And the last man to wear the No 6 on his back was Bryan Richards in his one and only appearance for Wales against France at Cardiff Arms Park on 26 March 1960. The following season the International Rugby Board standardised the system that is used to this day, with 1-15 from loose had prop to full back
The practice of numbering players first emerged in 1897, when New Zealand and Queensland adopted the use of numbered shirts to help spectators identify the players on the pitch.
In 1921, the English and Welsh Rugby Unions brought the matter before the International Rugby Board, but it was decided that the identification of players by marking their shirts was a matter to be determined by the teams themselves. As a result, different systems were used by different teams, with some using numbers and others using letters.
The Scottish Rugby Union famously rejected the use of numbered shirts in 1928, prompting King George V to ask why the Scottish players were not numbered during a match against England. The response from the former president of the Scottish Rugby Union was, “This, Sir, is a rugby match, not a cattle sale.”
By the 1950s, the RFU had produced a booklet called ‘Know the Game’, which listed the custom in Britain as being 1 for the fullback, to 15 for the lock. However, by 1950 all the home nations had adopted numbered shirts, with England, Scotland, and Wales using one system and France and Ireland using another.
Eventually, they all agreed to use the France/Ireland system, with 1 being the loose head prop and 15 being the fullback. While Richards was the last to wear No 6 as the outside half, the first to wear No 10 under the new system was Bridgend’s Ken Richards against the touring South Africans in the Welsh capital on 3 December 1960.
Bryan Richards
Bryan died just before Christmas 2023 and his pride and joy, his Welsh international shirt, went to his son, Lloyd. Such a priceless item needed the best of care and Lloyd’s wife, Karen, thought she would give the jersey a wash.
Unfortunately, her kind gesture turned into a laundry disaster and the jersey lost some of its colour and was blotchy, leaving Karen “mortified”.
Step forward the BBC’s Repair Shop and, in particular, textile conservator Rebecca Bissonnet. She took on the task of bringing the jersey back to life.
“My greatest regret was that I never saw my dad play. He grew up in Skewen and he used to say that he trained by running up the coal slag heaps behind his house,” explained Lloyd.
“He went on to play for Neath, moved to Swansea and became their captain, he was a Barbarian, and of course it sort of culminated in him playing for his country.
“He played at fly half and, as any rugby fan will know, a fly half wears the No 10, but he wore No 6. He was the last Welsh international to play with the No 6.
“Since his passing, it matters even more that we hold onto his legacy. He is a legend, my dad, and I loved him to bits.
“He was a real maverick on the rugby pitch, but an incredibly conservative person in life, a very humble bloke.”
Bryan played for Skewen, Neath, Cambridge University, the UAU, Swansea, London Welsh, Hampshire and the Barbarians during his career. He won a Blue at Twickenham for Cambridge in the 1955 Varsity Match and captained both Swansea, for who he played against Romania (1955), Italy (1956), Australia (1958) and South Africa (1960), and London Welsh.
Karen went on to explain the dilemma the couple had when they first received the jersey
“When we were given the shirt, I thought, shall we frame it or wash it? I forgot that it was from the 1960s,” said Karen.
“I put it in the machine, and it came out and the red had run into the collar. Then I tried to get the pink out of the collar using bleach – it’s not a Welsh rugby shirt unless it’s red, is it?
“I’m a bit mortified to say the least. I’ve felt incredibly guilty ever since because he worked really hard for that. For me, it’s just a way to honour him if we can get it to look anything like it did originally.
Rebecca had her work cut out to restore the shirt and detached the number from the back, took off the Welsh feathers and also detached he collar. Then she extracted the colour before dying the jersey back to the right colour red.
That just left her with the task of reattaching the number to the back of the shirt, the collar and the all-important emblem. When the couple returned to the barn to pick up the jersey, they were both amazed at the miracle that Rebecca had managed to achieve.
The fully restored shirt at the Repair Shop Pic: @BBC
“My god, that’s amazing. It didn’t even look that good before I put it in the washing machine,” said Karen as the tears welled-up in her eyes.
“It has healed my guilt, but actually it is healing because we’ve lost him and we feel like we’ve got a little bit of him back.”
Lloyd added: “You know that red I was talking about? That is Welsh red. The three feathers just pop out. That’s amazing.”
Wales play France in the opening game of the 2025 Six Nations in Paris on Friday night and there will be a new man at No 10 in the Six Nations in Cardiff Rugby’s Ben Thomas.
Thomas Bryan Richards: 1 Cap (No 652); B: 23.11.1932 in Skewen; D: 16.12.2023 in Rugby.
