John Taylor at 75, the rugby man ignored for the greatest match of all because he was dubbed a communist

Date12 February 2021
Published date12 February 2021
Here’s a man responsible for "the greatest conversion since Paul", a Grand Slam winner who started all four Tests on the only victorious Lions tour of New Zealand.

He’s also a man of principle, who refused to play against South Africa because of the country’s Apartheid regime.

That, in turn, saw him blocked from appearing in the most famous match of all time because he was viewed as a communist.

There was also the horrific injury he suffered out on the field which threatened not just his rugby career but his life.

And, then, post-playing, there has been the celebrated media career, which has seen him commentate on numerous Olympics tournaments and Rugby World Cups.

As it’s the 50th anniversary of his match-winning conversion for Wales against Scotland at Murrayfield in 1971, it seemed a fitting moment for a look back on his sporting life.

Now 75, he remains as erudite and entertaining as ever, with this hour-plus conversation flying by.

Taylor was born in Watford in 1945 and has lived in England his whole life.

But the Welsh roots are strong, with his mother having been born and raised in Pontycymmer, east of Maesteg, and his father’s family hailing from Towyn, Conwy.

"Every summer holiday, there was a month spent in Pontycymmer, so I was always conscious of my Welsh heritage," he recalls.

Both of his parents worked in the psychiatric profession.

"They met at Leavesden mental hospital, just outside Watford," he explains.

"Dad was actually of labouring farming stock, but ended up as deputy chief male nurse at this institution.

"It was an amazing place. I can remember going there as a kid.

"It was one of these big old Victorian mental hospitals, with about 2,000-odd patients in it."

Taylor went on to attend Watford Grammar School, which is where he first learned to play rugby, initially as a centre before moving to the back row.

Then came his university studies at Loughborough, where a certain Gerald Davies was one of his team-mates, followed by a job teaching history and PE in Putney.

That saw him link up with London Welsh, an association which continues to this day.

He made his debut for the club in the autumn of 1966 and within a matter of months he was winning his first cap.

Having impressed on the Exiles’ Christmas tour of Wales and then in the Probables-Possibles trial match, he was thrown in to start on the openside flank against Scotland at Murrayfield in February 1967, aged 21.

"It went by in a flash," he recalls.

"If I’m honest, I don’t think I was ready for it.

"I didn’t have a terrible game, but it was ridiculous really with the lack of experience."

Yet he stayed in the side, found his feet and was selected for the 1968 Lions tour of South Africa.

It was to prove a defining experience in his career.

"I had a lousy tour because I got injured in my first match against Western Province and I only played five games on the whole trip," he says.

"I should have gone home. I had pulled the head of the fibula away from the tibia, but they diagnosed it and kept thinking it would get right.

"We were away for three and a half months, so I had a lot of time on my hands and that was bad luck for the South Africans!"

The more he saw, the more incensed he became.

"The attitude was we are here to play rugby, don’t get involved in the politics. We had to sign an agreement to that extent," he reveals.

"Obviously I had my views that Apartheid was wrong, but the rugby mantra was we were building bridges and better to be influencing from the inside.

"But it took probably 24 hours when I got there to realise that 'hang on, this is not what they are trying to say it is'.

"We had a week’s acclimatisation up on the highveld in a little place called Stilfontein.

"I always remember having a beer one night early on and some of the locals came into the hotel, Afrikaaner boyos as it were.

"Some of the language and some of the ways they treated the black servants was appalling and immediately I was...

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