One of the few advantages of getting older is that whenever a sporting legend dies, you can reply ‘yes’ when people ask you if you saw the man play. In the cases of both Franz Beckenbauer and JPR Williams, I was able to nod but added ‘don’t ask me for too many details.’ That’s the disadvantage of growing old – your memory doesn’t always work.

I remember seeing Beckenbauer playing for West Germany against Scotland in the World Cup qualifying game at Hampden in 1969. It was one of my first international matches, and my dad had somehow got us seats in the stand, which my mother insisted on as she had heard plenty of stories about the Hampden terraces. On the way home the ten-year-old me raved about Gerd Muller, the scorer of West Germany’s goal, but my dad simply said the best player in white was Beckenbauer. A lifelong admirer of Bobby Murdoch that he was, my dad plumped for Murdoch as his man of the match, but then he usually always did. Murdoch’s late equaliser was a cracker, I recall.

I first saw JPR Williams play against Scotland at Murrayfield in the Five Nations Championship of 1979, having been converted to the oval ball game by that time. Williams was just brilliant in defence though he failed to stop Andy Irvine’s sidestepping try, but it was a piece of attacking play that I remember best. Wales were moving fast upfield and JPR came into the line and then launched an outrageous chip with the outside of his boot that landed neatly in Elgan Rees’s hands for a fine try.

The point is that this all happened decades ago and sadly it is the great players of that era between the 1960s and 1980s who are now passing away with appalling regularity.   So how should we remember and appreciate the diminishing band of stars from that era?

I think you have to take it on a case-by-case basis, which is why I am suggesting something medical as a real tribute to JPR Williams. 

I had the pleasure of a telephone interview with JPR while I was researching the book Once Were Lions that I wrote with my friend and colleague Jeff Connor – was it really 15 years ago? JPR was keen to help but insisted that the credit and the glory should go other Lions, and I respected that wish.

He also stressed to me that while he was very proud of his achievements with Wales in their glory years, and was also very proud of his stints with the British and Irish Lions, it was his career as an orthopaedic surgeon that meant so much to him. 

So now that he has gone, I can tell you that Williams was one of the greatest heroes of the successful 1971 and 1974 tours and thoroughly deserved every tribute that has been paid to him since his death on Monday at the age of 74.

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I cannot go along, however, with the mainly Welsh brigade who say he revolutionised the game by becoming an attacking full back. Sorry but the man who instigated that change was Ken Scotland, though JPR and Andy Irvine took up the cudgels and made that tactic a permanent feature of the game. 

What JPR undoubtedly did bring to rugby was an unrivalled courage that saw him become one of the safest players under a high ball, while his willingness to throw himself into last-ditch tackles was truly memorable, though it got him a few injuries and scars along the way.

Look in the archives and you’ll see plenty of pictures of JPR doused in blood, and none more so than the occasion when he was playing for Bridgend against the touring All Blacks in 1978 and had his face split open by New Zealand prop John Ashworth who stamped and raked him. It was JPR’s own father Peter who inserted the 30 stitches that enabled his son to rejoin the game – that just would not happen these days.

So how should we commemorate JPR Williams, the player that Sir Ian McGeechan, no less, said was the best full back the game has ever seen? 

It just so happens that the first game for Wales since JPR’s passing will be against Scotland on Saturday, February 3, in the opening round of the 2024 Guinness Six Nations. I am presuming the Welsh Rugby Union will be preparing a tribute to JPR, and I know everyone inside the Principality Stadium in Cardiff will rise to acclaim him.

I would like to see a more permanent tribute to this remarkable man. Instead of just applause or a minute’s silence, why doesn’t World Rugby set up a scholarship scheme to assist young orthopaedic surgeons to qualify. That’s would be a much more concrete and long-lasting tribute to  a man who deserves every plaudit.