Roy was taken aside by the Leeds coach Roy Francis and told
that he
wanted to see some aggression
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Story by
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Club supported by author
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Year of story
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Date of Submission
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Gary Kitchen
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Leeds
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12/2004
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Just been reminded about a story I heard at a sportsmans
dinner a
couple of months ago about Big Jim Mills of Widnes, it was
told by Roy
Dickinson, a big daft lad who played prop for Leeds in the
1970's.
Roy is
getting into the after dinner speaking lark and he's very
funny.
This may
or may not be true but it's typical of his humour.
He(Roy)was only 19 when he was picked to prop against Jim
Mills for the
first time, when Jim was at his peak and a frightening sight
for us in
the stands let alone for those on the pitch.
Roy was taken aside by the Leeds coach Roy Francis and told
that he
wanted to see some aggression and that the only answer to
Jim Mills was
to hit him hard in the first tackle to get his respect, he
was assured
that after that he'd have an easy time, you nust had to hit
Jim hard
enough for him to know that you meant business, thats all.
Roy says that three minutes into the game a scrum was called
and as he
took his place in the front row he saw Francis signalling
to him with
his fist, mouthing the words "hit him Roy". As they
packed down Roy was
just about to swing an uppercut from his knees when he was
hit with
something and woke up with the trainer wafting smelling salts
under his
nose and was told to "get after him Roy, he's making
a fool out of you"
The next scrum came up and once again Roy got the instruction
from the
bench to hit Mills first, they packed down again and smack,
Roy got
another one on the chin, woke up again with the trainer telling
him that
Francis had said that if he didn't hit Mills the next time
then he'd be
substituted.
At the third scrum Roy managed a half hearted punch which
missed Mills
by miles and as the scrum broke up Mills had Roy in a headlock
using
his face as a punchbag.
He stopped to tell Roy to pack in the rough stuff and get
on with the
game, to which Roy, on his knees and bleeding from every pore
on his
face replied "alright Jim, if you've had enough we call
it quits"
Appears in the following pages ....P60_Jim MILLS
Date of posting ... 03-May-2004
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