An English athlete whose career was more than one play, after-the-jump ...
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News of the recent Rugby World Cup— where South Africa defeated England earlier this month — reminded me of a rugby story that ABC’s Jim McKay broadcast fifty-one years ago on Wide World of Sports. Just a week earlier, England’s Rugby League Challenge Cup final match ended on a disconsolate note for one team’s star player, which became the most replayed television image of the sport in Britain ever since. Yet at age eleven (and quite unfamiliar with rugby) I can’t say Jim McKay’s report fully registered with me, at the time.
Two parallels in US sports might be in baseball — one being the Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca, who allowed the 1951 comeback, walk-off pennant-winning home run by the NY Giants’ Bobby Thomson. For years, Branca was haunted by that memory (feeling that he had let his teammates down), asking his fiancée’s cousin (a priest at Fordham University), “Why me”? “God chose you,” Father Pat Rawley said, “because he knew you were strong enough to bear this cross.” Ralph Branca’s star rose over the years, though, because (a) it became known that the NY Giants had a sophisticated system of stealing signs from a center field lookout in home games, with Bobby Thomson able to know what pitch was coming and (b) his role in befriending Jackie Robinson — with his widow Rachel saying, "Ralph Branca was good to my husband when it wasn't fashionable to be good to him” — before Ralph Branca’s death nearly three years ago at age ninety.
In more recent times, it was the fate of Bill Buckner to endure a critical error in the 1986 World Series. Unfair: as his team’s bullpen had already blown a two-run lead (in fact, the error possibly came because pitcher Bob Stanley was so late covering first base) and the score was tied when the error occurred. The bullpen failed again in the following Game Seven. It was only when the Boston Red Sox began to win several championships earlier this century that people began to reappraise him — including giving him a two-minute standing ovation at Fenway Park on Opening Day of 2008 — before his death earlier this year at the age of sixty-nine.
All of which brings us to the story of Don Fox— whose life story did register with me as I read about it years later. He had an eighteen-year career in rugby league, all played for two teams in the northern England Yorkshire region. Born in 1935 (with two brothers who also were professional rugby stars) he joined the Featherstone Rovers at age eighteen for thirteen seasons, then joined his brother Neil in playing for Wakefield Trinity for five years. He also represented England (and later Great Britain) in international competition in the sport and was considering retirement at age thirty-two … but stayed on for a critical season.
On Saturday May 11, 1968 he took the field at London’s venerable Wembley Stadium with his Wakefield Trinity teammates in the Rugby League Challenge Cup final against Yorkshire county rivals Leeds. Two fateful events had occurred before kickoff: with one being his brother Neil (who did the bulk of goal-kicking) out with a groin injury, leaving that duty to Don. Then, there was torrential rain for several hours before kick-off, with the field being so water-logged that the match was dubbed the Watersplash final. A regular season match might have been cancelled, but with 87,000 fans in attendance: officials felt they could not call it off.
The rain returned in the second half, and the surface became even worse. With just seconds left to play: Leeds scored to hold a lead of 11-7. Then, an amazingly deceptive quick kick-off led to the ball squirting down the field towards the Leeds end zone, with Wakefield Trinity player Ken Hirst scoring a “try” (touching the ball down in the end zone) just before it went over the end line for three points to make the score 11-10. With no time left on the clock: Wakefield could now kick a two-point conversion from point-blank range. What’s more: unlike an extra point in American football, there is no snap and no defensive rush: like taking a free kick in soccer, only with no defenders in front. And in his brother’s absence, Don Fox — who had already been voted as Man-of-the-Match (the equivalent of our Most Valuable Player award) — stepped-forward to take the kick to win the title.
Many short videos of what happened next are barely visible; this one is lengthy but clear — the crux of what took place is shown between the 7:00 — 8:30 mark:
x xYouTube VideoThe water-soaked field threw-off his approach to the ball, and it went wide-right as TV announcer Eddie Waring famously intoned afterwards, “He’s a poor lad”.
The final whistle came afterwards, with Leeds holding on (for dear life) to an 11-10 championship victory … and a disconsolate Don Fox, whose individual Man-of-the-Match award was of cold comfort to him.
His teammates (and his brother Neil) all say that they would not have been playing in that match but for Don Fox. The Monday afterwards, the team returned to a public gathering at Wakefield Town Hall, with thousands of fans chanting “Don Fox …. Don Fox …. Don Fox”. And he feared they were there …. to hang him.
Yet unlike Ralph Branca and Bill Buckner (who spent years before receiving public absolution) ... the fans were there to cheer him on!
Don Fox decided to come back yet again the next season, to try and win that title. His teammate David Jeanes said (in a BBC documentary from last year’s fiftieth anniversary of the contest):
“The year after we had a chance of making it up to him, because we got to the semi-final. We all thought ‘We’ll do this for Don’ ... but we didn’t quite. That did leave a sadness, because he didn’t deserve that”.
Don Fox later coached rugby league before becoming a woodworker for a coal company. He never truly got over the miss, being treated for depression in his later years and after being admitted to a Wakefield hospital in August, 2008: he suffered head injuries from a fall. He never recovered from them, resulting in his death at age seventy-two (with his family beside his bed).
Let’s close with a tribute to the Wakefield fans who welcomed Don Fox home with open arms: a song The Pretenders wrote (twenty-five years later) that says it all.
x xYouTube VideoNow, on to Top Comments:
From indyada:
In today’s Abbreviated Pundit Roundup— this comment by The Geogre brilliantly shoots down the Republican squawking of "hearsay" or "second hand" in a feeble attempt to discredit the testimony of Impeachment Hearing witnesses -
Highlighted by fauxrs:
In the front-page story about the GOP being detached from reality— I liked this comment from Hatrax about how the press will react.
And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........
In the diary by Lefty Coaster about the press in the nation of Turkey ridiculing the Trumpster after his meeting with the Turkish president— yet another nickname for your-friend-and-mine in D.C. was coined by rlk.
TOP PHOTOSNovember 13th, 2019 Next - enjoy jotter's wonderful *PictureQuilt™* below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo.
(NOTE: Any missing images in the Quilt were removed because (a) they were from an unapproved source that somehow snuck through in the comments, or (b) it was an image from the DailyKos Image Library which didn't have permissions set to allow others to use it.) |
And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion:
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