By CHRIS IRVINE
THE ageing process is not simply measured in attendant aches and pains, but the funerals you attend. Moreover, funerals you rather enjoy. A celebration of life, reunion with greying but familiar faces, the whole looking-back experience. Reflecting on a turbulent 2025 – when are years not turbulent now? – my fondest RL memory was far from the field, at the funeral of Raymond James French.
Husband, father, loyal friend, colleague, scholar, gifted rugby player, dual-code England and Great Britain international, coach, teacher, mentor, author, journalist, commentator, beloved son of St Helens. A national treasure but in his home town, the Parish Church packed and more outside listening to the service on speakers, it was the power of Ray’s positive impact on all those who came into his orbit that resonated. Few lives are lived so fully.
“He coloured his right to the edges,” as Ray’s grandson Giacamo observed in his eulogy. Eulogy after eulogy, speech after uplifting speech, the veneration would have left Ray abashed but were an accurate measure of the man. “What stood out for me,” his grandson said, “was not the MBE or newspaper articles, it was that he stayed so humble and interested in others.
“Whether you were a drunken fan rambling to him outside the ground or the Queen, the way he spoke to them and related to them rarely changed.” He’d be commentating for millions from Wembley one day and mopping out changing rooms at the Liverpool St Helens club, his spiritual home, the next.
Honest, humble, straight-talker and with a searing wit and brain the size of a planet, it was rugby league’s great fortune to have him. Naturally, he’d have seen it the other way round, but following Ray’s passing in July at the age of 85, it’s hard to imagine we will see his like again. Aside from burning disappointment, it’s not hard to think what he’d have made of autumn’s Ashes annihilation.
When Ray referenced imaginative, magically creative talents, Alex Murphy was his benchmark. “Where’s the football in this side?” was his regular refrain. In that respect, Australia were not so far removed from England, in that the 2025 Kangaroos never needed second gear.
But in 1982, a year after Ray had succeeded Eddie Waring in the BBC TV commentary hot seat, he could not help but thrill to the halfback excellence of Brett Kenny and Peter Sterling. Wally Lewis was back-up on Australia’s bench that Ashes series. Two-nil down and tryless going into the final Test at Headingley, French told viewers: “Crowds have flocked here this afternoon to see these Australians, to see if we can stop them, or even score a try.”
Steve Evans broke Great Britain’s tryscoring duck, but it was a forlorn effort in the face of Brett Kenny-inspired magic and Australian might, epitomised by Mal Meninga fly-swatting away tacklers and the rampaging figure of Wayne Pearce. Ray himself had never seen the like. The British game had to change.
“We’ve seen an exhibition of skills I don’t think we’ll see again for a long time,” Ray concluded in the Leeds gloaming. Four years later, the same thing happened. The tanker only began turning with a win in Sydney in 1988, and stuck as we seem to be back in the early-to-mid-eighties, that next win after the last one by Great Britain in 2006 seems as far off as ever.
As we approach a new year, the 2026 World Cup looms large, ominously so now. What’s the wash-up after the Ashes? Carry on regardless. An expanded 14 team Super League. Bigger, better … bullshit. Ray hailed Kangaroos from a different planet in 1982 – their size, outrageous skills and sheer muscularity – but our familiarity with the NRL and the palpable difference with Super League exposed a more subtle gap, in execution, defensive organisation and game-management. These weren’t sexy Kangaroos (begging Reece Walsh’s pardon) but arch pragmatists. As England banged on about patriotic pride, wanting it more and invoked Churchill (!!!), they were horribly exposed by ill-preparedness for the big bad world of ultimate international competition. One abiding impression is reigning Man of Steel Jake Connor watching the Wembley Test on holiday, the prophetic words of Ray again ringing in my ears: “Where’s the football in this side?” We’ll never know now, but Connor’s omission felt all wrong in a year of coups, missteps and every trophy going to Hull KR.
The Robins provided a compelling on-field narrative against the backdrop of administrative mayhem amid rampant self- interest on the part of a majority of clubs. Where we are headed, a bit like the country itself, no-one quite knows. It feels unstable amid a longing for the cavalry that arrived 30 years ago via a newly cashed-up summer game and an unforgettable first decade or so of Super League. Encouraging crowds and TV figures this past year aside, NRL-shaped saviours seem no longer to be on the horizon. They want independent governance so, as things stand, our turkeys are safe this Christmas.
My RL year began at Headingley with a Leeds Wakefield Super League opener, followed by a week of NRL-fuelled drama in Sydney. It will probably end as it began with Leeds v Wakefield in the Boxing Day throwback. During the ageing process some traditions, thankfully, don’t alter. You learn too to hold on to those good memories. At Ray French’s funeral, some fitting last words were uttered by Saints chairman Eamonn McManus, striking a chord with everyone in and outside church that day. “I am confident thousands of people will wholeheartedly share the sentiment that they have lived lives as better people, due to Ray.”