By STEVE MASCORD
I CAN already see Herr ‘head ‘itter scratching at his eyeballs as he reads this column. “Graham Clay, Richard Shaw-Wright and now … Gavin Willacy?? That pillock Mascord will be interviewing his sister next week!”
So to assuage the fear that I’m no longer willing to go past my letter box in search of a subject for Mascord Meets, I’m not just going to interview the author of the fantastic No Helmets Required book – but we’re going to take a trip together.
On Saturday we ventured to Twickenham, aka the Death Star, for the World Rugby Sevens.
Gavin’s wife is a freelance heath journalist (Conversely,I’m an unhealthy freelance journalist) and she was offered tickets some time ago. Originally they were press tickets but we end up out with the great unwashed … who turn out to be the great dressed up.
Dressed up as dinosaurs, Bay Watch life guards and members of Guns N’Roses, that is.
You can spot them on the platform of your local station, perhaps having a tipple at 10am through the tube in their inflatable get-up. On Clapham Junction station there are more of them and at Twickenham the streets are positively heaving. I’ve never seen as many pedestrian wardens at a rugby league event. “Stay on the footpath sir.” “Hurry across now”.
If you’ve been to the Death Star, you’ll know it’s not a particularly attractive venue. But those ugly open spaces have been turned into party areas with a covers band that, from the sounds of them, hail from Yorkshire being given an uproarious response.
There’s fan zone the size of a town fair,
The rugby is on the big screens everywhere. No-one’s looking. We find our seats, down by the in-goal area. Teams are warming up two matches in advance.
I actually enjoy the rugby. The line-outs are the most obvious sign that this is not rugby league; most rucks look like play-the-balls and even the ground announcer is the same guy we have at our big events! Direct from Magic, this bloke!
Semi Radradra scores a try for the Fijians and as you’d expect from them, their skills are mesmeric at times. People who are inside the bowl and actually watching audibly gasp at some of it.
But generally speaking, it’s fun to watch – like a highlights reel of a rugby league game. One fellow steps off both feet, keeps the ball off the ground as a second defender closes in on a tackle and then when a third commits, brilliantly pops the ball up to a support. With a huge overlap, his mate scores just in front of us.
Time to get out the old voice recorder. Gavin’s book, No Helmets Required, is about the 1953 American All Stars who travelled to Australasia. The book has just been printed in paper back, a result of the sport’s renewed interest in North America as much as anything.
I ask him what it’s like for events such as the 2025 World Cup, Denver and the Wolfpack to breath new life into a book that’s been out for five years.
“I think it got a second life because it sold out, basically, through general interest in USA Rugby League and the story of this team but the timing has just been a remarkable bit of luck,” Gavin says over the din.
“It’s come out in the month of what’s going to be the first official Test match in the States, although not – as we know from the book – the first time two tier one nations have played there.”
Gavin once told me his publishers had not appreciated just how “double niche” the book was – not just rugby league, which is one minority sport, but American rugby league. It’s a minority within a minority. It strikes me Pitch Publishing would be rather shocked that half a decade later demand is such that they’re putting out a paperback.
“Pitch Publishing were pleased with how it went – it’s come in waves,” said Gavin. “It went well initially, then died a death, then it had a longer life and kept selling ’til the end – hence the paperback.
“They find it all a bit bizarre – but the story sells itself.”
Gavin still believes the story has potential as a movie. He is desperate to get Russell Crowe’s attention. “I hope the paperback coming out will help,” he says. It will be released in the US and Australia.
You probably know Graham for his Guardian Blog, which carries the same title as his book. He is also closely associated with Scottish Rugby League – but he’s not American and he’s not Scottish. To explain this, I shall refer partially back to episode 85 of the unfeasibly brilliant White Line Fever podcast, on which Gavin was a guest.
Gav is from Hertfordshire and spent time at university in the north but “that’s nothing to do with my love of rugby league”
It’s more a case of his dad, a former Pontefract resident, taking young Gav to Challenge Cup finals.
“Then I moved into a mate’s pub – well, actually, above the pub – and he had Sky,” Willacy recalls. “That was a turning point. What had I been missing?
“Being a part of something away from the mainstream attracts me, personally. I don’t really like the mainstream of anything.”
Gavin works for the Football League’s education arm. He did write for Football365.com as a rugby league writer when they launched sport365.com . When he was made redundant, he went to Australia and watch NRL for three months – further cementing himself in our loving embrace.
The involvement with Scotland came via the invitation of former RLEF boss (not the former Aussie PM) Kevin Rudd. He toured to Holland with the Bravehearts and “I just instantly felt a sense of belonging. We were a rag tag bunch from all over the place with a common cause.”
Gavin wears a USA Rugby League T-shirt to the sevens and has a Scotland polo ready to put on when it’s their turn to play – but it’s too hot for that.
At the end of the day he’s off to a party at the house of TalkSport announcer Adrian Durham and I’m off home to sleep on the couch.
What has meshed our game together? I would say: American and abbreviated forms of rugby. Like it or not, America and Nines loom very large in the future of our game.
By attending the rugby sevens and talking about No Helmets Required, we can see an under-appreciated past and a potentially glorious future that will come if we learn from it.
