Ray’s got unique place in Moss Lane history
WE SPEAK WITH A NUMBER OF WELL-KNOWN RUGBY FIGURES ABOUT THE CLUB THEY CALL THEIR OWN. THIS WEEK IT’S THE TURN OF LEGENDARY RUGBY LEAGUE COMMENTATOR AND FORMER ENGLAND RUGBY UNION No.8, RAY FRENCH
TAKE a glance to your right as you enter the main room of Liverpool St Helens’ Moss Lane clubhouse and you’ll see RJ French 2000/– written up on the presidents’ board. Nineteen years in office and still counting.
By then though, it’s likely you’ll have already come across the man himself. Despite turning 80 in December, Ray is still the go-to man when a job needs doing, whether it is sweeping the floor, stoking the clubhouse fire or manning the scoreboard – as well as being the club’s principal figurehead.
Ray’s involvement with the club stretches way back, long before St Helens RUFC merged with Liverpool RFC to form the current club in 1986.
It was the other more famous St Helens, of the Rugby League persuasion, that was his first love. “We used to live 500 yards from the old Saints ground (at Knowsley Road),” he says. “I was five-and-a-half when I first started going to matches. Everybody used to play touch rugby in the street using old socks tied together until it was time to walk up to the ground.”
So how did he end up playing Union at Moss Lane? “I was a pupil at Cowley School which had a terrific record of rugby nationwide and worldwide and I was sat in a Classics lesson one afternoon and the head of Classics, Maurice Clifton, said, ‘Ray, come here, I want a word with you’. I went over and he said to me, ‘Ray, you’re playing for St Helens on Saturday’.
“I was only 16/17 at the time but I was a big lad for my age so he must have thought I’d be okay.
“I didn’t have a clue where the club was and I didn’t have any kit, but he said, ‘don’t worry I’ll arrange a lift and sort you out with a jersey, shorts and socks – all you’ll need is some boots’.”
From those humble beginnings, Ray quickly established himself as a force to be reckoned with in the pack, and in 1961, aged 21, he became the first and only player to be capped for England, at lock, while still playing at Moss Lane.
“Alan Ashcroft, a lad who played here and is a great friend of mine went to Cowley School with me; he played here initially but then he went to play for Waterloo and was capped when he was there. I was the only one ever to play for England while I was here.
“When I got down to Twickenham there was a man called Carson Catcheside, I think he was the secretary of the RFU, and he gave you your expenses. Mine were two and six (half a crown). As I got to the front of the queue, he said, ‘French, where do you play?’ I told him the St Helens Rugby Union club, to which he replied, ‘I saw that in the programme, but I wasn’t aware there was a club there’. This was the guy that was in charge of the RFU! God bless him. He was quite taken back when I told him Alan, who was stood behind me in the queue, had also played there.”
Soon after his England cap, Ray moved to Rugby League and spent ten years with St Helens and Widnes.
French had long hung up his boots when St Helens and Liverpool came together to form one club. Rather than feel any sense of loss, he saw it as a wholly positive move. “It was the best thing that happened to this club, no doubt about it, because Liverpool brought a fixture list with them and some very fine players.”
Liverpool St Helens enjoyed a lofty status when leagues were introduced a year later, playing two seasons of top division rugby before a lack of financial support led to the inevitable fall from grace.
The club have now stabilised and are enjoying life in the new ADM Premier Division in the Lancashire County Leagues. “There is no side to anybody at this club, it is just an enjoyable place to be on a Saturday afternoon,” says Ray.
“If you’re looking at the future of the club, one aspect you have to say is that if you don’t have any money and can’t pay players, you won’t go very far. So the club have taken a stance of non-payment of players. What we are is a very good club for local lads who want to play socially.
“Sadly a lot of sides seem to be collapsing and running one team instead of four. We run three and occasionally four plus a vets’ side and we have a good mini and junior section, so it’s very healthy here.”