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| Photograph Courtesy of WRU.co.uk |
Colin Lloyd Charvis was born in Sutton
Coldfield, Birmingham on December 27 1972. He began his club career playing for
London Welsh before moving to Swansea in 1995.
The following year in 1996 he
made his test debut for Wales against Australia. He quickly became a very
popular member of the national side.
In the early part of his career he played
an important role in Wales first win over South Africa and he was a vital part
of “Henry’s Heroes”, the team that won a Welsh record ten consecutive test
matches until losing against Manu Samoa in the 1999 Rugby World Cup. Following the 1999 World Cup came an IRB
investigation into the heritage of several members of the Welsh side, with
Shane Howarth and Brett Sinkinson being exposed as part of “Grannygate”.
It
wasn’t long before Charvis was also outed as having no Welsh heritage, this
meant that he was ineligible to play for Wales on his first selection, however
no further action was taken against Charvis as by transferring to Swansea in
1995 enabled him to satisfy residency requirements.
In 2001 Charvis was in great form and was
selected as part of Graham Henry’s Lions team to tour Australia playing in two
of the test matches. The following year
he was given the honour of the captaincy of Wales. Charvis’s career probably
reached a low point when he captained Wales to their first defeat against Italy
in 2003. After he was subbed a camera caught Charvis in what appeared to be a
smile, the subsequent media hysteria lead to Charvis being listed as the second
most hated person in Wales, ahead of Saddam Hussein. After this he was dropped
from the captaincy and the side but by the end of the Six Nations his good form
had found him back in the side and by August he had regained the captaincy and
held it for the 2003 Rugby World Cup.
Shortly before the 2003 Rugby World Cup
there was a restructure in the Welsh Club Rugby and Charvis found himself
without a club, he was then signed for a brief period by Tarbes and then in
2004 by the Newcastle Falcons. Despite these problems he retained the Welsh
captaincy until the end of the year when he was injured.
The success of the 2005 side meant that he
was never given the captaincy again, but upon his return he was an automatic
selection. One of his greatest performances came late in 2005 against Australia
when he was a dominant figure giving Wales their first victory over a
Tri-Nations side since 1999. However by the end of 2005-2006 season his age
began to show and he was released from his contract with Newcastle and signed
with the Newport Gwent Dragons. The change of scenery seemed to reinvigorate
Charvis and after a period of strong form for the Dragons he was re-selected
for Wales being named in the 2007 side that toured Australia and then again for
the 2007 Rugby World Cup side.
He played his last game for Wales against South
Africa in the post- World Cup fixture where Wales lost to the newly crowned
World Champions.
During his international career Charvis had
a preternatural gift for finding the tryline. Scoring, what was at his
retirement, a world record for a forward of 22 international tries. Along the
way he scored 4 tries in a single game against Japan, which equaled the Welsh
National side record.
Perhaps bizarrely for a player of his
calibre the career of Charvis was notable for the paucity of success of the
Welsh team. This is perhaps one of
rugby’s strongest cases for “the Ewing theory**.
Charvis was undoubtedly one of the premiere
players for Wales during this period but the periods of his absence immediately
led to success for the side. Wales’ chances in the 2005 Six Nations were almost
immediately written off when Charvis was injured shortly before the tournament,
the success of Ruddock’s side demonstrates that despite the absence of one of
their stars the Welsh side was possibly improved by the inclusion of some
younger players.
Following Charvis’ last game for Wales in 2007 the Welsh side
also had another Grand Slam. Although there are many other factors that lead to
the Grand Slams on both of these occasions it is for Charvis an unhappy
coincidence that he missed both of these triumphant achievements.
However despite this lack of success,
Charvis was without doubt one of the most popular players in Wales. Charvis has
been depicted in two Groggs, one being as part of the “Millennium Miniatures”
series and the other as part of the iconic “Captain’s Climb” which was a
limited edition of 45 produced to raise funds for Velindre, the grogg depicts
15 Welsh Captains who climbed Kilimanjaro in September 2010 to raise funds as
part of the Stepping Stones Appeal. One
of these Groggs recently sold on Ebay for what could well be a record price for
a single grogg.
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| Captains Climb - Photograph Courtesy Of The World Of Groggs |
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| Charvis Mini - Photograph Courtesy Of The World Of Groggs |
Of the 32 players to have played more than
50 Test matches for Wales the only other player who I cannot recall having seen
a 9” Grogg of is Mark Taylor. It is accepted that not every player who plays
for Wales can have the honour of being grogged at all yet alone being
memorialized in 9” form but surely Welsh Rugby’s first Black Captain deserves a
9” model. Furthermore, every player who
since the turn of the millennium who has captained Wales five or more times has
been grogged in a 9” format.
Surely if
there was enough public outcry to justify a thirty year post retirement version
of Trevor Evans, then the Grogger public needs to get behind the creation of a
9” Charvis. So come on Groggers if you want a 9” version of Colin Charvis send
an email to the shop and let them know you are interested
**The Ewing theory has been described as “A star athlete receives an inordinate amount of media attention and fan interest, and yet his teams never win anything substantial with him (other than maybe some early-round playoff series). That same athlete leaves his team (either by injury, trade, graduation, free agency or retirement) — and both the media and fans immediately write off the team for the following season.”
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