Five Nations match against Ireland in Dublin on February 27, 1973?
The previous season Scotland and Wales refused to honour their fixtures at Lansdowne Road for security reasons. The Troubles were still raging 12 months later when the RFU, in commendable defiance of Anglo-Irish history, chose to go where their Celtic neighbours feared to tread.
The selectors, under the chairmanship of former Harlequins and England prop Sandy Sanders, made a point of assuring the squad that anyone making himself unavailable would not be putting his Test future in jeopardy. As the one member of the armed forces in the team, Larter felt most at risk.
“I was married with a young family and, being military, I felt that I could have been a target,'' he says. “I decided it would be better for the family for me not to play. We'd been told: ‘If you don't go it will not affect any future selection.'
“I didn't withdraw until the Monday morning of that week, after the team had been picked on the Sunday but before it had been announced. I cannot be certain that I had been picked but, as I recall, the reaction to my decision caused a bit of a flutter.
“It was one I made by myself. There had been nothing from the RAF to say we think you ought to go or ought not to go. I had no contact from anybody.''
At 28, Larter was at the zenith of his career. He had been a Test Lion against the Springboks five years earlier and Ireland would have been his 25th match for England. Of that largely inexperienced team only John Pullin, the captain, had played more Tests.
Larter, whose RAF career took him to the rank of Squadron Leader, is now 76, living in contented retirement with no regrets over a choice made 47 years ago. “I don't think so,'' he says. “No. I made my decision and I was happy with it.''
Even when England never picked him again? “Maybe at the time I was disappointed but I probably wouldn't have been too surprised,'' he said. “I was travelling reserve for the next match, against France but that was it.
“I felt I was playing pretty well. I'd been dropped for the Five Nations the year before but then I got back in for the tour to South Africa when we beat the Springboks in Johannesburg.''
One of Larter's leading challengers, Nigel Horton, then in the police force, had also withdrawn.
So Larter's uncapped second row replacement in Dublin became one of British rugby's outstanding back row forwards, Roger Uttley. From that day to this, no selector ever offered Larter a word of explanation as to why he had suddenly hit the England buffers.
“In those days there was no contact with the selectors apart from when you saw them before the match. Roger Uttley was a great player who had a great career.''
Asked if he felt hard done by, Larter said: “It was a long time ago but I probably did.” At least one of his old colleagues, the incomparable David Duckham, suspects he was.
“It was easy to suppose that the Rugby Union had gone back on their word, that the international futures of those not available for that match in Dublin would not be prejudiced,'' Duckham said. “The jury is still out on that.
“They (the RFU) were a snooty lot in those days. Sandy Sanders (chairman of selectors) was a fair man. I must say that in his defence but the relationship between players and committee was such that we were at arms' length.
“We viewed them with total disdain because so few were rugby people who had the played the game at top level. There was an abject snobbery about some. I have never used those words before but I don't hesitate to use them.
“There was a snobbishness which meant that we as players were looked down upon. The lack of communication between players and management was such that we were never told we'd been dropped. We used to read about in the paper.
“The story Jan Webster used to tell is a classic example. He was in his sports shop in Walsall one Monday afternoon serving a customer on the day the England team had been picked.
“This chap said to him: ‘I'm sorry to see you've been left out.' That was how Jan learnt he had been dropped. The customer had an early edition of the Birmingham Evening Mail and showed him the story. It was a despicable way to treat any player.''
In tandem with Pullin, Duckham played a pivotal role in ensuring England went as England and not Rosslyn Park 2nd XV.
“I'd got to know Willie John McBride well during the '71 Lions tour and we'd become really good mates, still are,'' says Duckham. “I rang him and I shall never forget what he said: ‘Don't let the terrorists win by not coming.'
“I'd like to think that helped put some players' minds at rest. At Dublin airport we walked straight off the plane onto a bus which looked like an armoured personnel carrier with police outriders everywhere.
“I was sat next to Andy Ripley (England and Lions No.8). He had a window seat. Suddenly he started to rock forwards and backwards until someone asked him: ‘What's the matter?'
“Then ‘Rippers' said: ‘I'm trying to make it difficult for a sniper.' It was very funny and after a few seconds we all cracked up. It broke the atmosphere because until then we were all on edge.
“The bus had a big sign saying: England Rugby Team. We all wore our England blazers and I was first off the coach. The gentleman who greeted me said: ‘Welcome to Dublin. Are you here for the match?'”
Two other members of the team roundly beaten by Wales a fortnight earlier, the Moseley pair Webster and Sam Doble, had also stayed at home. Scrum-half Webster who died last year, corrected a long-held misunderstanding, stating that his absence was due to a perforated eardrum, not any security issues.
The reasons for Doble's absence are less clear. A Wolverhampton schoolmaster whose longer goal kicks tended to be measured more by furlongs than mere metres or yards, he died four years later at 33 from a rare form of lymphatic cancer.
Sanders, an honourable man who went onto become president of the RFU, died nine years ago at 87. It is difficult to imagine he would have been party to any black-balling of a serviceman expressing his democratic right in an amateur sport.
England now pay their players £25,000-a-match.
“We were lucky to get 25 quid expenses,'' says Larter with a chuckle. “One or two players were told about excessive expenses and warned: ‘Do that again and you won't be selected.'
