Victory over England
Many years later William recalled the occasion when Wales beat England for the first time:
We travelled to Manchester by the 8 o'clock train from Ruthin, and on the way to the station I asked Uriah Goodwin where were his football clothes. "Oh!" he replied, "I've got them on". They were underneath his ordinary clothes!
At Manchester we met the rest of the team, mostly Druids, except Bell and McMillan of Shrewsbury. We arrived at Blackburn a man short and took the field with only ten men. To the best of my recollection the ground was nearly 200 yards long and 100 yards wide. The spectators stood on foot planks along the touch lines.
It was snowing and hailing and we had been playing for some time, when I saw what I thought was a spectator breaking into the field and making a violent attack upon Marshall and Rostrorn, the English right wing. Upon closer inspection I found it was Llewelyn Kenrick of Ruabon. He was dressed in long tweed trousers, wore ordinary boots and sported a smart Oxford shirt. He played with the utmost vigour until unfortunately his knee gave way and once more Wales had only ten men on the field. The only goal of the match was scored by Jack Vaughan from a pass I gave him; he was materially aided by Uriah Goodwin, who impeded the goalkeeper, as he was quite entitled to do in those days. We had to leave Blackburn immediately after the match; so we commandeered from the dining room some fowls and ham to eat on the homeward journey. We stopped at Chester for the night and then travelled on to Mold by train. In addition to our train fare we were given 10s (50p) to pay for a trap from Mold to Ruthin. Goodwin and I made arrangements whereby I was to stand him a pint at the 'Loggerheads', a far famed hostelry between Mold and Ruthin, if he carried my bag, and we agreed to divide the 10s and to walk the ten miles across the moor.
We reached Ruthin just as the people were coming out of church. We thought ourselves the greatest heroes, having vanquished the English XI.