Ken Jones was one of Wales’s greatest all-round sportsmen. He played 44 consecutive matches on the wing for Wales between 1947-1957 to set a new cap record and equalled the then Welsh try record of 17. He toured New Zealand and Australia with with 1950 British Lions and scored the try which helped Wales to beat the All Blacks at Cardiff Arms Park in 1953.
On the athletics track he won 15 Welsh sprint titles and one long jump crown. In 1948 he anchored the British sprint relay team to a silver medal at the London Olympic Games and took another relay silver at the 1954
European Championships in Berne when he captained the British team. In the same year he won a bronze medal for Wales at the Empire Games in Vancouver.
There can’t be many people who can claim to have won an Olympic sprint gold medal during their war service, but Sgt 1653958 Ken Jones did just that.The man who is best remembered for his 44 caps on the wing for Wales, his
Olympic silver medal for Britain and Empire Games bronze for Wales actually won his first major sporting honour in Bangalore. It was one of the first steps in one of the greatest sporting careers of any Welsh sportsman or woman, and all due to VE Day celebrations.
“I was in Cawnpore, no Kampur, when VE Day was announced and it took a while for the news to filter through to us in India. It didn’t mean as much to us out there because we still had the Japanese to contend with,” said
Jones. “It wasn’t until the bomb was dropped that our War really came to an end. We still celebrated VE Day, however, and as part of those celebrations we organised a sports day.
“I managed to win the 100 and 200 and I was quite happy with that. I’d played a bit of impromptu soccer, rugby and cricket in India, but I started to do a bit of running after those races and the officer in charge of our
camp noticed me. I was entered in the provincial championships shortly after that and I won
the 100 and 200 metres again, and then went on to take the United Provinces sprint title as well.
“They decided after that to have an All India sports meeting at Christmas, 1945, and I was invited to take part in that as well. When I got to Bangalore the event was being dubbed the All Indian Olympic Games and I
managed to win the 100 metres in 10.8 sec and finish second in the 200. The organisers didn’t have medals to hand out and they wouldn’t even given me a certificate, the miserable so-and-sos. I went back to my unit feeling
rather pleased with myself and a week or so later I applied for a Class B release, because I was a schoolteacher, and by Easter, 1946 I was home.”
Jones went on to become one of the legends of Welsh sport after the war and his last big game before war broke out was at Cardiff Arms Park in January 1940. Captain of the West Mon school side, he was selected for the Welsh
Secondary Schools side. Their normal fixture against Yorkshire Schools was cancelled because fo the problems, but a game was arranged against an Anglo-Welsh Public Schools team.
“It was the first time I had played at the Arms Park and I will never forget what happened. We were leading 6-3 when their outside half, a fellow called Williams, sidestepped past our defence on two occasions to score two
tries and we lost,” recalled Jones.
The Williams in question was none other than the great Bleddyn Williams, prince of Welsh centres, who went on to play alongside Jones in 22 Welsh tests and two internationals for New Zealand. The next time the two players line-up against each other on the pitch was in a Welsh trial in 1946 and they both played in Wales’ first full, post-
war international against England.
“Funilly enough, that was the first time I had ever been to an international match at the Arms Park. In those days it cost too much, and took too long, to get from the valleys to Cardiff and so the only contact I had in Blaenavon with Welsh matches had been provided by the radio broadcasts,” said Jones.
“I played a couple of matches for Talywain when I was in school, and within a week of my return from India in 1946 the secretary of Blaenavon came down to my house and asked me if I would like to play against Ebbw Vale. I turned out and we won. I then went down to play for Pontypool against Cardiff, but I joined Newport for the 1946/47 season.
“During the war my only rugby was played on pitches we had had specially watered by the station fire brigade in India, or in Lancashire while I was doing my squarebashing in Kirkham. We had a station team that went around Lancashire playing local sides. It was an eye-opening experience for me and one which stayed with me for the
rest of my life.
“When the rugby league scouts came to ask me to turn professional after the war I just kept seeing those Lancashire towns in my mind and saying I would be much better off in Blaenavon. I was offered £6,000 on one occasion. That was a lot of money to someone who was earning £7 per week.
“When they asked me in 1947 I used the excuse of wanting to run in the 1948 Olympic Games. A year later I said I was concentrating on the 1950 British Lions tour. It was Olympic time again in 1952 and then the All Blacks in Wales in 1953. The European Championships and Empire and Commonwealth Games were the excuse in 1954 and, after that, I told them I was getting too old.”
After enjoying some sprinting success in India, Jones turned his attentions more seriously to athletics after the war.
“I had always been a keen runner from the age of 10. I was alright, but never that good when I was in school,” said Jones. “Eric Finney was always better than me as a schoolboy. He was much bigger and stronger than me, a real bogey man as far as I was concerned.
“I had only run in a few handicapped races before the war, but spurred on by my victories in India I entered the Welsh Championships in 1946. I found my way to the old Guest Keen’s ground in Sloper Road, Cardiff and lined up
against Eric and my pre-war hero, Cyril Cupid.
“Cyril had won the Welsh 100 yards title four times and the 220 yards five times in the Thirties.he was past his best at that time, and Eric was a bit over weight, and I was able to win the 100 in 10.9 sec and the 220 in 24.0
sec. Those victories got me selected for the British team to run in Oslo and Cologne and that really was my big breakthrough. I got picked as an Olympic possible and in 1948 I entered the Southern Counties Championships.
“Having returned to Blaenavon after the war I found it difficult to get a job as a schoolteacher because they were giving all the vacant posts to married men. I tried Pontypool, Newport and Bristol before finally getting
a job in Bath.
“That meant I was eligible to run in the Southern Counties and I arrived for the 1948 championships at Uxbridge to find myself lining up alongside Emmanuel McDonald Bailey and Alistair McCorquodale (both men went on to
reach the Olympic final in 1948). I decided to give it a go and in the end I beat them both, broke even time
for the first time and equalled the English native and Welsh national records with a time of 9.8 sec. I finished in the places at the AAA Championships and went on to make the Olympic team in London.”
Having struck gold at the Indian Olympics three years earlier, Sgt Jones won a silver in London as the anchorman in the British sprint relay. For a moment it seemed as though Jones might have earned gold as the American
team were disqualified for an alleged illegal change-over. The Jury of Appeal eventually ruled it legal and Jones had to be content with his silver medal. Not a bad return for someone who didn’t consider himself to be a very good runner just before the war.
Kenneth Jeffrey Jones (Rugby Player / Athlete): Born in Blaenavon, 30 December, 1921; died in Newport, 18 April, 2006.
