Roy Pritchard by SHS

Roy Pritchard was a tough Welsh full-back who had a successful rugby union career with Risca, the Royal Navy and Newbridge, before joining the Saints for a fee of nearly one and a half thousand pounds in mid-October 1959. His debut was quite memorable, in that he kicked 8 goals in the 40 point victory away to Rochdale Hornets at the Recreation Ground. Centre Ken Large scored a brilliant hat-trick of tries. Ironically, his second match was against the same opponents at Knowsley Road. The Saints triumphed once more, to the tune of 26-2 and Roy booted over 4 goals. This time the great Tom van Vollenhoven registered a three-try performance.

Things were never going to be easy for Roy in the full-back jersey, even though Glyn Moses was about to retire with a recurring knee injury. There were two other rivals for the number one jersey, in Austin Rhodes and the Rhodesian Percy Landsberg. In fact, at the start of the 1960-61 campaign, with Austin Rhodes seemingly cemented into the full-back spot, Roy played four matches in the back row, including loose forward, where he stood in for Vince Karalius. Not many can say that. Playing in the back row did not seem to faze him unduly.

His last game in red and white was against Wakefield Trinity, a really powerful side at the time, who defeated the Saints 5-18 at Knowsley Road. Roy was in the second-row, with Percy Landsberg full-back. Austin Rhodes was in the centre. By early November, he had been transferred to Rochdale Hornets. Roy became a stalwart at the Hornets and he is remembered as their last line of defence when they played against Warrington at Knowsley Road in the 1966 Lancashire cup final. Unfortunately, the Hornets lost 5-26, but in their team was another Welshman, front-rower Stan Owen, who had played for the Saints a few years previously, together with St. Helens-born scrum-half Johnny Fishwick. We are aware that Roy has adly passed away but as yet we have no details of his death.