Chester Williams was 14 when his uncle Avril Williams ran out for the Springboks against England in 1984.

Avril Williams was born on 10 February 1961 in Paarl. At Noorder-Paarl High School he caught the eye on the rugby field. Still at school in 1980 he made history by being selected for the first Western Province Federation side for the annual Craven Week tournament. After school Avril Williams played for Paarl League before joining the Navy. In Simonstad he represented various Navy teams on the rugby field.

In 1982, aged 21, he was selected for the Western Province Currie Cup side and he would go on to wear the white and blue hooped jersey 36 times. A five Nations XV team toured South Africa to play at the official opening of the revamped Ellispark stadium. They played against a SA Presidents XV which by all intents were a full strength Springbok team. The players of colour in the SA XV team were Avril Williams, Errol Tobias, Wilfred Cupido and Jerome Paarwater.

In 1984 he got the call from Dougie Dyers, national selector who coached the WP Federation side, that he was selected for the Springbok team to face the touring England side.

That Springbok side included Errol Tobias and Avril Williams. With Tobias pulling the strings at flyhalf, the Springboks beat the tourists 33-15 in Port Elizabeth. This was followed up with a 35-9 win at Ellispark in Johannesburg. Avril Williams had a hand in a flowing Springbok movement. As he raced to score the try, the whole of the Ellispark East Stand rose with him. He dived to score and stood up facing his team-mates, arms aloft in a giant ‘V’ as if to symbolize that he had conquered.

After that successful test series, Avil Williams ran out for a SA Coloured side taking part in an Easter festival in Stellenbosch. He tore his knee ligaments in the last game of the tournament.

Determined to play again, Avril Williams captained a SA Forces team against the visiting South Sea Barbarians, but injured his knee again and decided it was time to hang up the boots.

As background, rugby in South Africa was for a large part played on a segregated basis from 1886 until 1977. Separated rugby unions existed for the different racial groups during this period, the names of which changed a number of times over the years. This changed in November 1977, when the then coloured South African Rugby Football Federation (SARFF), black South African Rugby Association (SARA) and white South African Rugby Board (SARB) amalgamated to form the non-racial South African Rugby Board. This unification meant that players of colour of the former SARFF and SARA unions could play in the mainstream competitions of the new non-racial SARB, which was affiliated to the International Rugby Board (IRB). The South African Rugby Union (SARU), under the leadership of Dullah Abass, on the other hand decided not to be part of the unification process and continued under the leadership of the South African Council on Sport (SACOS) to make a case for “no normal sport in an abnormal society”.

The Proteas was a representative side of the South African Rugby Football Federation (SARFF) and the Leopards a representatvie side of the South African Rugby Association (SARA) for the period 1971 to 1976. The purpose was to demonstrate that even before unification in 1977, rugby already made progress in moving to non-racialism in the sport.

Avril Williams became involved in politics in 2011, successfully representing the Democratic Party in Saldanha Bay.