Here is Wills Cigarette card ("British Sporting Personalities" series), featuring Russian born Alexander Obolensky in action.
Back of the card reads : "of Russian birth, Prince A.Obolensky made his mark as a Rugby football player in 1935 for Oxford University, where he was a student at Brasenose. And exceptionally speedy and hard-tackling wing-threequarter, he gave an outstanding exhibition in the match against Cambridge University at Twickenham in December 1935. International honours quickly followed and early in the following year he was chosen to play for England against Wales, Ireland, Scotland and New Zealand. He has since adopted British nationality. He was selected to assist Oxford in the inter-Varsity match of 1936-37, but, unluckily, an injury prevented him from taking his place in the side."
Great destiny for this White Russian aristocrat... who will remain famous for having scored the two winning tries of England against the All Blacks in their 1936 tour ( 13 - 0 ) ... Obolensky later joined the R.A.F. and died in 1940, aged 24, in a plane crash...
I have found this wonderful footage of the 1936 test at Twickenham (70,000 people attending...)... low res, but great memorabilia !
(c) and warm thanks to British Pathe... I hope that they won't mind this free advertising... Ladies & Gentlemen from Pathe, would you agree to display some hi-res rugby clips at "rugby-pioneers" as I just cannot afford to purchase them...
His rugby stats at scrum.com
His bio at wikipedia
Great clip! Have never seen it. Obolensky has recently been in the news as a campaign has started to build a permanent memorial in the town of Ipswich, where he's buried. He was killed at Martlesham airfield, a couple of miles away.
http://www.obolensky-ipswich.org.uk
Posted by: Ruggerlubber | 09/03/2008 at 20:40
There are some photos of the statue here:
http://www.rugbyfootballhistory.com/players/obolensky.htm
Posted by: Nigel Trueman | 17/07/2010 at 17:54