England's first tour to Japan
Roger Uttley and Peter Wheeler remember England's first tour to Japan ahead of the 2024 Summer Series.
As part of a wider tour to Hong Kong, Singapore and Sri Lanka, England travelled first to Osaka and then to Tokyo, where they faced Japan in two uncapped games.
With the Lions touring New Zealand and Australia in 1971, the side that made the long trip to Japan was comprised of a number of promising young players, including Roger Uttley and Peter Wheeler.
Both were just 22 when they were called up to represent their country for the first time by making the near-6000-mile journey. Recently married, Uttley had just started working as a PE teacher, and requested one month off work before taking on the journey to Japan.
The furthest he and Wheeler had been was France, and both still remember their first experience of a long-haul flight.
“We were all stuck in economy and there was no in-flight entertainment,” recalls Uttley. “The flight seemed to be never ending and back in those days it wasn’t a very pleasant experience.
“What tended to happen was the serving trolleys came down and were emptied, and people smoked in those days. It wasn’t a very healthy atmosphere.”
Japan felt alien to Uttley, from the way the people dressed to the way they behaved in public, it was all very exciting to the Blackpool backrow.
“Everything was just eye-opening. You learnt so much of things you only ever saw in books or on television,” Wheeler remembers.
“We were all experiencing it for the first time, so we were excited young men just saying ‘wow’, then the next day you’d go to another ‘wow’.”
The experience may have been exciting off the pitch, but on it the players were in for a real test. They won the first game 27-19 in Osaka, before edging out their opponents 6-3 in Tokyo.
The tight scorelines demonstrated just how tough the fixtures were, with weather conditions hot and humid for the first match, while the second was played in heavy rain.
Dr Thomas Kemp, the RFU’s President at the time, made use of his work as a physician to advise the players to use slow sodium tablets to replenish their lost salts.
“You lost gallons during the course of the game and the old heavy shirts weighed a tonne, you could wring your shirts out when you came off the pitch,” explained Uttley.
“They had big barbecue cans filled with blocks of ice and they just filled them with canned drinks. You were so thirsty when you came off you would drink a few of those straight off the bat and wonder why you ended up with terrible stomach cramps after.”
It was not just the weather the side had to contend with, their opponents were also agile, strong, quick and innovative.
Wheeler, who started the first game at hooker, remembers one particular innovation at the lineout.
Wheeler had the advantage of throwing to a 6ft 3in Bill Beaumont, but his opposite number Mitsuo Atokawa had a solution to the height disparity. Instead of throwing high, Atokawa threw the ball at ankle height, forcing the taller players to bend.
Because the games were only four days apart, there was very little time for the players to go sight-seeing, but they managed to sample Japanese food, including sushi, for the first time.
For Wheeler the food was a struggle, which he now puts down to being uneducated at the time, especially considering they were “pretty much brought up on roast beef.”
Uttley also remembers the choices being limited but he enjoyed the steaks, as well as the experience of eating with chopsticks.
The post-match drink of choice, sake, was a popular discovery with both and, as was the case with most tours of that era, it helped to stoke friendships between the players.
“After the match we had dinner with the Japanese team and sat on the floor with a table of three or four Japanese players and three or four of us,” said Wheeler.
“We couldn’t speak Japanese and they couldn’t speak English, but we had a fantastic night together and we somehow managed to communicate with each other, mainly on the basis of having one glass of sake and then a pint of bitter.”
Uttley added: “Socially they were quite formal to begin with but would soon loosen up if they brought the sake out.
“They were very warm and welcoming. They’re great rugby players and anybody who’s got the opportunity to go out there should welcome it with both arms.”
Despite the language barrier, both Wheeler and Uttley have fond memories of their time in Japan. They have even been back to visit, Uttley when he taught at Harrow in the 1980s, and Wheeler in his role as RFU president for the 2019 World Cup.
“The Japanese people I met at the World Cup were fantastic, they were so welcoming and helpful,” he added. “I'm sure that part of that was because I’d had some experience of their teams and their country.”
