Rub of the Green Column
Last week, I wrote about the exploits of World War Two hero Paddy Mayne when touring South Africa with the British and Irish Lions in 1938.
It has prompted me to revive the talents of another famous Irish rugby player, Tony O’Reilly, who paid my salary for some years at Independent Media.
At his peak as a businessman, O’Reilly was the richest man in Ireland, with a reported wealth of more than one billion Euros.
His interests ranged from manufacturing foodstuffs with Heinz to a newspaper publishing empire and plenty in between.
He was born an entrepreneur, but he was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
When he toured South Africa as a 19-year-old in 1955, he was a penniless amateur rugby player.
Like his teammates, he had to find ways to enjoy South Africa’s bounty.
O’Reilly had film-star looks and pioneered a dashing party trick.
When thirsty but having no money to buy refreshments, the flame-haired O’Reilly would gather a party of players dressed in tour blazers, loan a car and cruise the wealthier suburbs of the city they were in.
When they saw a house that was obviously having a party because of the number of cars on the kerb, they would knock on the door and claim to be lost.
Naturally, they would be invited in – they were the British and Irish Lions, after all – and food and drinks would be on the house.
O’Reilly was also a sensation on the field with the 1955 Lions.
He would score 16 tries in 15 matches on tour.
By the end of his international career, in 1970, he had scored a staggering 37 tries in 38 matches for the Lions, a record to this day.
O’Reilly had a natural flamboyance and caught the South African public’s imagination similarly to Bob Skinstad in the late 1990s.
O’Reilly appeared to have it all – he was tall (1.87m or 6ft 2), powerfully built (95kg), highly intelligent, witty, and a talented musician.
He loved whiling away evenings on tour in pubs as an impromptu entertainer.
O’Reilly’s charm extended to Hollywood, and he was targeted for the starring role in the movie Ben Hur (1959).
He was invited for a screen test, but turned down the opportunity to concentrate on rugby and the role went to Charlton Heston. Ben Hur became one of the biggest blockbusters of all time.
O’Reilly would return to South Africa many times as the owner of Independent Media, an international publishing empire.
Older South Africans will remember the radio and television commentator Chick Henderson, but most will not know Henderson played for the Transvaal Quaggas against O’Reilly’s Lions.
Unfortunately, Lions forward Clem Thomas tackled Chick so heavily that he was temporarily left with a stutter and a tic.
When the Lions returned to South Africa in 1974, Thomas travelled as a radio commentator.
One of his BBC colleagues, Ian Robertson, suggested they visit Chick in Cape Town.
Robertson knew that Chick had made a full recovery, but Thomas had had no news of him for 19 years, and was reluctant to visit because he still felt bad about the injury.
But he did go, and was unaware he was being set up. Chick opened the door and stammered: “HHhhallo CCcclem. Cccome iiin,” while twitching his eyebrows.
Thomas went white as a ghost and had to sit down, shaken, until Henderson started speaking normally before bursting into laughter.
Thomas was not the only one to have a stiffening shock on that tour.
In fact, at the very beginning of the 1974 tour, there was an in-flight incident that had a similarly amusing ending after a worrying start.
Bobby Windsor, the tough hooker from Wales, was taken seriously ill thanks to an ill-advised prawn cocktail he had eaten the night before.
He collapsed with severe food poisoning not long after take-off for Johannesburg, and was laid out flat at the back of the plane, bathed in sweat.
A nurse who happened to be on the plane put ice cubes in his mouth to help cool him down.
This was unknown to the doctor in the Lions’ midst, Ken Kennedy, who happened to be Windsor’s rival for the hooker berth.
Kennedy put a thermometer into Windsor’s mouth, while coach Syd Millar looked on with great concern.
“How is he?” asked Millar when the thermometer was taken out. Aghast, Kennedy replied, “I think he’s dead!”
* Independent Media rugby writer Mike Greenaway is the author of The Fireside Springbok, a collection of South African rugby tales.
