Eddie Butler: rugby’s lyricist found his words and his feet in a Pontypool jersey

On the face of it, Eddie Butler and Pontypool did not make a natural fit. Educated privately at Monmouth school and with an accent that was more home counties than Torfaen valley, the Cambridge University student could have been expected to graduate to establishment clubs such as Newport and Cardiff rather than one that played on a public park and were regarded by many in the Welsh media as neanderthal in their approach to the game.

But how it worked. Butler spent his 14-year playing career from 1976 with Pontypool, mucking in at a club he described as a commune. They were run then by Ray Prosser, a coach whose gameplan was forged when he toured New Zealand with the British & Irish Lions in 1959. His mantra was man-handlers not ball-handlers and he had no favourites. Even the renowned Pontypool front row of Graham Price, Bobby Windsor and Tony Faulkner knew they would face his wrath if they stepped out of line.

Butler told the story of how, before his Cambridge University side played at Pontypool, Prosser had told his players to keep their fists to themselves and not take the law into their own hands no matter how much they felt the need to: his new recruit’s family were watching and he did not want them to leave with a negative image that could tempt their son to look elsewhere.

Pooler, in Butler’s words, were “red of claw, quite violent really”. They were not renowned for turning the other cheek but, with the players heeding Prosser’s orders, they did nothing as Cambridge killed the ball, flopped over on the wrong side and lurked offside, growing ever more daring as the expected retribution failed to materialise.

There were only a few minutes to go when, after another blatant misdemeanour, Faulkner’s instinct kicked in