Thread by @ajcdeane

#Deanehistory 162. This is the story of the 99 call made during the British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa in 1974. if you dislike sporting stories, or robust collective self-defence, don’t read this one, and write a robust letter of complaint to the NATO alliance.

The Lions team is a combined squad of English, Irish, Welsh and Scottish players. Periodically this handpicked group tours another rugby playing nation.

In 1974, the run of play was decisively in the visiting team’s favour. However, in the course of the tour the Lions felt that violent play against them by South African players was not being properly penalised, during or after games.

This had a different impact to the result it might have had today, as there were no video cameras for referees (and the spectators in the ground and at home) to watch back to see foul play,

and there were no substitutions unless a doctor declared a player unable to continue. So the Lions were getting battered, with no real comeback available.

It is fair to say that the Lions Captain, an Irish lock (or second row, same thing), Willie John McBride, was a man of a rather robust disposition, and up with this unpleasantness he would not put.

McBride instituted a policy: “one in, all in.” If you heard “99” called, you hit the nearest South African player to you (this being a shortening of the Irish and UK number for calling the police, 999. Dropping a digit just shows how efficient and direct this plan was).

Whilst they can unfairly penalise one of us in the course of not properly refereeing, went the logic, they can’t send us all off. And perhaps all of us whacking them might curtail this foul play. We’ll, er, get our retaliation in first, lads.

Thus commenced the most amazing series of punch ups in the history of world sport. The South Africans were hardly shrinking violets, and were ready for a physical style of play – for the second test, they picked a No. 8 as scrum half,

which is like getting a tank commander in to do your embroidery – but the sheer scale and extent of the violence in the 1974 tour would have some youngsters triggered to the point of therapy today.

Of course, whilst the instruction to hit the nearest South African is clear, in some passages of play the nearest South African to you might be some way away. At one point in a game in Port Elizabeth, the Lions full back JPR Williams was hanging back in a defensive position,

in a different postcode to the rest of the players when 99 was called. Footage of the game shows him running a marathon to catch up with play and lamp a South African quite some time after the rest of the handbag exchange had been completed.

Williams later said he was embarrassed about this and telling the story is of course not meant to admire punching or violence, of course. But there is a certain virtue in standing up for yourself in the face of bullies,

and addressing an issue the authorities concerns cannot or will not address themselves.

The Lions won the series 3-0. A knockout.

If you like stories from history, check out the @HistoryHrPod #podcast, which I co-host with @denvercunning - youtube.com/channel/UCzNqB…