Billy Boston becomes Wales’ latest sporting knight

Billy Boston has become Wales’ latest sporting knight after being recognised in the King’s Birthday Honours List.

It was ‘Arise, Sir Billy’ at Buckingham Palace as one of the greatest Welsh exports from Tiger Bay was knighted by King Charles on Tuesday 10 June. In so doing he became the first rugby league player to be made a sporting knight.

One of the ’10 Originals’ inducted onto the Welsh Sports Hall of Fame ‘Roll of Honour’ in 1990, Sir Billy joins Sir Harry Llewellyn, Sir Gareth Edwards and Sir Gerald Davies as Wales’ sporting knights. They are also all included on our ‘Roll of Honour;, along with Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson.

Chris Brookes, chairman of Wigan Warriors, described the 90-year-old Sir Billy as a generational great and a humble hero.

“I’m absolutely delighted and so happy that Billy – and rugby league – has finally received the ultimate recognition his stellar career deserves,” said Brookes.

“He has remained the most modest of men, despite being the most revered player of our wonderful sport.”

That sentiment was echoed by Wigan owner Mike Danson, who described the award as “a richly deserved honour which means this most humble of men rightly receives, at last, fitting recognition for his extraordinary efforts”.

The move has also received high-level political backing. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy praised Boston’s contribution to the sport and society.

“Billy Boston’s knighthood is a historic milestone providing fitting recognition for the greatest player rugby league has ever seen,” she said.

“The first knighthood for a rugby league player is long overdue recognition for a game that has contributed so much to our national life. This is the moment we right a historic wrong.”

The decision to honour Boston now, rather than in the usual honours cycle, reflects a sense of urgency given his health and a broader effort to address what many see as a systemic oversight. He is currently living with dementia.

Cross-party MPs had spoken out about a perceived bias against rugby league, with some linking the lack of honours to class and cultural prejudice. Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Speaker of the House of Commons, has said it “cannot be right” that rugby league players are so often overlooked, while David Baines, chair of the Parliamentary rugby league group, has labelled the historic lack of honours a “scandal”.

“They come from working-class backgrounds, didn’t go to the right schools, and didn’t mix in the right social circles,” added Baines.

While the whole of the rugby league community welcomed the news, Wales also joined in wholeheartedly to congratulate the former Wigan and Great Britain try-scoring machine.

Born in Angelina Street in what was then known as Tiger Bay, Sir Billy won the Dewar Shield with Cardiff Schools U15 in 1949. He was in a side that triumphed 8-3 in Neath over Mynydd Mawr and contained future Wales captain Lloyd Williams and British and Commonwealth heavyweight boxing champion Joe Erskine.

He played for the Central Boys Club in Cardiff as well as Cardiff Juniors. At the age of 17 he captained the Boys Clubs of Wales against England in February 1952 at Neath, scoring 17 of his side’s points, including a hat-trick of tries, in a magnificent 32-0 win in front of a crowd of 5,000.

At that stage of his fledgling rugby union career he had already played for the Neath senior team at The Gnoll and had scored more than 120 points for the CIACS that same season.

A month later he was capped by the Wales Youth team. The Wales Youth side had played their first international against France in 1951 and then played Munster (twice) and Wales Schools before facing France again on 29 March 1952 – with Sir Billy scoring the only Welsh try in a 5-3 defeat in Aurillac.

This made Sir Billy the first black player to play for any Welsh rugby union representative side. As well as playing for Neath, he also played for Pontypridd before joining the Army to undertake his National Service.

At the age of 18 he led the Cardiff & District XV against Cardiff in the opening game of the 1952-53 season at the Arms Park. Cardiff, with Cliff Morgan playing at outside half and scoring two tries, won 22-0, but the Western Mail rugby writer JBG Thomas commented: “The District had a splendid centre in W Boston, who should be in the Cardiff Athletic XV.”

He never played for the senior Cardiff side and instead signed for Wigan at the age of 18, thus professionalising himself. He put pen to paper on the £3,000 offer from Wigan on 13 March 1953, although the contract wasn’t announced until a few months later.

During his National Service he was based in Catterick and became a star in the Royal Signals XV. He scored six tries against the Welsh Guards in the 1953 Army Cup Final and four of the Army’s five tries against the Territorial Army in 1954.

After watching that performance the Daily Express rugby writer, Pat Marshall, wrote: “If he had not signed professional forms he must have been in the current Welsh Rugby Union side. Quite simply, he is one of the greatest running back I have seen.”

His Wigan debut came in an A Team fixture on 31 October 1953, when he announced himself with two tries against Barrow A. His first team debut came against Barrow at Central Park on 21 November, when he scored the first of his 478 tries for the club in 488 appearances.

After his try scoring debut, he followed up with two tries in his second outing, three in his third and fourth in his fourth. His talent was soon spotted by the Great Britain selectors, who picked him to go on tour to Australia in the summer of 1954 – at 19, the youngest player to have ever toured with the squad.

He also became the first black player to be selected to tour Australasia. He played in all five Tests and scored 36 tries in 18 games on tour – including seven hat tricks and six against North Coast.

He also equalled the record for the most tries in a Test match with four against New Zealand in Auckland in the first international. He won a Welsh record of 31 Test caps for the Great Britain side.

An original inductee of the British Rugby League Hall of Fame, Welsh Sports Hall of Fame and Wigan Warriors Hall of Fame, Sir Billy was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1996 Birthday Honours “for services to the community in Wigan, Greater Manchester.”

He was one of five rugby league greats captured on a statue at Wembley, was then given his own statue in Wigan and two years ago took centre stage on a rugby league statue in Cardiff Bay alongside Gus Risman and Clive Sullivan.

He twice topped the rugby league try scoring charts and managed 60 touchdowns in the 1956-57 season. He won the Rugby League Challenge Cup three times in six trips to Wembley, ran in two tries in the 1960 Championship final to earn Wigan their first title in eight years, and picked up two Lancashire League and one Lancashire Cup winners medals.

He also scored against Australia in the decisive game in the 1960 World Championship series that earned GB the world crown. He remains one of Welsh sport’s greatest icons – a working class hero who has risen to become a knight of the realm!