Band of Brothers - Boxer's Cumbria beats the superstars

The record attendance for a County Championship match is more than 12,000, a figure reached several times in the late 1940s. But 30 years later the competition had become less important and, occasionally at least, certain players would not go out of their way to make themselves available, especially in the heartlands of game, where selectors had 14 teams to choose from. That never happened in Cumbria, where players took their roots more seriously and selection for the county was talked of with great passion. Cumbria travelled to Central Park, Wigan, to face Lancashire, on September 16, 1981, and they were not expected to win. And to make matters worse, there were four late withdrawals - two on the day before and two on the same day of the game, with the kick- off less than 10 hours away.

This unexpected development severely depleted the side and as late as 6pm, there were fears that they might be unable to raise a side. The coach carrying most of the team from Cumbria had to take several detours to service stations along the M6 to enable anxious officials to grab hold of handfuls of change and use public telephones where they opened their contact books and commenced contacting eligible Cumbrians, who were based within range of the stadium. Johnny Jones and Joe Stewart stepped in from West Cumbria plus the Lancashire-based pair, Harold Henney and Bob Blackwood. The full Cumbria team was: Steve Tickle, Ralph McConnell, Peter Stoddart, Johnny Jones, David Beck, Mel Mason, Arnold 'Boxer' Walker (captain), Harold Henney, Alan McCurrie, Malcolm Flynn, Les Gorley, Peter Gorley, Gordon Cottier. Subs: Joe Stewart and Bob Blackwood.

Perhaps it was the drama of the situation that helped the players dig deep down inside them for inspiration. Defeat was a possibility they were not going to entertain and they pulled off an unexpected 27-15 win. Boxer, who was skippering the side for the fifth time, scored two tries and kicked a goal with most of the headlines referring to the early dismissals of hookers Alan McCurrie for Cumbria and Nicky Kiss. Bob Blackwood, who is often referred to as Spanner Man, was a back row forward who would conjure up images of mayhem in the minds of rival fans. He was a fine player who excelled mostly in his role as a violent protector of half backs. Boxer loved playing with Bob, who took any attempt to intimidate his team-mates as an affront to his sensibilities and it always ignited his retributive inclinations.

Bob was never ever someone to take liberties with and, as you might expect, he was a key motivator and committed manufacturer of fearlessness among his team-mates. His acumen for havoc provided him with the perfect requirements for an alternative occupation as a night club bouncer and he was a regular and much-feared doorman at Jim Mills' night club in Widnes town centre. The club, which had opened in 1979, was a popular venue where Bernard Manning, Roy Walker and Engelbert Humperdinck often appeared. Two hours after the final whistle at Central Park and 15 triumphant Cumbrians were celebrating and knocking back a few beers while Big Jim is assisting the waiters to bring out large platters of scampi and chips. The county selectors met the following weekend to pick the side for the second game which would take place at the Recreation Ground on Wednesday evening.

 The players assumed that they would have no choice but to give their display a glowing assessment and that their defeat of Lancashire was so unexpected and extraordinary that the side would remain unchanged. The selectors didn't quite see it that way. Newspapers published the team on Monday and all the players who had cried off had now made themselves available and the makeshift team, which had defeated Lancashire so emphatically, had an altogether different feel to it. Les Gorley was one of the best second row forwards in the world but he took his star status as nothing much to get excited about. He was a quiet man not given to public shows of emotion and while other more extrovert players such as Boxer were a vocal and demanding presence among the senior players, Les would just sit back and take it all in. When he spoke everyone listened and on this occasion, for once, he had plenty to say. There was a body of opinion among the senior players that believed a great injustice had been perpetrated by the selectors.

So Les telephoned his brother Peter and his captain Boxer Walker to solicit their opinions, which were exactly the same as his. The exact chain of events will probably never be known but for sure, Les telephoned Jack Atkinson, Workington Town's representative on the county selection panel, and gave him a simple message which would not be subject to negotiation and would leave them with only two choices. "Put out the same team or we ain't playing," he said. What went on behind the scenes is unclear but the following evening, the original players were all reinstated. Boxer was always popular among his team-mates and his eagerness to fully support what many people, coming from a different viewpoint, might have considered a mutiny, strengthened his iconic status as a great leader and was enthusiastically received across the county. Justice had been achieved, but unfortunately for Boxer, within 24 hours, his reputation would take a nose-dive.

And it all happened right in front of the players who loved him - in the middle of Derwent Park dressing room. § It is sometime around 6.10pm on Tuesday, September 22, 1981. Fifteen brave men are sitting in the dressing room at Derwent Park preparing for their final training session before facing the might of Yorkshire at the Recreation Ground the next evening. Following their unexpected victory over Lancashire the previous week, Cumbria were close to making history. If they could win they would lift the county championship two years in succession, only the third time that had ever happened. Most of the team were Cumbrian-based and had only travelled a few miles to the stadium while hooker Alan McCurrie had driven three hours from central Yorkshire where he was a star for Wakefield Trinity. Everyone was changed and ready to start but one important player was missing - skipper Boxer Walker and coach Sol Roper was pacing up and down, staring at his watch and wondering if they should start without him. There was a bang on the door and Boxer was among them wearing a stupid grin and just standing, unsteadily, right next to Sol.

There was complete silence as the players stared in his direction, their mouths slightly ajar, not sure what to make of it. Nothing was said for several seconds. It was as if someone had told an absolutely disgusting and rude joke that was not in the slightest bit funny. Boxer was as drunk as it is possible to get without being unconscious, following an eventful pub crawl around Whitehaven town centre, where he began with the best of intentions at the Shakespeare, in Roper Street, sometime around 2pm. Unfortunately, his celebrity status and sensitive feelings quickly got the better of him. Following a few drinks in the Ship Inn, his father's favourite bar, and a couple more in the Vine Hotel, he dropped in on The Central, in Duke Street, where he telephoned for a taxi to take him to Workington, but not before a few more beers. And here he was, making a fool of himself, and looking like Lee Marvin in a scene from Cat Ballou.

Then, suddenly, without warning, he fell over, right at the feet of Sol - crash - and he was on the floor, struggling to get up. Sol was familiar with Boxer's irresponsible behaviour and he had developed a certain skill in controlling him yet still allowing the scrum half to express himself, unhindered on the field. He had given up trying to moderate his behaviour or interfering. Sol just let him get on with it. But this, well, what could he do about this car crash in front of him? "Oh my God, you're going to get me sacked," said Sol, helping Boxer to stand up and pushing him towards the door and ordering someone to telephone for a taxi. "Get this silly sod out of here." Boxer stumbled out of the dressing room and was contemplating a right turn which would have taken him into the 200 Club lounge, now known as The Tom Mitchell Bar, where further alcoholic attractions awaited him. Fortunately for him, Town's front row forward Harry Beverley was barring his way.

Harry was known for his fearless play on the field but, like most tough men, away from the ritual confrontation, he had a gentle and kindly personality. He literally carried Boxer along the corridor and into the car park where a taxi was pulling up. Harry grabbed him by the throat with those enormous hands of his and blasted into his face: "Get yourself home or I'll rip your bloody head off," he said before throwing the scrum half into the back of the taxi, perhaps more violently than was necessary, but with an economy of effort, like one might swing a heavy suitcase into a luggage rack in a railway carriage, and he slammed the door and watched the car pull away in the early evening twilight. "I had been on the drink all day," recalls Boxer. "I was in a right state and looking back I was so lucky to come across Harry who was a fantastic guy. I turned up for the match the next day and walked into the dressing room. I thought I would be dropped but no one said anything so I started getting ready. Sol just looked at me and never said a word."

Cumbria won the match 20-10 in dreadful conditions with the rain falling down in great silver sheets - large pools of water had appeared without warning on the field as gale force winds blasted across the county from the Irish Sea. The team had made history and, as unbelievable as it may sound, viewed through a prism 37 years later, in a modern world full of scientific analysis, gluten-free meals and sports psychologists, Boxer, with alcohol still coursing through his veins, was quite magnificent. He scored a vital try and, according to contemporary match reports, had a fine game against his opposite number Steve Nash, who was a Great Britain international and World Cup winner.

"The Gorley brothers formed a progressive second-row pair for Cumbria with Les playing a prominent part in two of their tries. Walker led Cumbria with his usual aggressive spirit," reported Raymond Fletcher in The Yorkshire Post. Back in the dressing room, his transgressions were forgotten and there was much merriment but Sol was still distant with his scrum half as the beer cans popped open. "I had come out of the bath and was getting dressed," says Boxer. "Sol just walked over to me and shook his head a few times. I couldn't figure it out. I asked him what the matter was. I always remember what he said: 'Do you know something, lad. George Best has nothing on you. You're always drinking and messing about in night clubs - you'll sup anything out of a sweaty clog. You defy medical science.' "I just couldn't be controlled, I don't know why.

"There was a police chief inspector called Ted Alderson at Whitehaven. I got to know him really well. He got hold of me one day and told me what everyone was saying about me around Whitehaven. He told me that all the directors were nattering about me. He said they were getting phone calls every week saying I had been seen staggering around the town centre. He told me that if I felt like a drink I should go somewhere out of the way, like St Bees, where I might not be recognised. I told him that it wasn't as much fun drinking on your own where there were no people. I liked company and I wouldn't listen to anyone."

Boxer made his debut for Cumberland on October 24, 1973, when they lost to the touring Australians 28-2 at Whitehaven. He was just 21-years-old and had played less than 30 first-team matches, but even then, those who knew about such things could see he had greatness in him. "I remember getting a phone call from one of the Town directors," recalls Boxer. "He told me that the original scrum half, who was a good Whitehaven lad called Joe Bonnar, who went to Wakefield, had pulled out injured. I was only a young pup and I was really shocked - I didn't expect it. I was really chuffed to bits, and it had honestly never crossed my mind, not for a minute. The captain was Spanky and I played really well."

Boxer would go on to play 19 times for his county, winning two championships and captaining the team eight times, including scoring the winning try in a victory over New Zealand. His appointment as skipper was inevitable. He was following a long line of leaders who had fostered a togetherness that would envelop the players in a fraternity of loyalty which was almost spiritual and could not be equalled in the dressing rooms of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Pulling on the black and white hoops of Cumbria made them feel invincible and full of self-belief and self-reliance, born of isolation - a band of brothers. When a new player joined this exclusive club, he was made to feel special and at ease, wanted, important, respected and a lot more besides. It was like being invited to a new and incredibly loyal and affectionate family rather than being in a team of professional sportsmen.

Boxer's qualities of leadership were based on the example he set. He was never distant or aloof but rather one of them and always willing to take on his share of work though there were many coaches and team-mates who felt he should leave his defensive duties to other, less creative players. He would never hide or take a rest. And they all loved him for it. "I remember being picked as captain for the first time," he says. "I took over from Paul Charlton who had retired and we beat Yorkshire 17-13. I was so proud. To be picked as county captain I must have been playing really well. But it was also important that I got on well with all the lads. I would make sure I had a crack with our experienced players and find out what they were thinking. It is no good having a captain who everyone hates - that's never going to work. And you have to keep your head, you can't just go around the field shouting or losing your temper. I had more experience then. Every captain - and I don't care who it is - makes mistakes. When I was captain I suppose the lads all respected me and my decisions. They didn't question me, ever.

"I had to get on not only with the players but also with the coach and all the officials. If there was a problem with the players I would have to sort it. I suppose a captain is a bit like a union leader. It is no good 12 individual players charging in to sort things out. They came to me and I had to sort it. I was the spokesman." In his second season in charge, Cumbria won the county championship for the first time since 1966, after defeating Lancashire 19-16 at Craven Park, Barrow, before travelling to Hull Kingston Rovers the following week and getting the better of Yorkshire 17-16. Their opponents took the game very seriously and played seven full Great Britain internationals. "I will never forget that match at Hull KR," says Boxer. "There was a lot of traffic and we arrived late.

"Our coach was Phil Kitchin and when I look back I can still see him giving us our team talk at the head of the coach while we tried to put on our shirts and boots. He gave a great talk, telling us that we had to put all this behind us and not look for any excuses. He told us how much faith he had in us and how talented we were and that we should go out there and show everyone how good we were. I remember having a laugh with Bill Oxley, one of Cumbria's selectors from Barrow, after the game. He told me that he was just starting to tell someone that I was not doing much and just as the words were coming out of his mouth I scored a try, right under their posts."

Winning the county championship had always been a big deal to Cumbrians and it was a tradition of the tournament that the winning captain received the trophy after the final game at a civic reception. Such social events were not Boxer's thing but even he would admit that such a public acknowledgement of his team's amazing achievement would be something to savour. There was one problem - the trophy wasn't there. Peter Gorley has a vivid memory of what unfolded on that night in Hull.

"Everybody respected Boxer and not just in our team, in every other team throughout the game," he says. "We knew when we went out on that field, playing for Cumbria, we had faith, respect and trust in every one of our players. We knew we weren't just a match for them but that we could beat them. On that night at Hull KR we arrived late but we had five minutes in the dressing room before the kick-off and there were a load of programmes on the treatment table. The first thing we did was look at their team. I was sitting next to our Les and I remember this really well, I asked him what he thought. He told me: 'Well, our pack is better than theirs.' I said I thought so too and that if our backs could hold their backs we would win.

"Just before half-time we got a penalty on their 25-yard line and Boxer tapped the ball quickly and passed it to me. Trevor Skerrett tackled me and I hit him with my shoulder and managed to squeeze past Knocker Norton, to get over for a try. It was nip and tuck all through the second half until John Cunningham dropped the winning goal late on. Trevor and Knocker were both great lads, we had some brilliant times together. "In the after-match reception, because Lancashire had won the county championship the year before and everyone was so confident that Yorkshire were going to beat us, they didn't have the cup to present.

" There was a director, I think he was from Barrow, and he made this speech which must have been so embarrassing for everybody, apart from us. He told everyone that we had come down here and nobody had given us a chance and that the only people who did were the lads in our dressing room. You haven't even bothered bringing the trophy, he told them all. We all burst out laughing." Three weeks later and the Cumbrians beat New Zealand at the Recreation Ground, wearing a new strip with a running fox sewn onto the chest. Boxer remembers: "That was one of my proudest moments. The weather was terrible and again - Phil Kitchin was a big part of that win. He gave a great speech in the dressing room that fired us all up.

"He told us that we were the champions and that we had to show them what we are made of. They picked their full Test team and no-one gave us a chance. I can still remember scoring the winning try. There was a scrum on their line and I dummied their scrum half, Gordon Smith, and stepped by their loose forward and captain Mark Graham. We all jumped up in the air because there was no time left and we knew we had won. We were overwhelmed, and we started going crazy and jumping on each other's backs. What an achievement for a team from Cumbria to beat a touring side. Phil was so proud of us." During Boxer's nine-year career, he played alongside more than 100 different team-mates including several who had played many times in Test matches for Great Britain. Yet when you ask him who are his favourite players, his answer is so surprising it can only be described as unbelievable, especially so, considering he shared dressing rooms with many legendary men.

They were not the fastest, the strongest, the most creative, the most elusive, they did not kick goals and they did not score many tries. Even the most passionate county supporter would not describe them as matchwinners, no, rather they were vital, and often unseen members of Cumbria's supporting cast. But they are stars to Boxer. They are Malcolm Flynn and Tom Gainford. Malcolm was a Wath Brow forward who played with distinction for Barrow for more than 10 years and Tom was a Whitehaven loose forward who also played for Barrow. According to Boxer, they had inexhaustible supplies of what might be described in a broad sweep as courage, bottle, guts, valour, team spirit, togetherness, willingness to sacrifice yourself for the common good, and a whole host of other emotional descriptions - but whatever you want to call it, their contribution was the essence of what made Cumbrians, back then at least, special, unique and so difficult to beat.

Tom's appetite for defence was a truly remarkable thing to witness first-hand. And on top of that, if the grand title of 'best value player' existed he would be right up there, at the top of the tree. Tom inevitably came from Kells, and he was summoned to the Recreation Ground in 1967 where directors opened up negotiations which were concluded in around 20 seconds. Tom's lack of arrogance made him popular among his team-mates but it was not a particularly helpful characteristic in financial negotiations and, for sure, he underestimated his true worth. He was  offered £100 signing on fee but played hard ball and signed on the dotted line for another £25. In all matters concerning tackling, Tom was in a category all of his own. If he came off the field with a tackle count of less than 40 he would brood in the dressing room, with a guilty expression on his face. He made 284 appearances for Whitehaven, in 12 years, and at least 10,000 tackles later he was transferred to Barrow for around £12,000 - which was almost 100 times his signing on fee. "Malcolm and Tom would always be there for the team," says Boxer.

"They were a dream for a captain. If we had six tackles to clear our line and I said to one of them: 'come on, yours again' and they might perhaps take four out of those six, they would do it. I would never do that but Tom and Malcolm would always be there ready to do whatever I asked them for the good of Cumbria. "I never had one single complaint from them, not in the dressing room, not on the field, nowhere. I think Malcom should have played for Great Britain. He would be in my side all the time. I played with the best around for England and Great Britain and Malcom was just as good. I loved him. "As for Tom, well his work-rate was always 200 per cent. You could always guarantee he would be there knocking all the big men down time after time. He did so much defending that he kept our ball players fresh. And just like Malcolm he never complained about other players who didn't do half his work. He was the perfect player to play with for Cumbria.

"A couple of years ago I was getting in my car in the middle of Whitehaven and a woman shouted to me, asking if I knew her nephew, she told me he was called Malcolm Flynn. My eyes lit up with excitement because I hadn't seen Malcolm for years, not since we played together. He was one of the best players I had ever played with. She couldn't believe it, and I told her to make sure she told him what I had said. Malcolm was right up there with the best and almost as good as Les Gorley but Les was perhaps a bit cleverer. Tom was tall but he wasn't even two stones heavier than me. Yet he was a complete tackling machine and he hardly ever missed. No one got past him. I liked playing with people who didn't moan. Another player I want to give a mention to is Ian Wright - how he never played for Great Britain I'll never know."

Two days after Cumbria defeated New Zealand, selectors announced Great Britain's 20-man squad for the forthcoming opening Test match. All the newspaper reporters' predictions were accurate - Boxer had made it. He joined the players for a pre-match training night at Rothwell, Leeds, along with his Cumbrian friend Peter Gorley, 10 days before the First Test. But again, his dream of wearing that shirt would be broken by another thug who knocked him out cold and left him with a fractured cheekbone.