Sir Billy Boston, who has died aged 92, was one of the greatest, and most popular, rugby league players of all time. A rambunctious, explosive powerhouse of a winger for Great Britain and Wigan during the 1950s and 60s, he would leave trails of bedraggled tacklers in his wake with his blockbusting runs, while his robust defensive work often left opponents dazed. With Boston’s strength, though, came great pace and handling skills, allied to a swerve and sidestep that few were able to counter.
As a result he was a prodigious scorer of tries – 571 in 562 matches across a 17-year career in which he won a World Cup with Great Britain as well as three Challenge Cups and a league championship with Wigan. Once described as “a showman who doesn’t show off”, Boston was above all an entertainer, a quietly charismatic crowd-puller whose friendly and modest demeanour made him a fine and impressive ambassador for the game. Although he was Wigan’s favourite son, Boston was born in Tiger Bay, Cardiff, from where his near contemporary, the singer Shirley Bassey, also originated.
Like many other inhabitants of that cosmopolitan docklands area, Billy was of mixed heritage. The sixth of 11 children born to John, a seaman from Sierra Leone, and his wife, Nellie, with Irish antecedents, he weighed 6.8kg (15lb) at birth; in his prime he was 95kg (15 stone) of hard muscle on a 1.78m (5ft 10in) frame. At South Church Street school Billy excelled at sport, and after leaving at 14 worked at a factory making rubber dinghies and parachutes.
He played rugby union at a minor club in Tiger Bay, where he became something of a sensation and developed a burning ambition to appear for Cardiff and Wales. However, although he was picked for various representative teams and was regarded as hot property in the city, Cardiff studiously ignored his prodigious talent. But by then rugby league representatives from the north of England were on his trail.
Opposed to the idea of leaving Wales and still optimistic of a future in rugby union, he was pleased to be called up on national service the following year, imagining that two years in the Royal Signals as a physical training instructor in Yorkshire would keep him out of the scouts’ reach. However, by 1953 Wigan had also joined the hunt, meeting a reluctant Boston and his parents while he was on leave in Cardiff and proposing a huge £1,500 cash payment in five-pound notes if he would join straight away. Billy was against any deal and so his mother decided to frighten off the club by saying he would sign only for double that fee.
To their dismay, a further £1,500 in fivers was immediately slapped on the table, and the offer had to be accepted. Boston made his debut against Barrow in late 1953 while still serving in the army, scoring a try and almost immediately attracting attention as a future star. After his initial qualms about moving from union to league, he soon became enamoured with the new code, which he found to be more open in all ways.
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