Anthony George "Charlie" Faulkner (27 February 1941 – 9 February 2023) was a Welsh

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

footballer who played in the 1970s and later a rugby coach.

Wales caps

Charlie joined Pontypool from Cross Keys in September 1972 and went on to make 210 Pooler appearances and scored 12 tries. He also played for the Barbarians and, in January 1975, made history with his fellow Pontypool front row colleagues, hooker Bobby Windsor and tight head prop Graham Price to be the first club front row to be selected to play for Wales, against France, in Paris. Together, the Pontypool Front Row played 19 times for their country between 1975 and 1979, and Charlie scored a try against Ireland in 1975. During their stay in the Welsh team, Wales won the Grand Slam twice and the Triple Crown three times. The Front Row also represented Monmouthshire and the British Lions in 1977 when Charlie was a replacement on the tour and the trio played in three of the last five games – against Counties/Thames Valley, Bay of Plenty and the game against Fiji on their journey home – the first club front row to play for the British Lions. The Front Row was referred to as the ‘Viet Gwent’ in a song called ‘Up and Under, Here We Go’ by Max Boyce, the popular Welsh entertainer.

The Pontypool Front Row

With

Bobby Windsor Robert William Windsor (born 31 January 1948 in Newport, Monmouthshire), known as Bobby and nicknamed "The Duke", is a former rugby union player who gained 28 rugby union caps for Wales as a hooker between 1973 and 1979. Windsor published his a ...

and

Graham Price Graham Price MBE (born 24 November 1951 in Moascar, Egypt) is a former Welsh rugby union player, who was a member of the famous Pontypool RFC front row known as the "Viet Gwent". He won 41 caps for , and a record 12 for the British and Irish ...

he became part of the Pontypool Front Row also known as the Viet Gwent (a play on

Viet Cong The Viet Cong (VC) was an epithet and umbrella term to refer to the communist-driven armed movement and united front organization in South Vietnam. It was formally organized as and led by the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, and ...

) and immortalized in song by

Max Boyce Maxwell Boyce, (born 27 September 1943) is a Welsh comedian, singer and entertainer from Glynneath, Wales. He rose to fame in the mid-1970s with an act that combined musical comedy with his passion for rugby union and his origins in a South Wal ...

. Faulkner was a Judo Black Belt and a steelworker by trade – both factors conjoining to make him a formidable scrummager who was mobile in the loose, able to score tries even at the international level.

Personal life and death

Faulkner died from heart failure on 9 February 2023, at the age of 81.

References

1941 births 2023 deaths Welsh rugby union players Wales international rugby union players Welsh rugby union coaches Rugby union props Rugby union players from Newport, Wales Pontypool RFC players Cross Keys RFC players Barbarian F.C. players British & Irish Lions rugby union players from Wales {{Wales-rugbyunion-bio-stub