Vivian Jenkins was one of the game’s legendary figures both on and off the field. He won 14 caps for Wales, marking his international debut against England by helping Wales win at Twickenham for the first time at the ripe old age of 21, played in one Test on the 1938 British & Irish Lions tour to South Africa, represented the Barbarians and captained London Welsh and Kent.
He was the first Welsh full back to score a try and helped Wales to beat New Zealand in 1935. He then became the chief rugby correspondent of the Sunday Times, the first Editor of Rugby World and Rothmans Rugby Yearbook.
He went up to Jesus College, Oxford as an Exhibitioner from Llandovery College in 1930. He turned 19 a month before the Varsity Match.
He was picked as a fresh-faced, freshman full back in 1930 and played in three successive Varsity Matches without defeat. He became a double Blue when he kept wicket in the 1933 cricket match at Lord’s, helping the Dark Blues force a draw.
In 1962, in an article in “The Book of Rugby Football”, edited by his great friend and journalistic colleague JBG ‘Bryn’ Thomas, Jenkins wrote about how he learned of his selection for the 1930 Varsity match. The sentiments expressed remain with those who will get the call in 2016.
‘It is a long time now since Steve Hofmeyr, a cheery South African, came round to the lodge of Jesus College, Oxford, one dark December night and asked me to play in the Varsity Match of 1930.
‘That is now over 30 years ago, alas, but every detail of that meeting is as clear in my mind today as when it took place. Steve, blond-haired and irrepressible, and as good a hooker as they come, was the Varsity rugger captain that year. I, not long out of school at Llandovery, was a mere freshman, still feeling my way in these new and slightly daunting surroundings.
‘The Varsity captain, to one such, was something like a ‘demi-god’, not quite of this world, yet here he was, actually wanting to see me. What on earth, I asked myself, could he want? It was a cold, frosty night, I remember, not made any warmer by the dim light in the lodge, and only a few formal words passed,
‘Could I play . . . ?’ etc, etc. I could hardly believe my ears. Could I play! My lips, somehow, stammered out the answer – ‘yes’, of course, and ‘thank you very much’, etc – but my heart took a bound that nearly lifted the roof.
‘That was all, on the surface. A few more words and Steve had gone, out into the night, whence he had come; but what a change those few minutes brought to my own immediate outlook on lie.
‘I knew, then, what it means to shout out loud, for the sheer joy of living, but couldn’t do so, of course. Instead I went to the deserted outer quad, there to walk round and round, all by myself, for a full 20 minutes, clenching and unclenching my hands, and blessing the stars above for the luck they had brought.
‘Far fetched? No, quite true, even though my words may have given the picture inadequately. All I know is that no sporting moment that came my way afterwards ever gave me quite the same feeling as that.
‘It was a thrill, naturally, to get an international cap, to play for the Barbarians, to go on a Lions’ tour; but by then one has become older, the emotions are not quite so intense, and one has seen, and played in, a lot of rugby in the meantime.
‘At 19, straight from school, life is at the Spring, and it is this freshness of outlook, the feeling of whole worlds to conquer, the challenge of something new and unknown – almost unnerving at the time! – that gives the Varsity match its own peculiar flavour. It is the apotheosis , as it were, of all that is best in the best of schools’ rugby.
‘The same do-or-die effort to win, the same concentration on reaching the peak of fitness, the same emphasis, one hopes, on playing the game ‘clean’, and knowing the difference between ‘hard’ rugby and ‘dirty’ rugby – all this comes to a head in the varsity match, at a higher level again than schools’ rugby, because of the quality of the players engaged.’
Watch footage from the 1933 Varsity Match:
