Billy Boston, the dusky-skinned kid from Cardiff's Tiger bay, where singer Shirley Bassey and World Heavy Weight Boxer Joe Erskine came from as well. Erskine lived in Angelica Street, which is also the street where Boston lived, then around the corner lived Shirley Bassey.
Before bursting onto the league scene, he transferred from Services Rugby Union to the Royal Signals Regiment in Catterick, Yorkshire and played in a side, which beat the cream of Rugby union, and he was the star of the show for them. In his first game for the Royal Signals he amazed everyone by scoring 37 points and then in another game he scored 8 tries. When the Royal Signals won the army cup in March 1953, he accounted for 6 of his side's 8 tries, and in the full season of army Rugby Union he amassed a staggering 126 tries, all this at the age of 18.
He strode into Rugby League majestically from a family of 13 to fame wherever league is played. A dozen clubs started to scout for Boston when he was 16; he was already playing for a top Rugby Union side. By the age of 18 he signed for Rugby league and it was Wigan who had managed to get him to sign for them in 1954. Boston then made his debut in Wigan's second team and attracted a crowd of 8500 just to see him in the reserve grade. Then only a few weeks later he did the impossible by being selected to represent his country on their tour of Australia, he did this even though he didn't really understand the rules of Rugby League and then went on to brake the tour record of tries scored at his first attempt. He scored 36 tries in 18 games here are the try details of his first tour in 1954.
