British Lions tours were more fun in the amateur days — ask the Irish rover who masterminded a jailbreak

IOL News

06-07-2025

The British and Irish Lions tour is under way in Australia and I came across a delightful recollection of the Queensland Reds' defeat of the mighty Lions of 1971, the team that went on to win a series in New Zealand.
The anecdotes in the story highlight what a different sport it was in the amateur days and it is hard to argue that far more fun was had when the players were not playing too make a living.
The Reds' game was the Lions' tour opener and they blamed their 15-11 loss on hangovers and jet lag. And they weren't lying. Their travel schedule was excruciating and when they got to their last stop before Australia, Hong Kong, they had a long night on the lash.
Their London to Brisbane marathon was via Frankfurt, Tehran, Delhi and Hong Kong.
'I was on the field. I wouldn't say I was playing. All I wanted to do at half-time was lie down,' captain Willie John McBride said.
On the Queensland side, one of the players, Jeff McLean, was pulling beers in his father's pub on the morning of the game before throwing his gear together to play on the wing.
It was no easy thing getting into the ground for the Queensland players.
'There was such a traffic jam that the coppers stopped us at the gate at Ballymore and weren't going to let our car in,'' McLean said
"(Reserve flanker) Jules Guerassimoff was with me and said to the policeman: 'Have you ever seen this many people riot? No, but you will, because we're the players'.''
Despite the sweetness of beating the star-studded Lions, Queensland captain Barry Honan was back teaching maths and physics at Marist College the next day.
Honan said, 'They were the true amateur days. I was back at work the next day and got a bill from the Queensland Rugby Union a few weeks later for jerseys I'd swapped.'
But my favourite stories from Lions tours are about the ultimate Irish rover, Blair 'Paddy 'Mayne, who got up to spectacular mischief in South Africa in 1938.
In Durban, a bored Mayne contrived to have some fun. With his sidekick Bunners Travers, a coal miner from Wales, they dressed up as sailors and prowled the roughest pubs at the harbour, causing so many fights that the Natal Mercury carried a report about unrest in the harbour. Both made it back to their hotel intact and unnamed.
In Johannesburg, Mayne noticed prison laborours erecting temporary stands at Ellis Park. He got chatting to a prisoner and was told the fellow had been jailed for stealing a loaf of bread.
Mayne was appalled at the harshness of the sentence. That night, he and Travers snuck back to the compound at Ellis Park where the prisoners were sleeping with bolt cutters. A hole was cut in the fence and the prisoner freed and given a set of clothes.
The fellow spent a few days on the run before being rearrested — a policeman had stopped him because he looked too well dressed.
It was Cape Town that witnessed Mayne's tour de force. The Lions players were walking from their hotel to an official function, resplendent in white dinner suits, when Mayne spotted a group of men sitting outside a bar with rifles and lamps. Mayne, a skilled marksman, was curious and quietly peeled off from his group and joined them.
It turned out these men were on their way to the outskirts of Cape Town for a nocturnal hunt.
Mayne's roommate, George Cromey, read until 3am in his bed, waiting for Mayne to return. He had just given up and was dozing off when the door was flung off its hinges and a triumphant Mayne stood in the doorway and proclaimed: 'I have just shot a Springbok!'
A highly alarmed Cromey switched on the light, and there was Mayne, his white suit streaked in red, with a four-legged Springbok draped over his shoulders.
'The boys have been complaining that the meat in South Africa is not as fresh as at home,' Mayne beamed. He then proceeded to captain Sam Walker's room and flung the animal at him, adding: 'Fresh meat for you, Sammy!'
Unfortunately, one of the horns jabbed into Walker's thigh and he could not play for a few weeks.
But how to dispose of the antelope?
Mayne knew that the manager of the Springboks was staying in the same hotel. This fellow had a balcony outside his room and Mayne somehow climbed up to it with the bok and hung it over the railing with a note attached: 'A gift of fresh meat from the British Lions rugby team.'
Mike Greenaway is the author of best-selling books The Fireside Springbok and Bok to Bok.