‘One Mans’ Dream’ - A History of Mumbles Rangers Founded 1950 by Billy Johns B.E.M.


Mumbles Rangers Boys’ Club has a proud part to play in the history of our local community.


It is now sixty five years since a young man named Billy Johns decided to found his own club. The late Billy Johns, B.E.M. lived with his devoted parents, George and Lillian Johns, in what was then 65 Higher West Cross Lane (now West Cross Avenue).


From an early age Billy was confined to a wheelchair but that did not affect his enthusiasm for life and in particular his commitment to the boys of West Cross and Mumbles. It was the tenacity and resolution of a quite remarkable young man backed by a devoted mother’s love and support which led to him first becoming treasurer, then secretary, then manager of “his” team. He wanted “his boys” to enjoy the sports which crippling handicaps made so cruelly impossible for him. Such was his remarkable talent for leadership, that when he decided to leave Oystermouth Youth Club in order to form his own team, almost all the boys left with him. In the first difficult years, Billy Johns not only held “his boys” together, but without resources of any kind, without premises of their own, he laid down the ground rules for all to obey. The


response was a total commitment from as loyal a group of youngsters and as assorted a cross-section of young people as you could wish to find anywhere.


In those early post-war years Billy Johns became a familiar figure throughout Mumbles as “his boys” pushed his wheelchair to and from Underhill Park no matter how extreme the weather. His early wheelchair pushers were local boys Derek James, Keith Davies, David Palmer, Alan and Keith Ockwell, Doug Peachey and later Andy Cuthbert, Malcolm Jones, Bob Smith, Kevin McCloskey, Alan Dawtry, Peter Aspel and countless others. If Mrs. Johns allowed you to push Billy for his haircut over at Silas Macey’s, then you’d arrived. Former Spurs and Wales footballer Terry Medwin married Silas’s daughter Joyce, envied by all the local youngsters!


The present day club now boasts a vibrant membership of more than 600 players, with over 500 boys and girls aged between 6 and 16 years within the 37 teams registered in season 2014-15. The club would probably not have survived its first year without the inspirational leadership of a truly remarkable young man. The year before the club’s formation Billy Johns was involved with Mumbles Youth team based at Oystermouth School, and boasting powerful local players like Jim Pressdee (later of Swansea A.F.C. and Glamorgan C.C.C. fame), Ray and John Hammacott, George Davies (son of local Aunty Minnie) and Shaun Bowen From Newton.


Although Billy Johns admired the highly successful Mumbles Albion team and shared others pleasure occasionally watching their players beat the best in Swansea – locals including John Budge, Ben Hoppe, the Nash brothers, Peter Elias and Ray “Stormy” Fairweather, he was determined that his boys would be different. They would be


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