Ken Goodall was the gentle giant who was an Ireland international as a teenager and a British & Irish Lion at 21.

Now, nearly 60 years after he travelled to South Africa with the Lions, his cap has been restored to the No.8’s family, to take pride of place alongside his blazer in the Foyle Museum in Londonderry as part of the Lions capping project.

• In 2017 The Lions Trust began the process of tracking down each and every Lion and presenting them with their Lions number and cap. If you know of a living Lion that has not been capped please email [email protected] to get in touch.

At 6ft3 and 14 stone, Goodall was ahead of his time as a physical specimen when he first broke onto the international scene, rapidly earning international recognition as he made his Ireland debut at 19 in 1967.

Picked for a tour of Australia, Goodall was forced to postpone university exams at the University of Newcastle where he was studying chemical engineering.

That meant that 12 months later, he initially had to turn down an invitation to tour with the Lions to South Africa, only for an injury to see him called up once he had finished his exams.

Goodall arrived in time to take on Eastern Transvaal, a week on from a drawn second Test against the Springboks, but suffered an injury early in the game.

His older brother Alan recalls: “He really enjoyed it out there but he was playing in a tour match and in the first five or 10 minutes, he broke a bone in his hand.

“He played the full game but it was more serious than that. There were several bones broken. That ruled him out of the Test matches. So he just played the Eastern Transvaal game and had to come home to get the hand fixed.

“He was in hospital for a few days after that. He really enjoyed the experience and would have loved to have played again.”

While a Lions squad selection is a major event these days, with an audience in attendance at the O2 in London for the crop of 2025, it was a very different situation in Goodall’s time.

In fact, Alan Goodall was one of the last to know that his little brother was heading out to South Africa.

He said: “At that time, I was still in the army, based in Germany and I didn’t even know about it because the communication was via letters rather than telephone calls in those days! I got the message in Germany that he had been asked to join the Lions.”

That 1968 Tour was to be Goodall’s only Lions experience, as he made the decision to move across to rugby league in 1970.

He finished his union career earlier that year, including scoring a wonderful solo try in a win over a great Wales team to deny them the Triple Crown, even having the pace to hold off the legendary Gareth Edwards, who was a good friend.

That was a final farewell to the code. With union still an amateur game, the opportunity to earn a real wage was too good to turn down for Goodall, who had recently got married.

Alan said: “He went in 1970 to rugby league to Workington Town. He had only just got married. He ummed and ahhed for a good while but it was a house, a good salary and a job. He was semi-professional at the time. That really turned it for him.

“He was at Workington for four years. He picked up a few injuries, knee injuries, then he got a serious back injury. They sent him to Edinburgh to be operated on him. They advised him never to play again. The club wanted him to play but he said he couldn’t take that risk. He packed it up then and came home.”

Ken Goodall returned to Northern Ireland where he went into teaching and remained there until he passed away in 2006 at the age of 59.

By moving to league, he found himself excluded from rugby union, with the split between the codes meaning that he was banned from his local rugby club and even turned away from Twickenham once when he tried to attend a game.

Despite that, he still kept a close eye on how City of Derry got on and now that Alan has been able to get hold of his Lions cap, it is set to be taken down to the club to honour of one of their most famous sons at a special dinner.

Goodall’s Lions cap has extra meaning given what happened to some of his other rugby memorabilia.

Alan added: “All of Ken’s Ireland caps were stolen from his house in Derry and I don’t think we ever recovered them.

“I found about this cap when his brother-in-law called me just before Christmas in 2024. He said ‘Alan, do you know there is a Lions cap sat in a solicitor’s in Dublin?’

“I wasn’t aware of it. Somebody at City of Derry rugby club had called him and said to get the cap before the solicitor goes out of business!

“I got in touch with Gareth and Gail, his son and daughter, who live over in York. I told them the cap was in Dublin somewhere, so I chased it up.”

Having got in touch with the solicitor in Dublin, Alan Goodall realised that he needed to get in touch with the Lions themselves.

That process ended with the cap finding its way to the Goodall family, who have been very touched at receiving it.

There are still some members of the family waiting to see the cap, including Ken’s son Gareth, before the dinner at City of Derry.

After that, it will head to Foyle College in Derry alongside his Lions blazer, a fitting nod to a player who was ahead of his time.