Oh What A Time... - #76 Icons (Part 2)

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed from yesterday! This week we’re discussing 3 absolute icons: the iconic Hollywood star Marilyn Monroe, the incredibly talented JMW Turner and one of Victo...rian Britain’s most iconic sport stars, Arthur Gould. Elsewhere this week we are bemoaning the fate that has befallen the humble travel book, whilst also speculating on the fate of Horatio Nelson’s arm (which he famously lost on a disastrous lads holiday to Tenerife). If you’ve got something to contribute, why not ping us over an email to: hello@ohwhatatime.com If you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER? In exchange for your £4.99 per month to support the show, you'll get: - two bonus episodes every month! - ad-free listening - episodes a week ahead of everyone else - And first dibs on any live show tickets Subscriptions are available via AnotherSlice, Apple and Spotify. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.com You can also follow us on:  X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepod And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice? Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk). Chris, Elis and Tom x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 The faster money and data move, the further your business can go to a seamless digital future for Canadians. Let's go faster forward together. In Life, Interact. Hello and welcome to part two. Today we are talking about icons. Today, my dear friends and colleagues, I'm going to talk to you about Joseph Mallard William Turner, J.M.W. Turner, who is one of Britain's best-loved artists. Now, are you familiar with his work? Not hugely. I know the name, obviously, but not an enormous aficionado of his work.
Starting point is 00:01:01 Okay. It's beautiful oil paintings, predominantly, credible use of light. Are you saying this or is this Donald's? No, this genuinely is my take on him. But this is what he's known for. He was known basically, one of his great skills was the use of light, clouds opening, just sort of the... I will put pictures on our Instagram. I'm looking at him now, loves a sunset. Loves a sunset, this is his thing. Loves the moonlight across a stormy sea.
Starting point is 00:01:30 This is a lot of the feel exactly. This is his vibe. Yeah, it's the kind of shit I do as well. It's the kind of stuff you do exactly, but with his you can tell what it is. Can I add to, I know this is just a mere few weeks away from me saying I could quite easily swim the channel, but whenever I see abstract expressionist work, I think I could do that. Yeah, okay. Here's a challenge, Chris.
Starting point is 00:01:56 We should go to an art gallery. Because if you say that, I will find it funny every time. I could do that. I will find it funny every time. I could do that. Elis, here's a challenge. Buy this time next week, Chris. We want you to have done an abstract picture. It can just be in pen, whatever, and we're going to put it on our Instagram. And our listeners are going to decide whether you can do that. I have a feeling which way this is heading. But I need a canvas and oil paint.
Starting point is 00:02:24 I want to see a Chris Skull Willem de Kooning. That's what I want to see. Chris, do you accept the challenge? I'll get my daughter's colouring pencils out. Yes, exactly. I'll have a go for it. What do you want me to paint? Not for me to tell the artist what to do, but you have just mentioned the abstract world is something you could easily do. So I'll do that.
Starting point is 00:02:43 I'll do a JMW Turner for you. I'll recreate a JMW Turner. Do you know what you're like in the art world? You know that, what's his name? He was on The Apprentice and he always says Bosch. That Cockney Market trainer. You're like the Tom Skinner of the art world. So I woke up this morning, I had a cup of tea down at my local cafe, a fried breakfast and now I've done a nice little bit of abstract expressionism. Bosch! Lovely picture with the cliffs adobe. Bosch!
Starting point is 00:03:14 So, JMW Turner. Let's talk about him and his life. This is a man, just to give you context of how loved he is, his painting Rome from Mount Aventine sold in 2014 at Sotheby's for, would you like to guess how much this one painting went for? I'll give you 30 quid for it. 30 quid Chris is going, how much do you reckon? How much do you reckon it went for? 12 million.
Starting point is 00:03:38 Okay. ÂŁ30.3 million. Okay. So the guy can paint. I think we can agree that. Okay? He was born in Maiden Lane in Covent Garden on the 23rd of April, 1775. His father, William, was a barber and a wig maker. And from primary school age, he immediately showed incredible talent for art. So much so that his dad used to display his sketches in the window of the barber shop
Starting point is 00:04:04 and sell them to customers. So people were buying his primary school art from the age of like 7-8. Okay. How much do you reckon your kid's art is going to fetch if you're putting it in the window of your house? Well, I know this. My daughter sells portraits for a pound. Does she? And it is very hard to turn down a young girl saying, can I paint your portrait for a pound?
Starting point is 00:04:25 And it means she has an independent source of income. So as far as her friends are concerned, she's rich. She's already moved out. She's got a world-famous coffee garden. She goes to Claire's, or as I used to refer to it, Claire's accessories, and she goes hog wild. So are the portraits mainly of you and Izzy, I'm guessing? No, no, no. If anyone comes round, she'll say, can I draw your portrait? And they'll go, yeah, she'll go, that's a pound, please.
Starting point is 00:04:49 That is brilliant! What a legend! That's so good. Any of our kids can do it because no adult will say no thanks. Absolutely, of course. If she said to me ÂŁ10, I'd go, yeah. I think maybe ÂŁ20 I'm stumbling, but 10 as you can get me. If you keep it affordable, people will always go, yes. What about you, Chris? How much are your kids' pieces of art fetching if you're putting them in the window of the house? Well, look, I get a constant stream of it for free and even I don't want it at that
Starting point is 00:05:20 price. Refused to put it on the fridge. I do always feel bad checking it in the bin. Yeah, absolutely. It's so hard, isn't it? Like, we'd end up storing it and storing it until it gets out of control and then you're like, oh god, we've got rid of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:05:36 Absolutely. So from a very early age, his family is supporting his art. He has clearly a real town at Pallis. However, sadly, when he was very young, his mother, Mary, fell ill and he was sent to live with his uncle in Brentford, which we talk about changing landscapes and cities. At that point, Brentford was an independent village to the west of London and that's where he went to school. From there, he then moved to Margate where, aged 11, he was properly selling display-worthy sketches of the town and countryside to locals.
Starting point is 00:06:02 So, aged 11, he genuinely was selling his art to locals in the most real sense. The people were paying decent money for it. And also there's a Tate in Margate, so he's got a decent place to exhibit. Exactly. A very shrewd move. And at that point, his style would have been modern. Yeah. Now oil paintings don't feel modern, but then they were. And his talent didn't go unnoticed.
Starting point is 00:06:25 Okay. Age 14, he's only 14. He was accepted into the Royal Academy of Art to begin his formal training, which is where he studied life and watercolour. Very briefly, the idea of picking up one of those Turner paintings when he's a kid, just because you feel a bit guilty when you're an 11 year old, and then you find out, oh, wait a second, I've inadvertently bought one of the Masters. This has worked out perfectly. Will Barron Or you bought it, you had it up for ages, it gets passed down the generations in your family and then suddenly someone very shrewdly notices, you should probably get this valued. Oh my God, we're rich. Neil We now have 15 million pounds.
Starting point is 00:07:04 Will Barron Yeah. probably get this valued. Oh my god, we're rich. We now have 15 million pounds. So he studies at the Royal Academy of Art, he studies still life and watercolour. When he finishes, he sets off on a journey around Britain. He's armed with his sketchbook, he's visiting parts of the island that are going through rapid change. This is what's so interesting about his work, is what it's reflecting. For example, through the 1790s, he went to Wales and the West Country regularly. He sketched Chepstow Castle, Tintern Abbey, Hot Wales and Bristol, the old bridge at Pontypridd, the ironworks at Merthyr, Glendaf Cathedral, Avon Gorge, the view across Swansea Bay. He also went to the north of England. At the
Starting point is 00:07:40 beginning of the 19th century, he goes to Scotland. He paints Edinburgh Castle. And then he goes into Europe, goes to France, Italy, Switzerland, taking his sketchbook, drawing everything he sees, which I can say would be my dream life. Would absolutely be my dream life. If I could paint, I could not think of it anything better than travelling and sitting and just painting. What a wonderful way to spend your life. That's nice, because this is my dream life, podcasting with you two. Sat in your attic staring at your year-round Christmas tree. Yeah, this is my dream life.
Starting point is 00:08:15 I'd still podcast, Al. I'd be in Spain, painting the Amalfi Coast. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. You said it now. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Starting point is 00:08:29 no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no pictures in a way that things were quite traditional at that point. Part of the reason they thought he was quite eccentric, it's worth saying, is because of his living arrangements. For much of his life, he lived with his father, William, who's death in 1829 really sort of hung over the rest of Turner's life. He never married either. He had several long-term companions, including his housekeeper, Sarah Danby, but he became an icon. This is how much of an icon he is.
Starting point is 00:09:06 His portrait currently appears on the UK ÂŁ20 note. Really? I definitely hadn't spotted that. In 2005, his painting, The Fighting Temeraire, was chosen by Radio 4 listeners as the nation's favourite painting. So this is how much Turner is absolutely love. Mine is of Gareth Bale. I'm slightly out of step with Radio 4 listeners on this. What's he doing in it? He's waving at the crowd and it's at Euro 2016. It's a great piece. Is that a genuine answer? Oh yeah.
Starting point is 00:09:42 What's your favourite painting, Chris? I've seen The Scream in real life. Have you? Yeah, in Oslo. And I thought, oh, that's quite good. That's good to hear. I've also seen The Mona Lisa. And again, I could do it.
Starting point is 00:09:54 Am I right? Yeah, that's what I'm feeling in both of them. Both of them, you thought I could do that. But what really set him apart, and this is kind of what's most interesting about Turner, wasn't really his eccentricity or this sort of stuff, it was what he painted. So his paintings captured Britain on the very cusp of transformation, like the pull towards modernity.
Starting point is 00:10:15 So he captured exactly this vital point in British history. And he was able to sort of put down, for example, like this perfect hint of speed. You may have seen this famous picture he did of a railway locomotive, which he did in 1844. You just capture the speed, the movement of it. Also, the rich color palette of reds and oranges and purples he uses to show the night sky and the way it's lit up above industrial iron towns of the time. He really is capturing this moment in British history where it's becoming increasingly industrialized, increasingly urbanized. It's such an important shift in
Starting point is 00:10:50 British history. He also was able to set down the turbulent dangers of life at the sea, the rich textures of a storm cloud, naval battles, the type of battles were happening there, the busyness of working in a port, port life there being so important during the Industrial Revolution, and also the everywhere, everyday grind of work. Basically the changing face of Britain at that point. As a final point, what I think is kind of particularly interesting about that is he really strongly believed in the importance of capturing the present, showing what was happening around the artist at the time they lived. So much so, and this is an amazing choice on his part, he deliberately chose to paint using pigments that he knew would not last for a long time.
Starting point is 00:11:33 What? Yeah. He believed that art should be enjoyed in the present. It wasn't the anticipation of posterity. It was about... I'm exactly the same. Come and see me live. I'm all about live gigs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of crowd work. It's about being in the moment. It's not because he's not confident in his material, it's because he wants it to be about now. I'm just very present, you know? But yeah, so Turner really felt that it was about capturing the moment and that art was not about creating something that would be there for centuries, for people's
Starting point is 00:12:06 to come. It was about now. And that's kind of why people love his stuff, because he does capture that sort of vital moment in British history so perfectly. Mason- Presumably they're trying to preserve these paintings then, if he's using that kind of paint. Now that they have such historical and cultural significance, you think that there would be some way of preserving them so that they don't degrade with time. I can't remember his name, there's a jazz musician who will just record him improvising and the albums would be called things like, Afternoon of 3rd of March 2013. And he's like, that's what I was feeling then.
Starting point is 00:12:43 Will Barron That's so interesting. Will Barron So he just puts it out. Well, we date stamp our episodes, don't we? Yeah, yeah. We're podcasting jazz, mate. We're jazz podcasters. Very briefly, as a little thing, my dad made printing ink for a living. That's what he did. He kind of, and so was really a tune with colour. Had a real, just could spot little
Starting point is 00:13:03 changes in colour. obviously a real talent through a life of doing that. If there was a piece of art in our house growing up that he thought lacked a certain colour or wasn't quite right, often he would add a little bit of colour himself to the painting. Really? And that wouldn't always be paint, it would be like there's a pastoral scene, we've got an oil painting which he picked up and he used my mum's lipstick to add a little bit of red to bring colour to the centre of it. Which, I mean, artists would probably think,
Starting point is 00:13:29 you shouldn't be changing my art. It is what it is. But a lot of the pieces would have a little nick of colour there that he'd add it. But he was really attuned to what he felt colour should be. He had a real sort of skill. Will Barron Was he doing it to famous paintings out of curiosity? No, we couldn't afford famous paintings. No, but you can have prints of famous paintings. No, it would be to originals that he picked up in charity shops. But still, yeah.
Starting point is 00:13:56 I quite admire that. I admire the complex. I admire that. I think that's quite cool, yeah. Okay, now I am going to talk about someone who, I mean, he died a very, very long time before I was born in 1919, but I've known about him since I was very little because he was on the back cover of a book my dad used to have, Fields of Praise, the official history of the Welsh Rugby Union, because this person is an icon of the game in Wales. Have you ever heard the song Skipper Gould? It was written in 1896 to celebrate one of Victorian Britain's greatest sporting
Starting point is 00:14:42 icons, the Welsh rugby player Arthur Gould. And it goes like this. I don't know the melody, unfortunately. We know the need of manly men whose passions have been schooled, and would our lads and models seek, they'll follow Arthur Gould. It's quite different from wanker, wanker, wanker. Don't you get it? Will that be sung on the terraces? I think so, yeah. Wow, that's amazing, yeah. Now he was born in Newport in October 1864 and established himself very early as one of the finest rugby players of his generation. So he was first selected for Wales in 1885.
Starting point is 00:15:14 He won 27 caps, 18 of them as captain. He was appointed captain in 1889. And he made his debut as a fullback for Newport Rugby Club in 1882 when he was just 18. He was never once dropped by the club in the next 16 years, retiring in 1898. Not being dropped once in 16 years. That's insane. That is quite the record, isn't it? His body must have been so bashed up. Yeah. For the time, he was very, very into fitness and training. But it was his Welsh captain that goes to the country to their first home nations title in 1893, which became the Five Nations and is now obviously the Six Nations. He was the most capped player in his position, centre, until 1980, which is incredible.
Starting point is 00:15:58 That is incredible. You know, there was no World Cup in rugby until 1987. So you'd play the five nations and then the odd friendly. So you might play New Zealand every few years, Australia every few years. Obviously now there's the autumn internationals. But you didn't play very many other teams. You didn't play South Africa because of the apartheid ban for a very long time. So his record as captain, 18 games, was not broken until 1994. Now they play so much rugby. You've got loads of people with over 100 caps. But Gareth Edwards is again, I think,
Starting point is 00:16:30 I think he might have missed one game in 12 years or something with injury. He only ended up with 55 caps, I think. I'd have to Google it. I'm fairly sure I'm right. So he was, you know, he was doing this in the 19th century. Now, to illustrate his status as an icon, this is really interesting, okay, because obviously Rugby Union, until 1995, was amateur. Rugby League became professional. They broke away in the north of England, right? Now, we only need to reference the subscription fund open
Starting point is 00:17:00 for his testimonial year in 1896. Now, not long after it opened, the fund reported pledges and donations in excess of 7,000 shillings, or 350 quid, which is the equivalent of about 40 grand today. Toby Sorensen Wow! Alistair Dixon And donors came from far away, from Llandudno, Liverpool, Gloucester, Bristol. One person who loved him who lived in Bilbao. Now soon
Starting point is 00:17:22 the sum had risen to 7,500 shillings, 375 quid, and then the WRU added its own sum of a thousand shillings, which was 50 quid. Now testimonials of this sort in the amateur era were vital because players weren't, well they certainly weren't strictly paid for their time or recompense for their loss of earnings from their usual jobs.
Starting point is 00:17:43 Now there's a really, really interesting documentary on iPlayer, I hope it's still up there, because it has been up there for a long time, called Cold Breakers, made by Carolyn Hitt, about the split between rugby union and rugby league, because rugby union players were amateur. But if you're a coal miner and you broke your leg on Saturday morning, then you couldn't work
Starting point is 00:18:00 and you couldn't earn money. Yeah, that's so interesting. So then the Northern players, who were in the same sort of situation as the Welsh players, who were often doing industrial jobs, were like, this is absolutely insane. Will Barron Yeah, yeah. Stig Broders Like, people are paying to watch us. Will Barron Yes. Stig Broders There's money in the game, and we're the players who are risking injury,
Starting point is 00:18:19 and we're not being recompensed for it. This is daft. But Union, because the people who ran the game and links with the chapel and all sorts of stuff, in Wales we decided to stay amateur, which absolutely baffles me. Will Barron It is amazing, isn't it, how late Union remained? Will Barron 1995. Will Barron What is that crazy? Like I grew up in Bath, so there were players who played for the England team. Will Barron Yeah, big team Bath.
Starting point is 00:18:41 Will Barron Yeah, exactly. Who would also just be, you know, you'd book someone to do something in your house and it would be, oh, this guy plays… Yeah, it would be an England international. Because Harry Kane coming round to fit your Gomby boiler. Absolutely crazy. I used to see players all the time walking around Carmarthen, like, Emin Lewis was a copper.
Starting point is 00:19:00 Yeah, was he? I remember him getting my hair cut and he just walked past me because he was a bobby on the beat. I was like, hang on, I watched you play against England on Saturday. That is mad. But where did all the money go? I know we're going to have to be like club owners I guess really. I would love to know this because I remember going to watch, I use this example all the time and I've used it on other podcasts, I apologise. I remember going to watch the
Starting point is 00:19:20 Schwerps Cup final in 1988. Wow. And there were 56,500 people there who'd all paid money for tickets. There were advertising holdings on the ground and the game was televised on grandstand, millions watched and there were programs being sold and, you know, the money being taken at the barn, hot dogs and all that kind of stuff. The players were given, I think, petrol money of like 13p a mile or something ridiculous and they were given oranges at halft time and that pretty much was it.
Starting point is 00:19:47 That is bonkers. And I've still got the program, right, and I've still got my ticket from that game, which was almost 40 years ago. And I just think, well where was it going? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Who got the money? Where was it going? Completely. Well, like the rec in Bath would sell out every weekend and that's probably what's out 14,000 or something like that.
Starting point is 00:20:04 Yeah, exactly. I remember going to watch the Scarless play in the old Straddy Park in Lleli. in Bath would sell out every weekend and that's probably what's out 14,000 or something like that. Yeah exactly. I remember going to watch the Scarlets play in the old Straddy Park in Lleli. 10, 12,000 there. You know, where is it going? Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, Arthur Gould was a public works contractor. I mean of course others were miners or dock workers or steel workers. So this issue would lead to the Great Split of 1895 and the formation of the Professional Northern Union, also known as Rugby League, and would embroil Gould in an affair which dogged relations between the rugby unions of Wales, Scotland and England for years,
Starting point is 00:20:34 and caused Wales to leave the International Rugby Football Board, the world's governing body for a year in protest. The Gould Fund was controversial, and the WIU's donation especially so. Now the rules of rugby insisted that no player received any payment for services rendered to the sport. So a testimonial fund was there for the question. The Welsh Rugby Union pushed back saying that this was not a payment but a signal of how much an icon Gould had become. But other nations disagreed. Give him a special plate, they said, if he means that much. Will Barron Now I want the 40 grand! was in 1980, I think it was 1980, his autobiography came out in 1981. He has retired. On the front
Starting point is 00:21:28 cover he's wearing his own Welsh rugby jersey, which he's worn when he was representing his country for 12 years. Because he was seen to be profiting from the game, because of that, even though he had retired and had a job, he was banned from rugby for life. What?! So he was unable to coach or do all sorts of... basically give anything back to the game because he'd worn his own jersey on the cover of his own book. It was crazy. It was just mental. What is that, Lan?
Starting point is 00:22:01 This feels like such an absolute lack of respect or care for the people playing the game. I'm imagining dusty old sort of men in their like 1780s in tweed jackets. Will Barron This is why Cold Breakers was such an interesting documentary because players would go north. Jonathan Davis, my favourite rugby player of all time, went to play rugby league for Widniss. I think he was paid 200 grand, which was a fortune in 1989. But he was like, I'm working on a building site. I've got to look after my family. And so he did that. But the
Starting point is 00:22:32 players who did it were excommunicated. They were extradited from their communities. They weren't allowed to walk into clubs, all sorts of stuff. It was mad. Anyway, so Gould, meanwhile, took all of this on the chin and he accepted that he would never again play for his country, but he was allowed to return to the field as a referee and he sat in the WIU selection committee. And his magnanimity prevented a serious split in the international game along the lines of the split that had already occurred in England, the winner decade of the Gould affair. Wales 2 would also see the creation of rugby league sides in towns such as Ebbw Vale, Merthyr Tydfil, Aberdeen, Pontypridd and a serious rebellion that also led to the growth of football, of soccer in those places and what's interesting with that is that Union 1 really,
Starting point is 00:23:13 I mean those rugby league clubs sort of didn't survive. Now in retirement, as during his playing days, Gould's status as an icon was just unbowed so his image appeared everywhere. He was on cigarette cards and cartons of Belgian chocolates, matchboxes. And of course he would end up in, people would play him in music hall revues and things because he was the model of a rugby player. He was handsome, he was very athletic, he had this massive tash. And in retirement he started playing cricket. Now he died on the 2nd of January, 1919. He was just 54, and he was still a total hero to his generation. So he'd fallen ill unexpectedly at work
Starting point is 00:23:48 and died of an internal hemorrhage, and he was taken home to the house which had been gifted to him by a grateful nation. Wow. So he passed away that evening. So his funeral on the 6th of January was one of the largest ever seen of Wales. Indeed the largest at that point,
Starting point is 00:24:01 as befitting to a man they call the greatest rugby player ever. So in his name a memorial fund was opened to endow a bed at the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport with more than 1500 quid raised by donors from all over the world. But he was a top icon and people are still talking about him. I mean if there's ever a history of Welsh rugby published he is always front and centre. And when you think of the great Welsh rugby players he was just really important. So future historians in selecting a list of famous players to make up a side will include
Starting point is 00:24:28 Aguil as one of the greatest exponents of the code. It's difficult obviously because there's no footage of him, but in terms of what he achieved, you'd want to put him into an all-time 15. Will Barron That is mad. Will Barron So yeah, so he got his money, but he was unable to play again. Will Barron Genuinely quite moving that. Will Barron Yeah. he got his money, but he played for the Lions in 71, he'd been training as a teacher. He was
Starting point is 00:25:11 going to go to New Zealand for three months. So obviously he didn't have any money. He went back to visit his mum. People had been having collections in pubs and stuff. People had just been sending money through the post to his address. They would send letters to Barrow John, Kevin Aithin. And we get there because everyone knew where his mum and dad lived. When he'd be fibres stuffed into envelopes because they're like, listen, you're going to be going for three months, you're not working. When he came back, having beaten New Zealand, he was unemployed. Yeah, that is bonkers.
Starting point is 00:25:37 It's just this mad work. Because the thing is, I love Messi, right? And I love watching him and I've loved watching him for many years, but I'm obviously not going to send him a hundred quid in the post as a gesture of gratitude because he's a multi-millionaire. Fortunately for you, you don't have to. Yeah, exactly. You know, whereas obviously these players were normal men living in their communities. And you get a letter from him saying, it's all well and good, but I live in America. What is British tender used to be? Thanks for the 100 quid, but I mean- Will Barron I'm not going to send anything to Cristiano Ronaldo to thank him for the memories.
Starting point is 00:26:09 Will Barron It's a fact that it remained for so long. Will Barron Yeah, yeah, yeah. Will Barron I find that remarkable. Will Barron Well, famously, Wales, who were a good side and finished third in the 1987 World Cup, did a tour of New Zealand in 88 and got hammered, got destroyed in all the games. And a delegation of the Welsh players wrote a letter to the WIU saying, listen, they're clearly professional in all but name because they're fitter than us, they're faster, they're stronger. They're obviously training all
Starting point is 00:26:35 the time. We've all got jobs. There's obviously training ground moves being used on the pitch, so they're clearly being paid for their time. So we have to relax the rules on this if we're going to compete or we're going to keep getting destroyed by this team. Because they've obviously relaxed the rules in New Zealand. The letter didn't get replied. They didn't get a response from the WIU. It was just this mad... I will never not be fascinated by the Rug rugby union's attitude to amateurism. Yeah, so that's the story of Arthur Gould, one of Wales' greatest ever rugby players. And there we have it, Icons.
Starting point is 00:27:18 This is actually a two-part episode. Next week we're going to be talking about Icons of West Ham and bizarrely we're doing Chris Skull, we're not doing Bobby Moore, we're not doing Harry Redknapp, Trevor Brookiner, Billy Bonds, Chris Skull, he's done an awful lot of great work at that club for a very long time. Exactly and it needs to be reflected. But anyway thank you very much for downloading and we'll be back with you next week. Absolutely thank you and let's just say if there's any icons you want us to talk about, do get in contact with the show.
Starting point is 00:27:47 We love to hear your ideas. Thanks guys. Take care. Bye. So so Thank you.

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