Cecil "Ces" Mountford MBE (1919 - 19 July 2009) was a New Zealand rugby league footballer and coach.
Mountford was one of ten siblings, he and four of his brothers played rugby league for the South Island whilst Bill Mountford and Ken Mountford played for New Zealand. Mountford also played for West Coast, along with Bill and Ken, in inter-provincial matches.
Mountford married a Wigan-born woman, Edna.
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Mountford played soccer at school, as he was considered too small to play rugby league. In 1935 at the age of 16 he joined Blackball Rugby League club, where he earned the nickname ‘The Blackball Bullet’ due to his speed on the field.
Mountford signed for Wigan Rugby League Club in 1946, he shared in one of Wigan’s finest moments in the 1949/50 campaign when, as captain – in place of usual skipper Joe Eagan who was on tour with seven other Wigan stars – he led his side to a sensational 20-2 Championship final win over Huddersfield at Maine Road.
Mountford played at Wembley Stadium on two occasions, the first being in 1948, when they beat the current title holders Bradford Northern 8-3 in a nail biting final. The second visit, in 1951, Mountford led the team to a 10-0 victory over Leigh in a rain-soaked Wembley final. He also became the first overseas player to receive the Lance Todd Trophy.
Internationally he missed out on playing for New Zealand, but he did represent Other Nationalities in four European Championships in a team labeled "The Rest" at Central Park in 1950, watched by a crowd of 25,000 fans. He requested, and was granted, permission from Wigan to join the 1947-8 New Zealand tour of Great Britain but the Management decided that injuries were not bad enough to bring him in.[1] Instead, during the Kiwis tour Cecil played for Wigan against the Kiwis, which included his brother Ken.
In 1951 Mountford qualified as a first grade coach, being offered a 10 year contract at Warrington, despite Wigan initially refusing to release him as a player. Mountford made his first appearance for Warrington in October 1952 initially as a player coach. After completing his tenure as a coach, he returned to New Zealand in May 1961, before heading back to England as Manager of Blackpool Borough in 1972, which was short-lived when he resigned in June 1973. Mountford returned to New Zealand in 1974, initially providing coaching courses before being signed as the manager-coach of the New Zealand Kiwis from 1979 to 1982.
In 1990 Mountford received the MBE for services to New Zealand Rugby League and inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame. In 2000 he was inducted as one of the NZRL Legends of League.[2]
| Preceded by Ron Ackland |
Coach New Zealand Kiwis 1979-1982 |
Succeeded by Graham Lowe |