Keeping up with the Joneses

Keeping up with the Joneses is a tough job for Davieses and Williamses


More Joneses have played rugby for Wales than any other name, with a spurt since the turn of the millennium keeping the Davieses and Williamses at bay

By Frank Keating

The Observer, Sat 3 Nov 2012 23.00 GMT


Wales's wild-haired propmeister Adam Jones has withdrawn, injured, from next Saturday's start of rugby's autumn internationals. So, possibly, will stalwart back-row and fellow Osprey Ryan Jones. But a Jones will still be in the team. One invariably is.

It is all of eight Novembers since Ryan won his first cap and became Wales's 73rd rugby Jones when he joined Adam, Dayfdd, Duncan, Stephen and Steve to break an apparent Guinness record for surname surfeit which had stood for 65 years since 1939 when a red-shirted Davies quintet helped make up the XV who took on Ireland in Belfast. (On closer examination this week, that record seems slightly dubious for while Howard, Leslie, Micky and Willie were of the genuine six-letter brotherhood, the Cardiff prop that day WE ("Wendy") Davis was missing the third crucial vowel.

Six Novembers ago, on the same day Wales were playing at home, at the nearby Millennium Centre the famous stout-founded record book contrived a gathering "of the world's biggest congregation of people with the same surname" when 1,000 Joneses turned up, easily to pass the existing record of 583 set by the Norbergs of Sweden. That same afternoon, the 76th Jones was playing for Wales – as well as the 60th Davies, the 51st Williams, the 47th Evans and the 42nd Thomas. This represented an astonishing spurt from the Jones boys, for only at the turn of the millennium in 2000 the various clans sharing the 975 Welsh caps awarded since 1881 had been just cruising along in a bunch with Jones boasting 60 caps, Davies 56, Williams and Evans each 47, Thomas 36, Morgan 22, Rees 20 and Lewis 19.
Also left behind by this Jones rugby sprint were Wales's footballing Joneses. There was no Jones in Wales's recent World Cup football qualifiers and only a solitary Williams. To the turn of the century, the football Joneses had gamely kept in contact – and it was touching half a dozen years ago I thought, when, on being dropped, goalkeeper Paul Jones said his proudest moment was "being the 50th Jones to be capped by my country". At the time, the Jones football tally was 54, followed by 40 Davieses, 27 Williamses and 19 Evanses.

Only a paltry seven Joneses have played football for England. But can the Smiths of England offer Wales's rugby Joneses a challenge? Not remotely. Twenty-one Smiths have played football for England and only 10 at rugby – and that's counting the one-and-only Starmer-Hyphen. There have been only 15 English Test cricketing Smiths. Eleven worldwide Joneses have played Test cricket – only four for England.
Always good fun in surnames … More than half a century ago the national secretary of the Journalists' Union when I was a cub i/c inkwells, first at the Stroud News and then the Hereford Times, was Eric Blott. The BBC Midlands Today TV show often employs weather forecaster Sara Blizzard. I always smile and think of Evelyn Waugh's botanist hero in Scoop when Radio 4's Saving Species has a nature item by earnest enthusiast Kelvin Boot. Nice, too, that Britain's Lord Chief Justice is Judge Judge; and that one of our finest ever bowls champions is Willie Wood. A Jock McTavish really was capped for Scotland at football (in 1910) and, if you're interested, at soccer England have fielded a Bishop (1926), an Abbott (1902) and a Priest (1900). Whether Scotland's two Speedies were pacy I don't know, but for scholars of eponymy the surname strut of England's rugby team at Twickenham nearly 30 years ago remains descriptively spot on: Hare, Dodge, Swift and Smart, with Wheeler aptly leader of the pack and, on the bench, the thinking man's hooker Brain alongside that deceptive dasher Trick. Alas, that lilywhites XV were soundly beaten 22-12 by Scotland.
Cleverly might be an apt name for today's canny Welsh boxing prospect, but not half as adjectivally potent as Newport's British welterweight champ of 1915-21, the obviously ferocious Johnny Basham. For England at rugby Neil Back (1994-2003) was a forward – and so was Wales's Pontypool policeman Allen Forward (1951-52). Fine Devonian cricketer Peter Bowler was a prolific batsman, but no bowler, for Derbyshire and Somerset, while at the turn of the 20th century England picked for six Tests Kent's bounding paceman Arthur Fielder, but he had to wait till his penultimate match in 1908 at Melbourne for the scorer to log: S Gregory c A Fielder b J Crawford. Arthur was, apparently, none too good a fieldsman and it was the only catch of his Test career.
A North plays rugby for Wales, a West has played rugby for England, an East should possibly have played cricket for England, and a Northeast who plays cricket for Kent still may. But no South seems to have played international sport for anyone. For an anonymous news agency subeditor's pithy brevity and soft humour, however, I recommend the cutting I've hoarded for over three decades: "Top US golfer Andy North's sister, Pamela, yesterday married Mr Dick South" – UPI 1977.


PS – HOLD THE BACK PAGE … re the above, I've forgotten to count Wales's Marsden-Jones (1921-24), Jones‑Davies (1930-31), Rees-Jones (1934-36), Williams-Jones (1989-95), and Jones‑Hughes (1999).

The All Blacks have three Smiths, neatly filed under A, B and C.

Ha ha ha..! Good show by the ABs there...!

Prefer keeping up with the Kardashians, that Kim's backside makes me growl!
Infact it makes me want to rip off my shirt and howl at the moon.

I knew I could rely on Frank Keating to pluralise the surnames correctly!

The Scarlets alone can feild the following amongst their backline.

9 Rhodri Williams, 10 Jordan Williams, 11 Lee Williams, 12 Scott Williams, 13 Owen Williams, 14 Liam Williams

Add to that other players from the other regions and I am sure you could probably put together a XV

Ospreys can equip half the pack with Jones's, Adam, Duncan, Aw and Ryan.

England have 2 Vunipolos

ScarletSpiderman wrote:The Scarlets alone can feild the following amongst their backline.

9 Rhodri Williams, 10 Jordan Williams, 11 Lee Williams, 12 Scott Williams, 13 Owen Williams, 14 Liam Williams

Add to that other players from the other regions and I am sure you could probably put together a XV

I take that back the only Williams' I can think of are Lloyd, Tom, Rhys and Owen (a differnt one) at the Blues, and Nathan at the Dragons.

There have been teams throughout the years all of the same surname, there was a Trebanos team in the sixties that were all Thomas's and I think that there were only two relatives amongst them.

I remember thir team photo and article in the paper as the captain an prop had a single tooth and a big smile.

The Crusaders have Sam, Adam, Luke and George Whitelock.

nganboy wrote:The Crusaders have Sam, Adam, Luke and George Whitelock.

I was just listening to the last edition of the 12th man, "Boned". The Kiwi rugby league team.

Forwards:

Stacey Jones
Frances Meli and Sois Italy

Jerry Seu Seu
Iseutu Jeri-Jeri

Wantany Tomata
No-im Okayta

Tommy Needsapi
Jimmy Needsapitu


Had me in stitches.

That's good. What's that show? Never heard of it. Can I get it in NZ?

Billy Birmingham, the 12th man.

http://the12thman.com/

nice diversion from the weekend stress maes

Classic, 12th man! Marmite n a jar, so inappropriate....

gavstar wrote:nice diversion from the weekend stress maes

What stress?

Can't wait for the weekend, should be an awesome game.

Didn't Stacy Jones drive a steam train a while back

RubyGuby wrote:Didn't Stacy Jones drive a steam train a while back

You're thinking of his brother Casey

If you go international you can add Ali Williams to the Williamses. And SBW

It is crazy how the Welsh rugby team is usually made up of 75% Jones', Williams, Rees' and Evans (where have all the Thomas' gone ) yet the Welsh football team has Ashley Williams and that's it!

Interesting to that rugby's growth in Wales since its inception follows a the trend of modern Wales, very few traditionalist players with Ap in their name.

Even the traditional Evans, Jones, Williams etc do not frequent the list of caps so much until the 1900s

The Welsh, like many other nations, uses the Patronymic surname system (according to Wiki!) - where family name came from the given name of the father.

Just as Mac and Mc in Scotland and Ireland refered to son of, and O (like in many Irish names) referred to grandson of, in Wales we had 'ap' in the middle. John ap Dafydd would mean John, son of David. Some of these have morfed, for example ap John has led to the surname Upjohn; ap Hywel has changed over time to Powell, ap owen = Bowen. As the 'ap' was dropped over time we then added an 's' to the end of the fathers name to denote owner ship: Robert Jones means Robert son of John, i.e. he's John's son or he's Evan's son; David Edwards = David son of Edwards; Roberts = son of Robert; Williams = William's son. The list goes on.

So, we're not all just in bred! There were just a lot of people in Wales called Evan, William, Thomas, Edward, John, etc.

In England they often kept the 'son' bit: Wilson = William's son; Davidson; Harrison; etc., etc.

Interesting stuff. Thanks wiki!

Yeah it's a shame more people don't use the 'ap' more - I was tempted to use it - then I would have been Ap Pedr (as my fathers name is Peter) and knew a guy in school whose father had died when he was still in primary school and he'd changed his name to Ap Gwyn. It's a nice touch and very Welsh.

PS - I reckon that with Evans the father is more likely to be called Ifan, and then it morphed/mutated to Evan(s)

Maybe with technology they'll develop an ap Ap

RubyGuby wrote:Maybe with technology they'll develop an ap Ap

I like that; a very simple app that puts an ap in from too your surname and takes off the s!

Didnt Wales have that weird game against south Africa where it was like Adam Jones, Duncan jones, Stephen Jones, Alun-Wyn Jones, Deiniol Jones, Stephen Jones, Ryan Jones and any others I missed all playing?

I remember a cartoon where the referee is holding a red card up and saying "Jones off" and most of the Welsh team walking from the field, and one of the few Welsh players left on the field is staning next to the ref saying "You'll have to be more specific than that"

Shifty wrote:Didnt Wales have that weird game against south Africa where it was like Adam Jones, Duncan jones, Stephen Jones, Alun-Wyn Jones, Deiniol Jones, Stephen Jones, Ryan Jones and any others I missed all playing?

I remember a cartoon where the referee is holding a red card up and saying "Jones off" and most of the Welsh team walking from the field, and one of the few Welsh players left on the field is staning next to the ref saying "You'll have to be more specific than that"

Whys that weird?

maestegmafia wrote:

Shifty wrote:Didnt Wales have that weird game against south Africa where it was like Adam Jones, Duncan jones, Stephen Jones, Alun-Wyn Jones, Deiniol Jones, Stephen Jones, Ryan Jones and any others I missed all playing?

I remember a cartoon where the referee is holding a red card up and saying "Jones off" and most of the Welsh team walking from the field, and one of the few Welsh players left on the field is staning next to the ref saying "You'll have to be more specific than that"

Whys that weird?

Obviously because there was an inordinate amount of players with the same surname in the team. It's unusual for half a team to have the same surname!

maestegmafia wrote:Interesting to that rugby's growth in Wales since its inception follows a the trend of modern Wales, very few traditionalist players with Ap in their name.

Even the traditional Evans, Jones, Williams etc do not frequent the list of caps so much until the 1900s

Isn't that a North Wales thing though?
Oddly if you look at the RGC 1404 squad you will see a few players with that kind of name.

Shifty wrote:

maestegmafia wrote:

Shifty wrote:Didnt Wales have that weird game against south Africa where it was like Adam Jones, Duncan jones, Stephen Jones, Alun-Wyn Jones, Deiniol Jones, Stephen Jones, Ryan Jones and any others I missed all playing?

I remember a cartoon where the referee is holding a red card up and saying "Jones off" and most of the Welsh team walking from the field, and one of the few Welsh players left on the field is staning next to the ref saying "You'll have to be more specific than that"

Whys that weird?

Obviously because there was an inordinate amount of players with the same surname in the team. It's unusual for half a team to have the same surname!

There are a hell of a lot of people in Wales, particularly good rugby players with jones as their surname. I don't see why that's Wierd. It's the result of a law of averages.